Apple rumored to subvert EU Rules by nerfing USB-C on iPhone15
appleinsider.com
appleinsider.com
> Despite all of the praise USB-C gets for its universal connector, there are a lot of problems with it too. It is nearly impossible to tell what capabilities a cable might have just by looking at it, which could potentially damage a product if connected in an unexpected way.
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https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/smart-office/using-the...
> Some cables could carry 100W and handle 10Gbps, while others might be limited to 60W and 5Gbps or even 480Mbps.
> The idea is to stop 100W of power from being pushed down a cable that can't handle it. This could, at worse, result in fires.
> One problem with E-Mark is that it's not as widely supported as it should be. While a quality charger shouldn't try to push 60W or even 100W down an unsuitable cable, I've seen it happen.
> And unless you're aware of it, you'd have no idea that it was unsafe.
> Then there's the issue of cables that claim to have the E-Mark which do not have the E-Mark. Unless you have a tool that can read the E-Mark, you have to take the manufacturer's word for it.
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I'm going to contend this isn't so much subverting EU rules but rather trying to ensure that Apple won't get blamed when someone uses a cable that can't handle the power when plugged in given that there's not a good standard out there for this and no enforcement of the "ok, there's something - try this..."
Most people I know are of the idea that if it fits, it works.
On the other hand, assuming that Apple would let their computers go down in flames because it’s less volume than the iPhone seems short sighted. The reputational damage would be unprecedented in Apple history.
And cables could also claim apple certification.
Fake certification isn't an argument for certification.
Plus how long before we get articles on here about how apple are taking down actual certified hardware?
The MFi program has been around for 18 years and it hasn't been an issue yet.
That's just not true. The USB-IF won't certify a cable unless it can do 20V @ 3A, which is around 2x the voltage at 3A that the iPhone would even try to do.
If true, this is just money-grab and spiteful behavior out of Apple, nothing more.
That is misbehavior from Apple, because it adds a cost to the consumer. MiFi is absolutely not free.
The consumer friendly option is allowing the use of a perfectly good USB-C cable (from J5 Create, for example) that doesn't have the MiFi tax without artificial restrictions.
The only thing being codified here is that if you happen to use a janky cable Apple didn't certify, the results are on you.
All that, to my mind, is totally reasonable. You can use a certified cable. You can use a non certified cable. The consumer is totally free to make any choice s/he chooses. They only warrant that if you use the certified cable, your phone won't blow up.
> Shrimp states that Apple will limit data and charging speed for cables connected to iPhone without the MFi certification.
To me (and I'd wager it's the same for most folks), that's Apple implementing a technical block on the cables separate from their actual capabilities.
With respect to the cables, that's part of the USB C spec. Not the spec to which you are referring.
The whole point of the E Mark is to signal that it is safe to send otherwise dangerously high speeds and wattage down the cable. So they're just saying that they promise to follow the spec for cables they certify.
Now the accessories, you're right, but I don't know the rules for accessories. I do know them for the cables.
Remember, a USB-C cable not just a bunch of wires hooking two connectors together. It's two SOCs which negotiate the cable's capabilities with the devices on either end before allowing the flow of power or data across the cable itself. In fact, there is no spec on what the cable itself consists of - it could be a fiber optic cable for all the USB-C spec cares.
It's why you can use an expensive DP USB-C cable and not get thunderbolt support - because the chipsets in the cable itself have to support the thunderbolt spec.
It's why it's entirely plausible that Apple can specify that you can only use MiFi compatible cables if you want full charging or data transfer capabilities.
"Janky" is inserted by you. I can use high quality cables that aren't certified and perfectly capable of handling power, and such. With this comes the implication that any manufacturer who is not willing to give Apple a cut of their cable sales is something inferior and subpar.
> They only warrant that if you use the certified cable, your phone won't blow up.
I guarantee you that they warrant no such thing. And that they'll point you at the cable manufacturer if something damages your phone.
Paying for MFI might be a problem for your local Brooklyn usb-c cable artisan but not for your high volume low margin Asian cable manufacturer.
It was $10 (or 10% of the cost) prior to that.
Quoting the article:
> According to leaker ShrimpApplePro on Twitter, Apple will be requiring MFi certification for products connecting to the iPhone 15.
If there's such a huge pool of potential trouble brewing with a 20W phone, why do they even allow such maleficent third party malfeasance?
/s
... which is roughly what's being proposed here for iPhone. Since some Samsung devices charge at 45W and require 3A (hence e-marked) cables, one can infer Apple wants to do something similar for iPhone in the future.
Edit: I should add that it is possible for a fully complaint combination of devices to not charge at max(sink power, source power), because not all possible combinations of voltage and current may be supported. For example a 60W charger may support 20V@3A, but if the 60W sink only supports 12V charging, it needs 5A and this combination won't support 60W charging. In practice this should be rare though, it would be terrible product design.
Re: your edit. There is this exact kind of profile incompatibility between the Leviton T5636 and the HomePod mini when two devices are plugged in. The outlet should support 30W for each receptacle, which is more than enough to provide the 18W/20W the HomePod mini requires. But for some PD profile incompatibility reason (9V/3A probably), it does not get enough power.
And it is in fact terrible product design. Leviton is pointing the finger at Apple but in reality, who knows.
IMO it's harder for the source to be flexible with voltage, and especially current limit, so I'd put somewhat more blame on the sink here for not being flexible enough. Generally a sink should expect to be plugged into an 'unknown' source, so should at least make an effort to support multiple voltages.
Designing a multiport power source with a shared power limit is a bit of a tricky problem.
I can assure you that counterfeit Thunderbolt cables don't work at Thunderbolt speeds.
Also, power delivery is defined by USB standards, not Thunderbolt.
> I'm going to contend this isn't so much subverting EU rules but rather trying to ensure that Apple won't get blamed when someone uses a cable that can't handle the power when plugged in given that there's not a good standard out there for this and no enforcement of the "ok, there's something - try this..."
Two questions:
1. (Given Apple fanboy view of world, then) why can I charge an Apple laptop with a random USB-C cable?
2. Why would that logic not apply to iPhones too?
> (Given Apple fanboy view of world, then) why can I charge an Apple laptop with a random USB-C cable?
Not that I appreciate the tone here, but yes, you could charge an Apple laptop with what you would call "random" USB-C cable, as long as it delivers the necessary wattage. That is not the issue at hand, though.
> Why would that logic not apply to iPhones too?
It could.
But there are orders of magnitude more phones than laptops, and laptop users tend to use, well, their laptop chargers for the most part. Still, I have seen one or two laptop motherboards essentially melted, because they were overdrawing power.
By the way, I never argued that Apple should create a new standard, or a new certification program. What I originally said was that I wish that Apple would prevent cables that are not PD compliant from working with their devices, because USB-IF sucks at enforcing this.
Apple has no such enforcement capabilities for USB as they don't have any rights to that trademark.
If they had some method of doing that, would the expense of operating it be a "money-grab"?
Also, what about all the iPads and MacBooks that have been using USB-C for years? Does Apple not care about those products’ users? If it was concerned about the impact of uncertified USB-C cables, why doesn’t it already do these things on existing USB-C products it sells?
2. They definitely should. I've had plenty of experiences in the past seven years where cords kinda-sorta-not-always worked. If I plugged a shitty cord that didn't work into any device I own, I'd like it to respond "nah dude"
The USB-C cable/charger landscape is crazy and there are a lot of dodgy devices out there. The conservative approach is to only allow the minimum allowed power with unknown cables/chargers.
The EU mandate is to avoid having extraneous chargers that can't be used with multiple devices. I don't think there is a mandate for specific rates of charging.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2016-02-03-benson-leung-chromebook-...?
Doing it on iPhone just seems like an abuse of their oversized power in the smartphone industry.
If you're running low on power for your laptop, you probably have your own charger available to you. It either came with the computer, or you likely bought it to use with the computer. Regardless, your charging mechanism here is probably more trusted.
Honestly, if Apple comes out with iPhones with USB-C ports (like we all expect), some charge from a random cable is better than risky levels of high-power charging. This would be a pragmatic choice.
If you want to blame anyone in this, blame USB-IF. They are the reason we have this mess to begin with.
Apple is stuck here. You're right that they are an oversized power in the phone industry. They are going to get sued either way. You'll either have phones that get bricked because of a low quality cable/charger or people will be mad that their current charger won't work at 20A. Either way, they will get sued over something. At least this way, if they eventually have to relent to allow, they'll have cover for if/when phones get bricked from cheap cables/chargers.
To me, this would make more sense from a defensive liability point of view as opposed to an effort to still extract money with the MFi program.
> You'll either have phones that get bricked because of a low quality cable/charger or people will be mad that their current charger won't work at 20A.
This just isn't a real problem. People's phones don't get bricked like this. USB & USB-PD in particular (required for >15W) has very real safety guards, that have worked very well. The compliance testing is more about getting full speed charges. People aren't mad in Android world because their phone isn't charging at max speed- they understand there's different charge rates.
IPhone users already face this second situation anyways: if you just buy a random certified lightning cable & charger, it's not going to charge your 20W+ IPhone at max speed, and might even potentially drain while charging. Same thing goes for all this complaining about bad cables. Any cable becomes bad over time, Apple cables included. Plenty of frayed busted old lightning cables are in use right now, and there's incredibly little real world impact for this; it all mostly works and people mostly get that their cable isn't quite in good condition, and if it's working less optimally, they get it. This idea that Apple is some magical cure-all is an absurd fantasy.
Apple isn't stuck, the people defending Apple are stuck, inside Castle Apple, and they are too scared to look out over the parapets & see that it's actually a nice day outside.
The whole discussion makes no sense whatsoever because Android phones have been dominant in Europe forever. They all use usb-c and the apocalypse didn’t happen. It’s just HN being its usual self and ignoring reality.
Personally Im super glad there are a world of much cheaper more affordable cables that work quite adequately.
I do wish we could as a society defend ourselves better but certification is an expensive & absurd trust mechanism. If certification were a lower cost, faster process I'd respect it as a social safeguard, but certification isnt easy. For one, it's not one off... USB-IF has to go shopping from time to time in the wild to make sure the goods are still good. It's expensive, but for a reason.
Ultimately relying on centralized trust actors, and using aggressive legalist pursuit to enforce compliance, is 100% against the spirit Im looking for. It has some upsides, but that's obvious legalistic authoritarianism, is the lawful-evil square on the D&D alignment chart. It's what I think the EU is trying to get away from!
So let's talk alternatives!
Personally it frustrates angers & saddens me that our systems are blanketly unobservable. USB-HID spec has really good telemetry for chargers to self-report their output voltage & current (a monitoring task many already perform). Devices ought be able to detect input voltage fairly well (and again many implicitly do, they again just dont report).
Being able to see graphs of output/charger power versus input power seems like a dead simple ask, and the difference between those two is loss. Being able to make whats happening easy to see would let us all help self-police, would let us become smart informed consumers, who know how to gauge the quality of what we have & share that good information out.
It should just be a standard feature in computing that objects extrospect, report; computers rhat are black boxes lack the fundamental "soft"-ness that is computings best & highest angel.
Okay! I’m happy for my hardware vendor to assure me that my cable isn’t going to set my phone on fire or do any other harmful or nefarious things. If someone else is happy to take that gamble, I sure hope it’s regulated when I’m in transit or my own home but otherwise the world is their proverbial oyster. I wish their hardware vendor cared more about their wellbeing but given existing regulatory standards I just hope more vendors are as adept and scrupulous.
So, still feeling pretty good about my analysis so far.
Your vendor needs some social conscience & to sometimes not always use force to get their way.
A Google engineer sacrificed his Chromebook Pixel to test USB-C cables - https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/3/10905432/usb-c-cable-fries...
> Google engineer Benson Leung has been on a mission to prove that all USB-C cables are not created equal, and that mission appears to have ended — or at least climaxed — with one cable totally frying his computer. Leung has been testing USB-C cables and posting reviews of them on Amazon for a few months now, and the most recent cable he tested, made by SurjTech, turned out to be "completely miswired" — something he didn't realize until after it "managed to destroy my test equipment," he says, including a Chromebook Pixel.
And the older article A Google engineer is testing USB Type-C cables so you don't have to - https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/5/9674462/usb-type-c-google...
His reviews: https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AFLICGQRF6BR...
And so? How many people know that USB-IF exists? How many people know how to tell if USB-IF has certified a cable? If you don't have the packaging, how do you know if the cable is certified?
The USB-IF is pretty inadequate here, even if we ignore the existence of fake certifications. They can't even work out how to mark the different USB-C cables so you know which ones are what kind, leading to all sorts of problems and confusion for users.
99% of the time, all I need from the cable is <60W of power capacity. I don't need data, and I wouldn't even notice if the cable was 1Gbps or 40Gbps.
I've literally never had a problem with _that_ use case.
Even when I need the cable for data transmission, all of the ones I have are either from my phone, laptop, dock, etc., etc. and follow standards, or are from no-name Amazon brands but _still_ seem to follow the spec completely fine.
Sure there are exceptions like the Nintendo Switch, but virtually all devices at that price point can handle bad cables.
3 were good enough for safe use with 20V@3A. 47 were sub standard. We had to unplug 9 during our testing, as they started to melt. One of them started to smoke after 60 seconds.
USB-IF certification means nothing, as everybody can just buy it, or fake it.
With EPR 240W incoming I am getting seriously afraid for friends & family.
You can assume there isn't so much cheap wires for usb3.1/3.2 there.
Because wiring everything would double the cost and width of wire (due to whole 11 pair of wires) and people buying type-c wire for charging don't even use it.
I wish USB C was forced to be color coded like USB 3 typically is. Some visual indicator that the drive you're using might be compatible, it might also not work as expected because the colors don't match.
https://eepower.com/resistor-guide/resistor-standards-and-co...
They should just force every connector and cable to have a label on it that says the speed and power. Then, you'll always know for sure.
Each of those except the default would have a color. Most cables wouldn't have any color, most of rest would have one color, and at most two colors. Many of the combinations aren't used, like 5A is almost always used with USB2 charging cable.
USB 3 speeds: 5, 10, 20 Gb/s
USB 4 speeds: 40, 80 Gb/s
But for power, it's all over the place. Every single cable and connector seems to have its own idea of what they want to do.
It could be anywhere from:
* 5V@100mA=0.5W (low power, with no power delivery standard)
* 48V@5A=240W
With a good dozen options in-between those two.
The only unambiguous way is to just label them. One for speed in Gb/s, one for power in watts. Easy.
They're trying - https://www.kensington.com/news/docking-connectivity-blog/us... and https://mms.businesswire.com/media/20210930005098/en/911442/....
It's nice that there are so many standards to chose from though. https://xkcd.com/927/
Does a 'red' stripe mean my 'green' device will or will not work? Or, confusing things further, work fine but maybe not be able to pull enough power to (fast) charge or have degraded capabilities like full speed data but no display.
IMO this is something that should be handled by the host / software and a clear nomenclature for capabilities. Notify the user if there are missing, required capabilities or performance is degraded and that they need to upgrade the cable to achieve X. As long as the cable meets the minimum USB spec this should be achievable fairly easily.
Where a marking is absolutely needed though is 'charging only' cables with no data lines. These are infuriating.
Only if the cable is bad.
All capabilities are negotiated between the chips in the cable and the USB-C chipset in the device.
Assuming all cables are automatically bad is an anti-consumer move.
> Assuming all cables are automatically bad is an anti-consumer move.
How many USB-C cables do you currently own?
Because those are potentially just as big of fire hazards.
Just kidding - the worst fire hazards are non-grounded extension cables you find in homes everywhere. USB-C PD with its 100W doesn't even begin compare to those 1.8kW (or higher) disasters.
And when a grey-market phone that we bought came with a non-original charger, I pressured the seller into providing an original charger. He complied.
One of Apple's alleged concerns with switching from Lightning to USB-C was the amount of waste it would generate with people needing to buy all new accessories.
So their solution to that is ... wait 7 years after their laptops switched to USB-C to generate some extra Lightning trash, and then require me to buy extra USB-C cables even though I already have enough of them?
Consumers buy millions upon millions of cables & chargers, a huge % off brand and uncertified, and the number that have had damage to their phone or created fires is sub-microscopic.
> given that there's not a good standard out there for
Oh please. Abusrd poppycock.
The clutching of pearls for this topic is incredible. There's multiple checks and safeguards in the spec. These systems are just not as fragile as portrayed. If this were just a 48V DC connection, yeah, there'd be some risk, but this is a reasonably well defined, safe-guarded system already. And there's just so little evidence of problems, and such a huge huge install-base already. Is there anyone else on the planet with a fanbase exhibiting even half the Stockholm Syndrome of Apple?
The magnitude of experience we have with cables versus cruise ships in 1912 is pretty different, don't you think? How many years had humanity been making rolled steel cruise ships before the Titanic? How many years have we been making cables? How many cruise ships do you think we'd made? How many cables do you think we've made? Your scare-quote just doesn't seem applicable.
It's not even a bad analogy in some ways. Some cables probably do, like the Titanic, spend their time at sea with their coal bay accidentally on fire, do spend their time with some mild internal fault sapping some power. But wow it like just doesn't matter. I'm trying to think of something combustible at incredibly low temperatures that might compound this situation, to make a 130 degree cable a potential threat, to imagine a real case for this other-people's-cable-phobia. The risk is so mild. As soon as a there's a real fault, the system shuts down; phone and charger both have a role actively agreeing to keep the power flowing, both have fault detections. The Titanic lacked these plural safeguard, it's coal bay was on fire & they couldn't put it out, greatly heating the hull.
Apple's defense is an entire religion around Fear Uncertainty & Doubt. It's the least brave, least exciting Think Different view of the world that I can imagine. I appreciate & get the value that Apple people say, that they like having well-defined paths & not having to think about things, but it seems always applied with zeal, even in cases like this, where opening up is obviously fine & better for everyone.
There are hundreds of product recalls every year, involving phones and accessories, because of electrical shock risks and/or fire hazards [0]. Also, there is little to no enforcement of PD standards, so you could be using an USB-C shaped cable, connected to a perfectly looking USB-C power adapter, and the manufacturer could claim it to deliver 2V and 7.5A, to make 15W.
You may not have any issues with that, because you know that does not look right. The vast majority of people wouldn't think twice to buy it if it were cheap enough.
[0] https://www.cpsc.gov/search?search_api_fulltext=usb&f%5B0%5D...
USB-C's minimum requirement is 20V3A, 60W. It's really not a difficult standard to meet. Your insane example of 2V 7.5A is poppycock... it would be hard as heck to make a cable that could carry 2V but not 3V or 5V. 20V is a tiny amount of voltage, the shittiest insulation will be fine. And no one wants or needs that. A 7.5A cable on the other hand would be considerably more expensive & thicker than most. It's so hard to imagine a real scenario where someone would ever make a wildly out of spec oddball cable that wouldnt just work in any circumstance. 20V is more a factor of the connector than the cable, and 3A is probably not going to be enough real current to do anything scary.
Chargers might possible catch on fire, are a fire hazard themselves, since they deal with mains power, but in this shockingly rare circumstance, i'd guess it will usually not harm a phone; it will self destruct, and the phone will disconnect ahead of time.
This sounds more more searching desperately for FUD. And more lacking any real evidence that the rest of the world is actually all catching on fire & burning down all the time.
This seems dismissive. What you are saying is that, since product recalls exist, there is no point in enforcing higher standards, not even for safety reasons.
> USB-C's minimum requirement is 20V3A, 60W. It's really not a difficult standard to meet [...] 20V is more a factor of the connector than the cable.
The literal problem here is that there are manufacturers that would not meet the minimum standards, and USB-IF and sellers do not seem to be in the mood of enforcing them either, so we are left with the other end, hardware vendors.
> This sounds more more searching desperately for FUD. And more lacking any real evidence that the rest of the world is actually all catching on fire & burning down all the time.
I don't think you understand the issue at hand.
Safety standards, generally speaking, aren't in place to avoid a 100% prevalence of accidents and/or deaths in their context, but the very low percentage of cases when the preconditions may lead to accidents and/or deaths.
In Canada last year, there were just over 140 house fires caused by phone accessories, which admittedly is not a lot, but in optimal conditions, there should be none.
If the USB-IF did their job, standards were actually enforced, and sellers and manufacturers were actually liable for the crap they sell, there should not be any discussion around this. Instead, every time a phone catches fire while charging, instead of mentioning the off-brand cable or charger, it's the phone manufacturer making the headlines, so here we are.
It's the authoritarian mindset, it's Apple-istic to demand there be some strict top-down system demanding compliance, collecting money, and relentlessly pursuing everyone else legally.
So USB-IF certification is not required. There are a variety of cables out there, of various quality, huge numbers uncertified but also more than adequate. Few even sub-par cables pose real risk. With the safeguards USB has builtin risk is tiny. I would greatly doubt the cable was a cofactor in even 2% of these 150 house fires/year.
In return, we get the benefit of much cheaper cables, that folks do review quite heavily. We also get really interesting & really useful non-compliant products, that I make use of & enjoy regularly: tiny little usb-a to usb-c female adapters[1] that are out of spec because you could concievably make a nonsense circuit & injure a product, but which are again wildly useful.
Building this world where authority & control are wired in everywhere, where we use the state & the legal system to hunt down & enforce folks on a narrow prescribed track sounds awful. There are some shitty shitty products folks can run into- yes- but mostly we're already well protected, and the market pretty quickly identifies the truly wretched; thr trade-off here, to allow an open world versus insisting on control, seems apparent to me, and those folks with the desire to use certified gear will be in great hands with usb-if gear (the idea that apple certification is "more safe" seems like a joke to me). I fail to see the case for adversarialism, that you seem to clutch for.
> It's the authoritarian mindset, it's Apple-istic to demand there be some strict top-down system demanding compliance, collecting money, and relentlessly pursuing everyone else legally.
A manufacturer that makes its devices refuse to work with products that do not comply with _standards_, set by an organisation that defines them, but refuses to enforce them, is now authoritarian.
> Building this world where authority & control are wired in everywhere, where we use the state & the legal system to hunt down & enforce folks on a narrow prescribed track sounds awful.
This is already happening, market and nation wide, and I'm glad it does.
This is not an Apple thing. There must be some control and enforcement over safety and functional standards. If you want your house to be in good standing with the state, you cannot use any sort of electricity cable for in-wall installations, or any sort of pipes for your drinking water. You could always leave if you don't agree with these rules, as you could choose not to buy Apple too.
Another point is that the market does not self regulate. That's the same stupid idea that has been disproven so many times, I'm surprised any sane person would still believe in it. Markets care more about efficiency at making money, than safety. There are countless examples of large companies weighting between safety and profits, and they choose profits every single time, because for most, in the long run, is worth it.
But overall, your position is not that of the common folk anyway. You talk about reviewers, and markets, and insist that nothing is a "risk", even when it is your belief against actual recall numbers. Maybe you should ask yourself if most people who buy their charging cables at gas stations are doing their "own research".
In the real world, bad cables just don't transfer data fast enough, or don't charge fast enough, and anything else is so rare that you might as well worry about accidentally puncturing the battery.
It's like the need to be a contrarian has gone full circle and now most HN is so contrarian they adopted child like naivety to be different from us sheeps who think maybe a publicly traded company's decision are based on profits and not tooth fairy like goodness.
I see Google as a far less centralized/top down org, with a lot more different competeing goals. Ads are evil, Android is ugly, but and there's a lot of different things happening with their web work but imo a huge swarth of it is good, and their process & trying to work with the world is admirable.
The realization that huge companies have good & bad sides, tension within, is I think a indicator of maturity. Some organizations to have high homogeneity, high organizational patterns, but top-down orgs are usually a sign of bad. There's something much more interesting & dynamic about orgs that allow internal variance, that have different viewpoints within. The Democratic Party in the US for example seems to have a quite hard time figuring out top priorites & creating cohesive messaging; there are a lot of different ideas & values, within the group, & debate about how & where to go... this has gobs of problems, but I think that tolerance of internal discourse (even though it's presence is contrary to alignmemt, even though it can bleed out) is enormously powerful, creates a far better for the org to assess it's values & align itself over time.
I'd love to see a web platform Google that operates with even one pro-web ally on the standards board, that believes in a Fugu like expansion, versus the narrow-web rest-of-universe that is out there... right now there are some places for cooperation in html/cas, but there's no real allies in growing the platform, adding new capabilities. It's been long & lonely trying to work on the web & that's a shit position, with literally every other implememter/browser being anti-feature in nature.
Your observation that contrarianism now entails defending the most money-grubbing practicies is seemingly a somewhat apt one.
Apple is a luxury consumer brand, the luxury part can't be maintained if the user experience is similar to affordable and accessible brands.
If you can't afford to pay apple fees for MFI then you have no business making apple accessories and cables. People are not technically savvy enough to blame the accessory they will blame the phone itself for low battery life, not charging fast enough, acting shitty because of accesory power drain or malfunction,etc.... MFI is a brand protection scheme.
All this complaining, because there's like a 0.0000001% chance of having a bad time is just so tiring. This belief that only extremely high walls will protect us, that Apple and Apple alone can maintain order is preposterous. It's not like your experience would be worse for intercompatibility, for being able to work with other peripherals: you could still opt to keep paying high prices to use Apple certified gear. But just the thoughts of there not being a huge god damn massive moat with alligators in it makes some folks cower, makes them think it would be their end.
And they never ever give even a token nod to how much would be possible, to the idea that maybe Apple users could & should come to expect more, if the gate weren't so high & they could see out.
> This belief that only extremely high walls will protect us, that Apple and Apple alone can maintain order is preposterous
You? Why is this about you now? This is about apple protecting their brand and profit margin not protecting users from anything.
> And they never ever give even a token nod to how much would be possible, to the idea that maybe Apple users could & should come to expect more, if the gate weren't so high & they could see out.
Use shitty android and leave us alone lol. There is a shit android phone that does all the things you want. Stop trying to push your ideals down other people's throat. Apple wants to make products a certain way and people are free to not buy apple products. End of story. If I want a locked down closed source ecosystem with proprietary peripherals and all that, who the hell are you to tell me I can't have that.
This isn't politics, buy a different product and vote with your wallet.
Personally I'd like to reason from principles, about what should be & what risks would be. If we want to discuss, I think allowing some speculation & consideration for what could be is required.
And the only arguments I see from the Stay Inside Castle Apple crowd are risk related, and they rely on the spreading of fear uncertainty & doubt, portraying a chaotic unsafe world where everything outside the castle wall is anarchy & disaster. Using fear like this is a broadly political tactic, is an argument towards a conservative outlook.
And it just feels unhinged, detached, & not reperesentative of the actual world.
No my argument is, unless apple is harming consumers in a sepecific market, this is nothing but bullying by EU. If apple marketed to all consumers then you can say it is stifling competition but since it is a high end luxury brand competitors that can't afford its rules to have their products tested and validated after a fee are not competing in the same market as apple. The entire purpose of the brand and product is to be exclusive. You people are saying exclusivity has no place in any market. Instead of competing fairly like android does you force apple and apple consumers to tolerate a marker they don't want to be part of. A lot of arguments make sense if there weren't already like a million android skus from various vendors for you to choose from. It's like you prefer apple but you want to tell apple how to run its business so it becomes like android, just be fair and use android.
> Using fear like this is a broadly political tactic, is an argument towards a conservative outlook.
This has nothing to do with politics. I used android for ages, I finally have a real usable phone and shitty policies and fanatical people like you are trying to take that away and make everything as shitty as everything else. I pay apple whatever it wants to keep the quality and exclusivity. You very well knoe plenty of android phones have better specs and are more open, I choose an inferior spec iphone precisely because it is closed source and the interface both in hardware and software are consistent and reliable and pleasant!
> And it just feels unhinged, detached, & not reperesentative of the actual world.
You can have your opinions and needs and I can have mine. I won't take away your choices from you so don't take away my one and only choice.
Out-of-spec cables and chargers are definitely a problem but the solution is to not buy cheap junk. Specifying the capabilities won't help.
I also can’t see where the headline says they’re nerfing anything. It seems like MFi is a “maximum comparability and quality” standard they assert for their products, but their product is still usb-if compliant so works perfectly fine with any non MFi accessory. Further MFi doesn’t mean only works with apple or something. I literally see no issue with this beyond “Apple evil must be irate”
The end result of this, is people buying more cables. USB-C was designed to mitigate the problem and now we have another standard using the same connector but requiring a different cable. It is just as bad as those devices which take USB-C but haven't updated the board to include sense resistors so they only charge with USB-A to C cables.
You will be hard pressed to find a MFI certified cable in the above linked reviews that is rated poorly for spec.
You may find "compatible" ( https://www.amazon.com/TROND-Charger-Resistor-Charging-Chrom... ) - but not certified ( https://www.amazon.com/ask/questions/Tx1KDZKVM4Y5KYE/ref=ask... )
Would I trust buying an off brand usb cable that lacks MFI certification? Nope.
Then maybe they should bother including one (that they know is in-spec) in the box when you buy the phone.
And, of course, never ever use a cable you didn't buy? No borrowing one from your friends, no using the office charger, etc.?
That sounds like a restriction nearly no one would adhere to.
You don't push Watts. The load controls what it consumes. So long as the voltage is within the device limits it can control the current draw from its end of the cable. If a supply won't fulfill the requested current, the device makes do with less or disables functionality without damaging itself. This is how all USB devices are required to operate.
One of the other connectors is an extension cable. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MK122LL/A/power-adapter-e...
Works very nicely with power strips and conferences where the power plugs are way over there.
Are all USB devices available to consumers on Amazon compliant, and thus safe to plug into a USB-C phone?
Not all cables have suitable internal wiring or receptacles capable of handling either higher voltage or amperage required. The ability to transmit 60W or 100W was a much later addition to the specification. In fact USB-C PD 3.1 / EPR supports 240W (48V at 5A) as of recently.
This is why the in-cable e-marker was added to the specification: so the cable could indicate whether it was designed to handle higher voltages and currents without catching fire.
In modern USB-C power delivery, it is the source, the sink and the cable that determine how much power is supplied.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170816061107/http://www.usb.or... (p. 42)
Both the cable and the load limit how much power is pushed out.
How is this even possible?
The charger is supposed to interrogate the cable and only offer 5A if a) the cable responds and b) responds with a 5A capability.
I know that eventually I'll have no choice but to go all USB-C, but for now, I can keep delaying that. By the time I do adopt it, perhaps they'll have figured out how to fix this issue and I'll be happy.
Most of these was either included with something or bought for about $5/piece. Nothing bad ever happened. Really it feels like some people got scared half of the decade ago and haven't checked since.
In terms of hassle, USB-C is a bit of a step backwards from the prior USB versions.
With USB-C you can just buy a superset cable, that supports everything at max speeds/max amperage and that's it.
> And many micro/mini connectors are just unreliable crap.
I suppose, although the only connectors I've had fail on me have been USB-C connectors.
> With USB-C you can just buy a superset cable
Serious question: how do I identify them? What do I search for?
Thank you! I'll keep this in mind for when I can't avoid USB-C any longer. The day is coming. I already have three devices that only have USB-C.
Appart from that, all cables support 3 amperes. So unless you want more for some reason, USB 2.0 vs 3.x is all you need to care about. Only USB 3.0 cables will work for all use cases.
5A cables are less physically flexible, but more efficient regardless of whether the devices need 5A or not. 3A/5A distinction just affects energy transfer efficiency.
So there are only two axes of parameters to decide about, and only one affects functionality and only USB 2.0 cable option will be functionally limiting.
Similar concerns apply if you want Type-C legacy cable (with non-type-C connector on one side). But that's straying away from the type-c only world, anyway.
This is just bs.
Example: My Garmin watch is not "Made For Apple" certified, probably because Garmin thinks that revealing their secrets to Apple, a direct competitor, is a bad idea. As a result, the Garmin Connect App does not get the same priv level and first class treatment on iOS.
Besides, all Apple has to do is say, "if it's not a MFI accessory, then you're on your own, good luck, but something with the MFI tag next time". Actively shutting down the competition is a monopolistic behavior.
So it does give Apple a meaningful advantage in any space they want to start competing with a partner, but access to IP is not it. Being able to run BI on your app and class of apps to understand market opportunity is also a thing they can do (and do) to understand if a space is worth competing in / focusing on.
The only challenges I’ve had with USB-C are at the fringe, such as with high resolution monitors that have power delivery.
These concerns are overblown for smart phones.
Where I have had problems is USB-C -> HDMI adapters as there are multiple standards for both ends of the cable that may not work together. It makes getting the right device for the screen hard to do.
Oh, and incidentally, cheap, unlicensed lightning cables are just as much of a thing as cheap unlicensed USB-C cables.
Plug it into any standard USB-C hub, connect it to a screen, keyboard, and mouse, and you basically have a lightweight desktop PC.
Connect a controller and it's a game console.
The EU regulation requires that any device capable of charging above 15W to also provide support for USB-PD.
The TLDR is that between 0-15W any USB-C cable and charger should be able to charge @5V up to 3A as per the base USB-C spec.
For charging above 15W or above 5V any USB-PD certified cable and charger should be able to be used up-to the maximum allowed charging for that device or up-to 100W.
This has also impacted a lot of other handset manufacturers with proprietary fast charging solutions such as Samsung and Huawei.
There's a whole thing about how crappy some manufacturing is on USB-C cables and peripherals. If Apple wants to put hurdles up to making a device work with their hardware, it'll require OEMs to actually test on Apple hardware instead of dumping crap on the market that doesn't work, and that's a win for Apple users.
Worst-case scenario, Apple harms its own ecosystem by limiting hardware options and confusing users about why two physically-compatible products can't talk to each other. Best-case scenario, Apple gets to dodge some of the problems as USB-C marches boldly towards becoming the next Bluetooth.
It is a bit of a mess, but it is currently the best we have.
Frankly, the fact that USB-IF almost released charging standards as an afterthought, was a huge mistake. Now we have extremely popular stuff (Raspberry Pi, Nintendo Switch) running on 20W or 40W chargers, which are non compliant.
Or (much) worse, catch fire.
What I hate are devices that refuse to charge on low power. I have Surface Go that only charges on PD not 3A. Before I figured this out, I would leave on standard charger and wonder why took forever to charge.
The issue with USB-C is that the port fits everywhere, but wattages may be wildly different.
I have an early Nintendo Switch, which I rather not play and charge at the same time except with an official Nintendo adapter, because it overdraws power while running games such as Breath of the Wild.
I also have a travel router with a 20W power adapter, at 5V and 4A. Not too big of an issue at lower loads, but it will crash if I plug a hard drive in its USB port.
And what's the point of standards if they are not enforced, anyway?
The place to enforce USB-PD is at the source, which is what is happening in your described scenario.
Yes, sinks should definitely honour their power contracts, but phones generally already do this (they need to work with 500mA, 2A, and potential faster chargers without overloading them), and don't usually have power-sucking peripherals attached that will mess up their actual draw.
> Not too big of an issue at lower loads, but it will crash if I plug a hard drive in its USB port.
This hard drive probably violates USB spec, as most spinning disks do.
Which source? The charger or the device? Because either could be at fault.
> This hard drive probably violates USB spec, as most spinning disks do.
It's a SSD from a well-known manufacturer, with a power draw of less than 4W at full load.
Any device acting as a power source - but you need PD for this so you can create power contracts that are compatible with the root power source, and you're not describing a PD situation, so this is not possible.
Probably your router does limit downstream power, but due to many years of devices ignoring the 500mA limit, these limits are usually very liberal so as to avoid users complaining that the USB port doesn't work with device X. PD helps with this by establishing a way for sources and sinks to negotiate a clear power delivery contract that the source can be strict about limiting.
4W is more than non-PD USB can supply, so the fact that it doesn't work is not that surprising.
And still, it is an USB-C port with the label "storage" in it.
> ... these limits are usually very liberal so as to avoid users complaining that the USB port doesn't work with device X
It seems that there is an actual problem, then.
There was, and as a result almost no vendor actually strictly followed the standards prior to USB-PD providing a way for this to be managed reasonably and deliver more than 2.5W.
The modern standards are fine. As usual, implementation quality varies.
Of course there are "reasons", but let's be honest if Apple really wanted to comply and move on to better things this whole problem wouldn't even exist because Apple would have fixed it.
Apple is probably the biggest global vendor in Switzerland that refuses to accept Swiss payment methods like Twint[1] or the now defunct PostFinance card[2]. It's such an Issue that every time you do anything in the Apple store they constantly tell you, we don't accept ..., make sure your have another payment method when you pickup your device.
BTW, they still charge a ~10% premium in Switzerland compared to the rest of Europe, just because.
What’s your source? I just checked for an iPhone 14 Pro (base spec) CH: 1179.- FR: 1329 € DE: 1299 €
As for charging, the USB consortium messed that stuff up so much that I'll just buy Apple cables for anything I want to fast charge, thank you.
While I would say it's certainly possible it's not a guarantee. Apple doesn't have a MeFi program for their USB-C enabled iPads so enforcing one for the phones only doesn't really make sense.
My expectation is USB-C on the iPhone will work exactly the same as it does with the rest of their devices today.
Would anyone know?
> How do they achieve 'acceptance' when users would notice the difference in charging speed every time they plugged in their phone and iPad?
Because by the time the iPhone drops with the gimped USB-C, people will just accept that that's the price to pay stick with Apple products.
Us nerds can scream and shout all we want but I don't think we'd ever make a dent in their sales
Average user doesn't have to. If enough nerds make noise, average user adjacent media will pick it up.
Wasn't the intent of the EU ruling is to standardize on a common Connector.
That same connector today already has like 10 different standards, just see below.
How is what Apple is rumored to do any different?
https://reviewed-com-res.cloudinary.com/image/fetch/s--XR4_e...
I tried 10 different cables to try to hook up Stream Deck to MBP. None of it worked. Beside TB3 one they’re unhelpfully unmarked.
The only one that worked was 5m Meta one but I don’t want to have a cable coil on my desk.
I ordered another one - supposedly awesome and conformant for 25$. Nothing.
So another one is en route to me. I gave up already though. It’s shameful that Elgato don’t provide neither precise information about requirement nor ensured compatible accessory.
And supposedly enforcing USB-C was supposed to limit number of cables and waste…
What kind of USB-C cables were you using? USB2, which is most charging cables, probably won't work. You likely need USB3 ones. I guess hard to tell just looking at random one but USB3 cables are shorter, thicker, and more expensive. You will probably have to buy one, I have a couple of USB3 cables and many charging ones.
Where does the Stream Deck get its power? The Macbook Pro does provide power on USB-C ports but only some ports may provide full power. I think on newer ones all the ports do. The other potential problem is the power direction. Stream Deck has a battery and it is possible that Stream Deck is charging the MBP. I don't think it is possible to reverse direction in MBP; it really should be popup and app to do that. That is may by why USB-A adapters work.
There is a Google engineer, Benson Leung, who's claim to fame is just reviewing cables. USB-C may be well specified, but it's up in the air if any cable you buy on amazon is actually up to spec.
Certificaton must be expensive since only some Anker cables are certified but they say all of them would pass. I guess I don't care about random Amazon cables since I buy brands I trust.
I have Thunderbolt 3 cable (verified), but it didn't work as well. I also checked multiple USB-C ports on MBP because I suspected it might be the problem of providing port. Not sure if Stream Deck has battery, as it can be used only through wired connection and it doesn't have any memoized features, yet I think you might be right with your guess. I found somewhere that I need USB 3.1 gen 2 cable, and that's what I ordered, but based on Amazon description I don't really trust it's going to work.
The whole issue is something that IMO should be dealt with by manufacturer. For ordinary customer this is a problem with a landfill solution.
A USB2 cable connected to a USB3 device will still work, as USB2. This is required in the spec, and hopefully the OS provides a helpful hint here, especially if more than USB2 HS bandwidth is required.
A non-emarked cable connected to a PD source and sink will be limited to 3A@20V (60W), but again it will still work to deliver a significant amount of power, just maybe not enough.
If 'nothing' is working then something is more broken with your setup than the USB specifications.
When using provided USB-A -> USB-C cable and an adapter it did work. It also would light up when connected directly to power source through USB-C.
As for “my setup” - it’s non modified hardware with non modified software (at driver level at least). This is a common problem with Stream Deck. If it’s possible to get into situation where cable is indistinguishable but it might work or not (I’ll repeat - I have 5m long Meta cable for Oculus that works) it’s definitely problem of specs and shabby manufacturer.
BTW., as an update - I just received "USB 3.1 Gen 2" cable. It doesn't work.
A baseline of USB2 connectivity is required for both cables and ports. A baseline of 5V@1.5A is required. Compliant (USB) devices are required to come up and enumerate even if they can't get the power contract they want or the speed that they want.
It is on the software to convey to the user that something the device needs is missing, the USB spec can't really speak to that, but there is not any situation allowed in the spec where you connect a USB device to a USB host and there is no working data&power interface at the end.
> BTW., as an update - I just received "USB 3.1 Gen 2" cable. It doesn't work.
It sounds like one of your devices is broken.
If they support fast charging at currents above 3A or at voltages above 5V they MUST adopt the USB-PD spec and then the device MUST support any USB-PD compatible charging solution to its design limit or 100W which ever is lower.
My micro USB devices are camera battery chargers and my Shure MV7.
And iPhone whatever the heck for Lightning, ugh.
So close to all USB-C! If I'm traveling with my camera it can be at least 3 separate cables still.
They cracked the Lightning chip in like a week.
Then they will share the private key amongst all Chinese cable companies.
It's hard to keep a private key safe inside a small chip when there are billions of dollars in cable sales on the line.
This is one area where EU is really serious about making strong law and judgements.
I don't know, I've had a lot of trouble with USB-C cables already. Even devices that came with their own cable (some expensive) that turn out to be flaky cables. If you're spending the big bucks on Apple stuff why not get certified cables.