Comment by asark | Hacker News Reader

Comment by asark | Hacker News Reader

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I think they really needed a transition design for 3-4 years that included USB-C but still had the "legacy" ports—in quotes because when they announced the C-only model I hadn't even seen a USB-C port or cable in real life yet.

USB-A is nowhere near being on the way out yet. Especially when their own damn mobile devices still come with A cables. We're way into their attempt to push everything to USB-C but I went to Target to grab one for my work laptop (to be able to charge an iPhone or iPad from it) and the C cables that are anything other than C-to-A (for some android phones) are 100% Apple branded. Everything's still A and Micro-USB. A whole wall of that. USB-C? Only in a tiny Apple section. Flash drives? Mostly still A. Everything, really. Having only C continues to suck, and it looks like it will for a while. Apple's switch to C doesn't even seem to have changed things that much—everyone seems to just still do A and assume the poor Macbook users will plug in a hub or use an adapter.

USB-C is baffling. Suppose you buy into the dream of one cable type for everything. So you buy printers, scanners, optical drives, external hard drives and SSDs, and so on that have USB-C connectors, and you buy USB-C flash drives, and buy USB-C to USB-C cables to hook it all up.

But your computer only has two USB-C ports!

No problem, you think. You've run into the same problem before with computers with USB-A connectors. The answer was simple: buy a hub that connects to one of your computer's USB-A connectors and provides several USB-A connectors to hook up your devices.

You just needs a hub that connects via USB-C and provides several USB-C ports.

That's harder than it should be. There do not seem to be many of these available, and those that are tend to not have very good reviews.

> USB-C is baffling. Suppose you buy into the dream of one cable type for everything.

I may be mistaken but I think that was the original USB dream as well. It's been a source of immense irritation to me at times over the years to find that I don't have quite the right mini/micro/whatever[1] USB cable to hand to connect whatever device I happen to have with me. USB-C just adds to what is already a mess of a situation as far as I can see.

[1] Don't get me started with cables that have USB-A on one end and some proprietary connector on the other: I'm looking at YOU, Garmin, with the stupid cables for your Fenix line of watches (which aren't great, btw: learn from my mistake and don't buy one), and YOU, Nintendo, for the daft 3DS charger socket that would have been just fine if it were a micro-USB socket.

Mini USB? I haven't seen new devices with that since like 2004. All phones moved towards Micro USB <-> USB-A. The amount of devices I have which simply have Micro USB <-> USB-A is staggering and almost always are the cables compatible with each other. My main issue with Micro USB is that some of the endpoints on _devices_ are badly soldered, leading to the port coming out. Such occurred on the Nokia N900. I rather have my cable getting broken than the port on the (expensive) device.

What Apple did though with MagSafe was simple yet elegant. It is something I do as well with my Micro USB and USB-C cables (making them magnetic; I'm using TOPK cables for that). USB-C as replacement for MagSafe is a step backwards.

Beyond 2004 Mini USB was used for the PlayStation 3 controllers. And sadly a lot of digital cameras.

I bought a 4K Action cam last year and a dashcam this year that both used mini-USB. I've also seen a guy making some open hardware to adapt some retro something or other being proud of picking mini instead of micro since it's "less fragile"

It's not baffling to me. Usb-A isn't appropriate for small form factors. USB-C is. Why can't I plug the same things into my phone that I can plug into my computer? I'm already phasing out USB-A simply because I think a device you can only use on your phone with a single is limited. I used to carry around a laptop to do network diagnostics... I've realised you can literally do the same crap from your phone by using USB-C dongles... and the form factor is actually better.

Mind you Apple seems to be missing one of the main practical advantage of USB-C by slapping a lightning port on their phones thus ensuring donglegeddon. This drives me insane. Apple for all the puffery about giving consumers what they don't know they wanted is instead giving consumers an inferior choice that ensures lock-in and keeps vendors happy.

Apple’s taken one step forward with the iPad Pro being USB C based at least.

I want a USB-C hub with at least 5 USB-C ports and no other legacy ports. Only USB-C. An added bonus would be alt-mode video transmission from my Mac and power. Does such a beast exist? Not that I can find!

Yes, it's somewhat surprising that all those USB-C hubs seem to focus on providing an interface to other connectors rather than just offering more of the same, as in more USB-C ports. Maybe it's a technological limitation?

In any case I'm grateful that the Mac Mini I upgraded to recently at least offers 4 generous Thunderbolt/USB-C ports.

Maybe it's a technological limitation?

I've heard this second-hand (or third-hand) and my EE knowledge is nowhere near good enough to say how accurate this is, but: Apparently the power delivery negotiation mechanism in USB-C is vastly more complex than for USB-A, so hubs with lots of USB-C ports would need new, more complex chips compared to equivalent USB-A hubs. It already took a few years for reliable hubs to turn up when we first got USB 3.0. I'm assuming the manufacturers might also be trying to hit USB 3.1 Gen2 speeds at the same time as supporting USB-C, which presumably further tightens reliability tolerances. I'm guessing with all that, they might not be able to hit the desired price points with this stuff yet, and all that complexity probably also takes a lot of power so bus powered USB3.1 hubs with USB-C downstream ports are presumably a tricky proposition too.

Not only that, but those two ports cant serve hubs properly. At work, I try two hubs connect power cable, two monitors, a keyboard and a mouse. It's too much data or power or something, and the mouse gets screwy.

Firewire was the better bet on that score. You could daisy chain them together. USB was cheaper, so USB got to win everywhere.

IIRC correctly Firewire was Apple's baby and they policed their patents/trademarks on that until it suffocated. You couldn't even call it firewire, you had to call it "IEEE 1394". It was the superior technology and it loped along until USB 2 provided comparable speeds and it became obsolete.

Sony called it i.Link

I think the dream of usb-c is daisy chaining the accessories. Haven’t seen one with an in and out port though!

That's because USB doesn't have daisy chaining (unless you count integrating a hub into the device). Thunderbolt has daisy chaining but it's so expensive that devices only use Thunderbolt if they really need it.

My favorite example that I use every day is the LG ultrafine monitor, which both receives video from and sends power to my MBP with one cable.

Buy into the dream deeper: lose as many wires as possible. Of course some things just need to be connected, but plenty of other devices sync or operate OTA.

and what do these devices run on? Only a handful of devices draw power OTA ...

I'm calling it - USB-A will still be around going strong 10 years from now. Take a stroll through a BIC Camera in Tokyo. How many USB-A accessories are still for sale? It's about 99% of the stock. I'm sure it's the same at a Best Buy in the US.

Apple and the fanboys calling it a "Legacy" port are completely out of touch with reality.

Best Buy has an inventory turnover ratio of approximately 6* - So clears its entire stock on average every 8 weeks. While there might be a large percentage of USB-A products currently, once a technology market shifts it's quite surprising how fast suppliers will also change their product supply and you see a fairly rapid change in stock even in big box stores.

Most of the devices I have purchased in the last year have been USB-C. Sony headphones, LG display, my car even has USB-C charge ports. Look at many manufacture lineups and the new flagships are USB-C. I do still have a bunch of USB-A devices, but they're older buys at this point.

I think there will be a few year gap, but 10 years might be a little too pessimistic. Time will tell I guess!

* https://www.gurufocus.com/term/InventoryTurnover/BBY/Invento...

Well we're already 3 years in since the new generation USB-C only Macbook Pro came out. Let's call it 7 years for a total of 10. Not putting a lone USB-A port on it was an act of extreme arrogance imho

> Sony headphones

Why would headphones have a USB port? BT headphones that need it for charging?

Yup, WH-1000XM3

> Apple and the fanboys calling it a "Legacy" port are completely out of touch with reality.

It is now a legacy port on Apple laptops. I think it's the correct term to use in context, regardless of fandom. It is referring to ports that existed in the past, and are being phased out on the platform in question.

I doubt it will be most new devices that actually use data are now being shipped with it, even my drone came with usb-c

Soon enough there will be a major shift

Yup - that's part of what I love about my ThinkPad. Two USB-C ports, two USB-A, ethernet, HDMI, and headphone.

Turns out "the technology of the future today" is actually really inconvenient.

I've had USB C phones for almost 4 years now. Most micro USB cables have swapped to C with a few C to micro adapters around (1/2" dongles on a key ring). At work we just purchased USB C based drives for imaging/deployment process. If I didn't prefer displayport and had the cash to drop I'd see about USB C monitors at home too. It's taking over but the USB A standard is still in use.

I’d tend to agree, although look at the success of new connection technologies Apple pioneered when they were coupled with things that already did similar things.

FireWire, all speeds: was always coupled with USB or other tech that possibly didn’t carry data as fast as FW, but was “good enough” for lots of things. FireWire never really took off aside from digital video cameras, and that got phased out over time, too. DisplayPort: nope.

Compare that to the original iMac, which dropped the serial and SCSI port. People gasped, but in not too long (at least now, looking back in it), USB was everywhere.

And now USB-C. Would it have been as popular as it currently is - on lots of chrome books, many phones, even the Nintendo switch - if Apple has not been so gung ho on it? Possibly, but a bit of me doubts it.

I REALLY don't see Apple as leading the charge on USB-C. I see them as a laggard given their refusal to put a USB-C port where it's most useful - on their phones. They also weren't the first to put the ports on their laptops.

Just because they ship a laptop with 4 USB-C TB ports and nothing else doesn't mean they're driving USB-C adoption nearly as much as say Samsung or Huawei. If anything because they literally don't use the same port across different types of devices unlike other phone/laptop sellers... They're discouraging USB-C adoption and making dongles more appealing since you will still need dongles if you're using all Apple even if you have USB-C native stuff.

Apple aren't pushing people towards expensive new standards they're just making consumer unfriendly decisions. Making it so you can't use USB-A does not mean you're making it easy to adopt USB-C... They make adopting USB-C unnessecarily painful.

USB C in Chromebooks pre-dates apple's usage. And several other manufacturers were putting USB c in their devices before apple even announced. And apple still isn't using it in their phones.

Stop expecting Target to carry a 2019-appropriate selection of tech. Just go to monoprice.com.

Their tech is 2019 appropriate if you don't have an Apple laptop, is the thing. And they even provide some USB-C stuff for Apple devices, but only from Apple, I assume because the demand is nearly nonexistent. Just like if it were a proprietary Apple port—though I think they actually have some lightning cables from other manufacturers, at least, unlike USB-C.

[EDIT] I just think they whiffed well ahead of the ball on this one, is all. No USB-C ports to 100% USB-C ports was premature. I think the percentage of their market that was like "oh good now I can plug all my USB-C stuff into this, which is most of what I have!" rounds down to zero, while all my geek friends and co-workers' reactions were closer to "so... there will be zero things in my home or office I can plug into this without an adapter? And for this I gain... maybe 1mm more of thinness?" with actual experience quickly confirming that concern as valid, as #donglelife continues without end in sight.

If you remember the original iMac, they did the same thing with USB-A.

Everybody was concerned that the iMac's only I/O port was USB (when others had serial, parallel, and maybe SCSI/USB as an afterthought), and it was completely incompatible with legacy peripherals. For many years USB accessories were considered specialty items for the Mac market.

It kinda sucked at first... but it's not clear if USB would have even caught on if Apple didn't do that. In the long term, Apple clearly made the right move.

At the very least, this isn't outside of Apple's usual playbook.

> but it's not clear if USB would have even caught on if Apple didn't do that.

Here's the problem with that argument; Macs are a pretty small percentage of the computer market, and always have been. Consumer peripheral companies are driven by what people will buy, not moving the market forward.

USB was always going to be what it is, and if you want evidence of Apple's lack of power here just look at FireWire. They pushed it hard, but consumers didn't care so it died.

Consumers caring wasn’t what killed it. If Apple hadn’t taxed every FireWire port, it might well have succeeded.

USB had been out for a couple of years at that point, and it had no traction. I remember finding PCs with dusty, unused USB ports next to the PS/2 plugs and serial ports.

Macs are definitely a small portion of the computer market, but it’s a big enough market for companies to target. You’ll find Mac-specific keyboards from big-name companies like Logitech, for example. With the iMac, USB went from “weird connector nobody uses” to “we have a guaranteed pool of millions of customers with no alternative.” And because of the U in USB, those products worked with PCs too, if they had USB ports and drivers to make them work. It kicked off a virtuous cycle where more peripherals meant more computer supporting them meant more peripherals.

FireWire wasn’t the same scenario since there was no pressing need to support it. USB was good enough for 99% of what people needed. Unless you needed high speed storage or high end audio, you didn’t need it, and USB versions were cheaper anyway. FireWire was never pushed so hard that it was the only thing available on many popular computers.

I’m not sure if it carried over to hardware, but Macs and iOS have always punched above their weight in terms of money spent by people using them vs using other platforms. More money is made by apps sold on iOS than on Android, for example.

Everybody needed a keyboard and a mouse at the time.

Only a few people needed a camcorder (the most populous of the firewire-enabled devices).

Or you could point to Firewire.

The problem is, Apple isn't always right on these things.

Best Buy’s USB-C offerings are lacking and almost entirely Apple related.

What other stores will I have to avoid if I buy a MacBook in 2019?

Can you get it in 30 minutes from monoprice?

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