[a]: Made up names; USB 3.0 didn't have this mess
You have USB 3 Low speed and Full Speed (aka usb 1), USB 3 High Speed (aka usb 2), and USB 3 SuperSpeed.
Expecting the USB consortium to give things useful names or at least let them keep their names we got used to is the same madness as expecting a singular useful version number from anything Sun derived.
Anyway, according the article everything links at USB 3.1 Gen 2 SuperSpeed+, but then usually doesn't send data at anywhere near the link rate, so that's not an extra layer of confusing.
The x.y numbers were not a mess until 3.1
No, not quite. What do you think the USB3.0 SuperSpeed is? Why, a brand new transfer mode.
> If I plugged a USB 3.0 cable (9 pins) into a USB 2.0 (4 pin) hub, the device still worked at the lower speeds.
You'd be glad to know that nothing changed in that regard with USB3.0, 3.1, and 3.2.
In fact, the whole point of this submission is to showcase how M1 macs are only capable of drawing a lower data transfer speed unlike the new Mac Studio, thus proving that the M1 macs don't support USB 3.1 Gen2, aka SuperSpeed+.
No, not really. Feel free to point out exactly which argument you feel was ignored.
> The issue isn't that things have changed; it's that they've changed in a way that makes things confusing for consumers.
That seems to be the source of your confusion: nothing has changed. Each USB spec is backwards compatible and specifies the same data transfer modes.
And there is no confusion: if you pick up a USB2 data storage device you know beforehand it won't support SuperSpeed. If you pick up a USB3.0 device you know beforehand it won't support SuperSpeed+. If you pick up a USB3.1 device you know beforehand it won't support SuperSpeed+ 2x or 4x.
The whole point of the submission is to call out that M1 macs don't support USB3.1 unlike the new Mac Studio.
The article also clearly states that Apple doesn't actually advertise USB3.1, just USB3.
The retroactive renaming of speed+versions. I'm not talking about the Mac.
> If you pick up a USB3.1 device you know beforehand it won't support SuperSpeed+ 2x or 4x.
My whole argument is that this confusion wouldn't be an issue if the USB Consortium had reserved USB 3.1 for 10 Gb/sec speeds exclusively. In other words, this:
3.0: 5 Gb/s "SuperSpeed"
3.1: 10 Gb/s "SuperSpeed+"
3.2: 20 Gb/s "SuperSpeed++"
3.2 continues to describe everything in 3.0, which means it continues to describe how to make devices supporting 5 gbps over USB-A/B
There’s no point complaining that the engineering spec versioning strategy is confusing, when no consumers should have been exposed to it. The problem is squarely on manufacturers and the tech press.