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Comment by Rebelgecko | Hacker News Reader

> The other side of the machine probably has another USB controller, which likely explains why it's fine.

Unfortunately (well, except in this case) that's true. On the 13inch MacBooks, the ports on the right side have less bandwidth and can struggle with multiple 4k displays

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You need to remember what you are asking for here. Two 4k displays already require 30 Gbit/s of bandwidth.

Then they should be labeled appropriately, and preferably use different form factors. There's no excuse from having identical-looking ports that do different things.

That appears to be kind of the point of USB-C-- identical-looking ports which may or may not actually do the same thing. A given USB-C port might be a host port; might be a device port; might be capable of serving in both roles; might support video (over HDMI or DP or some combination of the two) or might not; might support Thunderbolt or might not; might support high-voltage/high-current power delivery or might not... and all on the same connector, so good luck trying to figure out what supports what without looking at manuals.

Same problem applies to USB-C cables. Understandable why (want to spend $100 for every cable you buy?) but intensely frustrating.

I see it as one of the big failings of USB standards in recent years.

USB used to be simple, and they worked so hard to make it so that whatever plug could be plugged into whatever compatible socket.

Then we had USB on-the-go, and issues with then a micro-A port isn't just a micro-A port.

And now we have USB-C and Thunderbolt. Ugh.

We’re well past that point. USB is explicitly designed to have ports with different capabilities, right from day one. Even with USB 1.1 you couldn’t treat all ports equally, since there’s no difference between a port that can give 100mA and one that can give 500mA.

The nice thing about universal things is that there's so many different kinds.

But that would spoil the symmetry!

No, seriously, that sort of thinking is baked into Apple's DNA. Jobs once tried to intervene in memory bus layout on aesthetic grounds.

https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

"But look at the memory chips. That's ugly. The lines are too close together."

Surprised more haven't noticed how symmetry had become one of the guiding principles behind all Apple industrial design of recent years.

This ideology has damaged things that used to work fine like the keyboard arrow keys just for the hope of symmetry as visual harmony.

Don't worry! You'll be able to tell them apart by the slightly different logo embossed in black plastic on black plastic lettering on the back of the device.

And there's a black button with black lettering which lights up black if you press it which tells you not to press it again.

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