The Broken Promise of USB-C: We'll Never Get a Universal Cable
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
I had wondered if the author might be drinking a little too much apple juice, this was the line that confirmed it. No, they all do it for cost reasons, only one happens to spin marketing around it which you take at face value (if it were even remotely true, you wouldn't see the markup or immense waste that comes with the separate cables).
The problem may be that you've invested too much into an ecosystem that actively works against standards and needs to be dragged, metaphorically kicking and screaming, into it.
Outside said ecosystem, the promise of a universal cable is almost a reality, at least much closer than the one you're illustrating.
Sure, the weird triple-split usb-c connector that came with my son's cheap walkie-talkies from Amazon doesn't do all that. But I don't expect it to, and it will at least charge my phone if I plug it, and that's the primary usage I want for this cable.
Edit: Yes, like with all problems in life, "just be better informed than 99% of the population" is a possible, if smug, solution. Just not a good solution for the other 99%.
I’m starting to believe the whole counterfeits/commingled inventory zeitgeist on Amazon is another one of those things that was somewhat true at one point, but is more overblown social media bluster like so many other topics are today. Do they happen? Of course. I just doubt it’s as common as trotted out on here.
I buy an exceptionally large amount of stuff like this off Amazon for projects, and must be in the top single digit percentile for consumers of theirs for “cheap Chinese generic junk” and have yet to receive a single item I’ve noticed was not what it said it was. Some useless junk for sure, but those were all my fault and returned without issue.
We are talking hundreds of USB-C cables now, ranging from charging only to full on thunderbolt driving multiple daisy chained 4k monitors.
That category includes cables that can
- do one of the many quick charging standards (or multiple), but data only at 2.0 rates
- data at 3.x rates (any variants) but no power delivery
- power delivery, but only at limited wattages, and data at 3.0 speeds, to slow for alternate modes
If you know what you're doing, you can dodge all these landmines, but 99% of consumers do not and never will, and to them USB-C is that weird connector where they never know what'll work today. (Whoever decided that USB2 passthrough only works in one orientation was a real sadist, too.)
No? What world do you live in?
Both of my parents have used USB-C for years, and they're more careful with their charging blocks than they are with their cables. All they care about is plugging in their devices to charge and USB-C cables do that fine. Both Lightning and USB are replete with non-conformant counterfeit cables, it's a moot point since people throw away anything that is nonfunctional. 99% of consumers don't need Thunderbolt capabilities, so they don't actually care if it's there. That's why your mom and dad don't charge their phones with fully-specced cables either.
Considering that Lighting cables tend to max out their wattage at the USB-C minimum, I think these are some seriously bottom-barrel arguments. Even child-friendly manufacturers like Nintendo consider USB-C perfectly suitable to trust with children, because it's actually not that hard to deal with if you're just trying to charge a tablet. And so does Apple, if you don't consider the Mac a fully estranged business.
- The Switch insists on an obscure non-mandatory voltage that many early USB-PD power supplies did not support (and good luck teaching the difference between USB-PD and USB-QC), and even today a good chunk won't
- The Switch is the only commonly used device to not use DP Alternate Mode for its docking station, so it needs special Switch docks that support it (but an iPad will run with a Dell laptop dock!)
Apple at least managed to unify their devices on USB-PD for charging, but if you're using any other phone vendor, you run into the added problem that PD is a premium future and you're only getting QC for fast charging.
I can find a set of USB cables and a charger on Amazon that can charge any combination of laptop, phone and Switch at the same time with full speed. But 99% of regular, non-IT people I meey consider this witchcraft - anything other than "I use my laptop charger and the laptop cable for my laptop, and the phone charger with the phone cable, and the switch charger has the cable integrated" doesn't work for them and they have better things to do with their lives than figure out why, and I can't blame them.
Again, this seems to be a lot of social media hysteria over effectively a non-issue. I don't know anyone in my life who has a problem charging their phone and laptop off the same USB-C charger. Buy a 60W USB brick of decent quality and chances are it will charge everything you care about at a reasonable speed. These are folks who do not pay attention whatsoever to technology.
USB-C has absolutely improved the situation by a large margin. It's not perfect, but it's slowly getting better every year in my estimation. The early USB-C devices are starting to age out, and most things released recently are pretty good at conforming the basic set of standards you'd expect them to.
If you're doing out-there nerd stuff, I'd expect issues like anything else at the bleeding edge of tech. Such as trying to daisy chain multiple 4k monitors and the sort off one cable. That stuff can be difficult, but very few have such use-cases.
As a charging standard it's become pretty solid.
Only one USB-C cable I have ever owned was not capable of fast charging, and it was sold by a third party on Amazon.
You think this (incorrectly) because you're being either willfully ignorant or just naive. Apple have more insight on their devices and consumers than you could possibly imagine.
Apple know that practically no one connects their iPhone to a computer through the entire lifetime of the phone (less than 1%). So there is no reason they should include a USB3/4 cable when the only thing people do is charge their phone with it. It's added cost, and waste.
Likewise, the ports on their laptops often go unused. They collect anonymized data on how often people plug something in to any port on their device. They know what people are doing, and what is worth spending money on. There is a reason they got rid of their extra I/O to begin with.
My cheap IKEA milk frother just broke. I'd been using it for years, with the same AA batteries I put in when I bought it. It doesn't require a lot of power.
If the replacement requires re-charging, especially with a cable that I don't usually have ready to hand, I shall be disappointed.
Maybe they were heavily invested in stuff with lightning ports or something, so they didn't notice 5 years ago when everything else started to consolidate.
So yeah, from my point of view, USB-C just works. I have an iPhone 12 so no USB-C yet but I can’t wait to upgrade (maybe next year) to finally have USB-C everywhere.
I don’t care that not all cables support every feature or whatever, I don’t feel like it’s a really common issue in practice.
And yes I refuse to buy e waste bluetooth headphones that cost 5 times the price of wired ones, kill the battery 5 times faster and have to be trashed every other year because of glued/soldered tiny ass batteries
Outside that application the most annoying issue for me is power only cables - which isn't its fault. Aside from that it's the best we have a by a long way.
Get a cable tester.
Test every cable and cut up/throw away the ones you do not love.
Then order more really good ones than you can justify and keep them handy.
(Speaking as someone that bought a tester but rarely uses it. If the cable doesn't at least work to connect my laptop and whatever peripheral that I have handy at time: trash can.$
The third-part 60W USB-C charger I bought from Amazon charges my macBook,my Chromebook, my Phone, and my drill!
But yes, iPhone is different of course..
I can imagine a day, 10 years from now, when I only carry an IEC power cable,a 2-prong power cable, a Cat 7, 8, or 9 Ethernet cable,a HDMI cable with a couple of adapters, and a few USB-C cables.
If we keep improving USB-C cables like we have Cat cables, and keep them at 28 V, 5 A power delivery, with power meters on at least one connector, I'll be happy.
If you're using a monitor (as opposed to a tv) you can ditch the HDMI cable, and use USB-C DP AltMode.
C7 non-polarized, probably
I don't understand this comment in the article. What is incredible about that? I mean, I could turn my notebook or smartphone over and it would still charge the same, what's the big deal?
>This situation is worsened by the fact that many manufacturers now ship devices without a charging brick.
Which ones (so I can avoid them)? I just purchased a Dell notebook earlier this year and it came with a brick.
The people who complain about it are almost exclusively people who don't actually use it, but love to complain about it.
Plugging in a laptop is a nuisance, but at least I can do that every time I sit down to start working and it will manage itself all day.
The thing about my mouse is that when the battery gets low, I can just connect it to my laptop with the charging cable and continue working. It's much more convenient than quitting for the day, and cheaper than buying a second mouse.
I can’t think of any other recent electronics device that cannot be used while charging.
None of those can give me any meaningful amount of use time (and definitely not enough for a full work day) from a 2 minute charge.
My mouse can. The port location is not a problem. The constant whining about it from people who largely don't use it is more annoying than any disruption a charge cycle causes.
If my Logitech G502 Lightspeed mouse couldn't charge while in use, I wouldn't even consider buying it.
Because when I pay for premium service, I expect premium delivery.
Anything else is fanboyism, handwaving and/or stockholm syndrome.
Specially because previous generation of apple's mice could be charged while in use.
I don't know why you're so upset on defending a downgrade with zero tradeoffs, only to end up with an inferior product.
Similarly, if a mouse doesn't support touch gestures I wouldn't consider buying it.
I guess we both make compromises: you never have gesture support, I maybe can't use the mouse for two minutes while I go make a coffee if I forget to charge it overnight once a month.
> Specially because previous generation of apple's mice could be charged while in use.
The first version of the Magic Mouse required you to change AA batteries, and its predecessor was a wired USB mouse. Not really sure how you think either of those is charging while you use it?
I prefer many physical buttons for reliable macros :)
But when it comes to charging, there's no reason to just happily accept and defend an inferior solution for no tradeoff whatsoever.
It's literally a non issue that gets paraded out by people who don't use it at every opportunity.
When my mouse starts blinking I just plug cable and continue whatever I'm doing and it's a solved problem. No second guessing if I can take a break now in the middle of a meeting, no unnecessary cognitive load, no need to remember to charge it when "I have the time", it's... magical.
It just works.
But for those that do, it's great that we have choices.
I expect, if they ever get around to redesigning that mouse, they’ll change the port, if only to avoid derision. The recent port change was not enough to warrant moving the port. That front edge is quite thin so there may not be enough room in the current case.
why?
if it was a cheap chinese tier 3 mice that would still be debatable
let alone overpriced hardware
But I think that the USB folks dropped the ball when they made a whole bunch of things "optional" in the spec and still allowed the USB symbol to be used: they should have have gone after anyone selling something not certified but still using their trademark. Perhaps get the US International Trade Commission to do import bans (and equivalents in other countries and the EU).
Their naming convention also does not help ("USB4 Gen 3×2"? WTF?).