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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

The EU insisting on all phones standardizing on the USB connector is evidence of just the opposite and shows the cluelessness and shortsightness of the EU.

You will still have phones that come with “standard USB C” cables where some support different power delivery, data speeds (or not support data transfer at all), very few will support video over USB C (which is standardized), etc.

So still when the Android user with the cheap power only USB C cord moves over to the hypothetical iPhone 15 with USB C, they will still have to throw away their USB C cable that potentially doesn’t support high speed data or video over USB C. Both supported by todays iPads with USB C.

If the same mandate had gone through when it was first proposed, we would have been stuck with micro USB.

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Because the mandate is not about phones or data. It's about battery powered devices and charging. I don't need data in the cable for my wireless earbuds, or my battery pack. My toothbrush or my beard trimmer. So that hypothetical USB C cable doesn't have to be thrown away, it can still be used for other devices. Which is why standardization is good.

So grab a random “standard” USB C cable. What are the chances that it will charge my MacBook Pro 16 inch that does support “standard” USB C?

Will that “standard” USB C cable that comes with my Beats Flex headphones charge my iPhone 12 Pro Max? My Anker battery?

Maybe not, but what's the alternative? Should we give up because of incompatibilities and go back to proprietary cables for everyone? Do we move back to DC jacks that offer no voltage negotiation so you can blow up your 5V battery pack with a 24V input?

You're letting perfect be the enemy of good here.

Also I think the ideal endgame is that your Beats Flex headphones don't come with cables at all because of standardization. Look at Apple (and most phone manufacturers) no longer packaging chargers.

If the aim is to prevent eWaste yes. Someone should be able to buy a “standard” USB access cable and know that it actually work across devices if it is government mandated. If not, what’s the point of the “standard”?

Well like you say, it is to prevent ewaste.

And even the cheapest power only USB cables with the cheapest USB power supply provides "standard" 5V power. If your device doesn't accept that, isn't that a problem with your Macbook and not the cable?

How far do you think a 5W USB C cable will get charging a 16 inch laptop?

The USB standard is fine until the unsuspecting consumer who left the USB C cord to his MacBook Pro 16 goes to a random drug store to pick up a standard “USB C” cable and wonders why their laptop is still going dead after a few hours of heavy use not knowing the cord is incapable of delivering 100W of power.

Or the hypothetical iPhone 16 user goes to the same store because he wants to watch video on his TV and buys a “standard” USB C cable and finds out that the cable doesn’t support video over USB C - which is part of the standard.

Not to mention the unsuspecting tourist who wants to back up the pictures and video from his phone to his computer so he won’t incur roaming charges and finds out the USB C cable he purchased is power only.

Once again, you're letting perfect be the enemy of good. A 5W USB C cable will charge faster than the perfect universal cable standard that doesn't exist.

For all intents and purposes, charging at 5W is basically useless on the iPad Pro (which does have USB C) or a MacBook.

5 watt cables do not exist.

Basic cables support 60.

It's unfortunate when cables don't say their Gbps, but that's a different issue.

> What are the chances that it will charge my MacBook Pro 16 inch that does support “standard” USB C?

Most likely yes, unless it's a non-compliant cable in the first place, and possibly at a reduced speed (60W max).

>Will that “standard” USB C cable that comes with my Beats Flex headphones charge my iPhone 12 Pro Max? My Anker battery?

Ignoring that iPhones don't have USB C, yes to both at the fastest charge rate available.

Only times where you have to worry about a cable with USB-C when charging is if charging power exceeds 60W or the cable is optical. Above 60W you need marked cables, some go up to 100W, and some (will, not seen in the wild yet) go up to 240W. There are plans to deprecate the 100W tier as well.

can it "charge"? yes. The charging circuitry either can query the output voltage of the power supply, or knows what the voltage should be (on insertion, 5VDC) and determines if the wire is too small or too long to support higher wattage. There's a reason that quickcharge et al use 9, 12, 18 volts, same wattage, but compatible with any of old, too long, or too small gauge wires.

You'll notice weirdness with anything that speaks a different language, i think USB defaults to power delivery, which is 5V @ 2.5A - or whatever. If your charger speaks the same protocol as your device, it will get as much power as it can through whatever cable you use.

this doesn't speak to other comments about "high speed USB C" - i have plenty of power delivery cables that do decent wattage but cannot transfer data, it doesn't even beep the computer when you plug something in to it.

>So still when the Android user with the cheap power only USB C cord moves over to the hypothetical iPhone 15 with USB C, they will still have to throw away their USB C cable that potentially doesn’t support high speed data or video over USB C.

Except that it's still a perfectly fine cable for charging, which is what most people do with their cables?

As long as you don’t care about data transfers of the very large video and photos that modern phones can create or connecting to a larger screen. If you want to “avoid ewaste” why not “mandate” more than the least common denominator?

If iPhone users were satisfied with the least common denominator, they would be buying cheap Android phones.

The amount of people that transfer videos/photos off of their phone to a computer by any means is absolutely minuscule.

So you think the people shooting 4K video and taking RAW pictures are posting them to Instagram?

The lowest common denominator is the same reason that Bluetooth outside of the Apple ecosystem is such a shit show.

Android has supported its own proprietary video over micro USB for ages before USB C became more ubiquitous. What are the chances that Android manufactures won’t cheap out and not ship with cables that can support video over USB?

people who know what shooting 4k video means or what RAW format is is probably way less than 10% of all users of smartphones.

and I am probably overestimating by order of magnitude.

Most people shoot photos and show them to their friends online. Some of them even share it through sites like Instagram and Facebook or WhatsApp and similar.

And that is where it ends for most normal people.

As long as the cable can charge the phone, it will do for the most buyers.

people who earn on twitch, instagram, etc use dslr or mirrorless cameras, unless the video requires a phone in hand.

I know the "standard setup" shown in media, and advertisements, etc shows a ring light with a cellphone using the front facing camera as the recording device, that's just not technologically feasible.

And for the record, i move 4k and/or 108MP images from my phones via wifi or cellular, using synology diskstation autosync or syncthing, respectively. I've used syncthing to upload unedited 4k30p drone footage with no issues, and when i get home, it will sync to hard disks in addition.

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