Will Charging Cables Ever Have a Single Standardzed Port? (msn.com)
- Reference: 0175389553
- News link: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/11/04/0131255/will-charging-cables-ever-have-a-single-standardzed-port
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-broken-promise-of-usb-c/ar-AA1tqkZM
> A lack of standardization is not the problem here. The industry has designed, named, and rolled out a parade of standards that pertain to USB and all its cousins. Some of those standards live inside other standards. For example, USB 3.2 Gen 1 is also known as USB 3.0, even though it's numbered 3.2. (What? Yes.) And both of these might be applied to cables with USB-A connectors, or USB-B, or USB-Micro B, or — why not? — USB-C. The variations stretch on and on toward the horizon.
>
> Hope persists that someday, eventually, this hell can be escaped — and that, given sufficient standardization, regulatory intervention, and consumer demand, a winner will emerge in the battle of the plugs. But the dream of having a universal cable is always and forever doomed, because cables, like humankind itself, are subject to the curse of time, the most brutal standard of them all. At any given moment, people use devices they bought last week alongside those they've owned for years; they use the old plugs in rental cars or airport-gate-lounge seats; they buy new gadgets with even better capabilities that demand new and different (if similar-looking) cables. Even if Apple puts a USB-C port in every new device, and so does every other manufacturer, that doesn't mean that they will do everything you will expect cables to do in the future. Inevitably, you will find yourself needing new ones.
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> Back [3]in 1998 , the New York Times told me, "If you make your move to U.S.B. now, you can be sure that your new devices will have a port to plug into." I was ready! I'm still ready. But alas, a port to plug into has never been enough.
[4]Obligatory XKCD .
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-broken-promise-of-usb-c/ar-AA1tqkZM
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/11/apple-usb-c-charging-cables-iphone-android/672119/
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/17/technology/downtime-universal-serial-bus-is-finally-picking-up-some-passengers.html?searchResultPosition=1
[4] https://xkcd.com/927/
Problem, variance in abilities over same port. (Score:2)
Does your USB-C port support Thunderbolt or not? What kind, which is important because later Thunderbolt can carry a lot of voltage... I think it's on the new Mac mini the thunderbolt USB-C are all on the back, but none on the front (even though there is USB-C on the front).
In theory it's a better world I guess when all connectors are just USB-C. In reality for users though, it sure seems prone to issues.
There is already one known case of revision - for a bit some Macbook Pros charged only over a USB-C p
Re: (Score:2)
Thunderbolt isn't even compatible with itself.
USB-C charging for laptops is the worst idea ever. The connector is too sensitive. 3 to 5 years is the lifetime for it, then it's worn out at my workplace.
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> "The connector is too sensitive. 3 to 5 years is the lifetime for it, then it's worn out at my workplace."
Which is why I use magnetic cables/dongles on almost all my equipment. These will almost guarantee no damage to the ports, while also making connection effortless, and they have lights on them so they are easy to find. My phone/device, I just point it at the cable and the cable almost leaps up and connects to it like magic. If the tiny dongle is somehow damaged, just pop in a new one. I converte
Itâ(TM)s just malicious at this point (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s just maliciousness at this point because for fucks sake, 90% of all it has to do is charge or transmit data.
I donâ(TM)t care if it can charge at the fastest rate or transmit data at the fastest rate. It should fall back on some slower rate and while inconvenient it wouldnâ(TM)t be as bad as the absolute nothing that goes now.
Why I canâ(TM)t plug-in an Apple lightning cable that works on an iPhone 8 or 10 but doesnâ(TM)t work on the current iPhone at all is beyond me. Or a m
portable cable tester (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought a battery powered USB cable tester for both 'A' and 'C' type cables. It has a series of LED lights showing you how the cable is wired internally. The trick was doing some research to see what the connection were applicable to. Did both data and power cables. I was finally able to sort out most of my cables.
Nonsense (Score:2)
Putting data standards aside, USB-C is pretty good at charging. I'm not familiar with these edge cases the author describes where charging doesn't always work with thunderbolt cables (which are a minority of cables sold).
This is not really a "battle of the plugs" like the author claims. We all use USB-C for charging and data and it's generally reverse compatible.
Re: (Score:2)
The quoted part of the article is pretty poor. It's an opinion piece by an author who doesn't seem to know much about the subject. And the Slashdot title is barely related to it.
"Will Charging Cables Ever Have a Single Standardzed Port?"
Assuming they mean charging small electronic devices, yes, it's USB-C. USB-C is the specification for a plug and the port it plugs into.
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Sorry, but the USB-C connector is a lot more sensitive than the old barrel connector on laptops. 3 to 5 years is the lifetime at my workplace.
Are you sure about that? (Score:2)
> Hope persists that someday, eventually, this hell can be escaped — and that, given sufficient standardization, regulatory intervention, and consumer demand, a winner will emerge in the battle of the plugs.
Oh, you mean the way that household appliances anywhere in the world all use the same plug?
They already do. (Score:2)
As long as your device uses only the voltages that are marked as required in the standard, and as long as the USB-C connector isn't on a cable that has a USB-A plug on the other end of it, it *should* "just work". The number of times that it has not for me is remarkably close to zero, and by that, I mean that the only devices I've ever seen that don't work are cheap garbage that uses the USB-C connector, but don't include the resistors necessary to tell a proper USB-C charger to provide power. These devi
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"Even charging cables pass data"? How, with only the power wires and no data wires?
The great thing about standards... (Score:2)
The truly great thing about standards is that there's always another one just around the corner.
Solved by China (Score:3)
I get all my USB-C devices from there. They just mark both most important things as of last year - speed and power throughput, f.ex. 40GB/s 100W. And this year also if video goes through. Solved.
This is a dumb hill to die on (Score:2)
For all practical purposes for most people USB-C is USB-C. A normal person might not notice that they aren't getting the highest speed transfer they could if they used that USB-C cable instead of this one, but a normal person isn't going to care. If you even know there is a difference between USB-C cables then you aren't normal. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)
Re: (Score:2)
There is truth to that. Except for connecting flash storage, anything not ancient for most purposes is fast enough on the data side. Will you really notice/care transferring those 50 photos off your camera or phone took 6 seconds instead of 3? And [typically] anything will work for charging, it just might take a lot longer than expected.
I am more annoyed by USB-C vs. Micro-USB vs. Mini-USB because I have devices with all three. USB-C is far superior as a connector, but that doesn't purge me of the old cr
I only use USB-D (Score:2)
All you people fucking around with old cables need to upgrade. USB-D does everything. No cable will ever be needed after that. I expect v2 to be available by next summer.
Standardzed (Score:2)
Assuming we ever get to USB Type-Z, I suppose we will.
I wouldn't mind if they just color coded them (Score:4, Insightful)
Color code the variants, plug and jack. USB-C could be fine if we knew what capability each port was in terms of speed class, and power offered.
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Better idea than those weird logos that aren't even on all ports anyway.
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If nothing else, they can turn on the spelling checker and pay attention to it.
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> "I wouldn't mind if they just color coded them"
You know, I clicked here to comment the same thing and you beat me to it. Call it by whatever backwards, confusing, inconsistent, stupid version/name you want, but we would then know what green, red, blue, purple, yellow, etc really is.
Although that really only works for color matching. Still not great for trying to figure out if green will be backwards compatible with red or forward compatible with yellow. Theoretically, they are all compatible, they ju
Re: (Score:2)
And how is color coding the cables going to help if you're color blind?
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> "And how is color coding the cables going to help if you're color blind?"
I suppose they could put braille on the end as well?
And how is that going to help if they have no fingers...