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Having a standard plug is great, I hope we stick with it for decades and gradually the situation will improve as everyone gets used to the standard.
USB-C gets rid of all the stupid previous decisions on the physical connectors (orientation required but not obvious, fragile clips, too large, too small), the physical side of things is now set and hopefully all devices, chargers and outlets will now converge on usb-c.
Yes getting the right cable can make a difference but the situation is so much better than before, partly because phone manufacturers were forced by the EU to adopt one connector early one. I’m so glad Apple’s proprietary connector is gone.
> I’m so glad Apple’s proprietary connector is gone.
Apple made Lightning when the rest of the world was still mucking about with Micro-USB, which I would argue is just about the worst connector ever in common use. The only type of cable where I routinely kept a half dozen on hand because they failed so damn often.
I do like USB-C, but despite being superior (physically) on paper, it's not as robust as Lightning, definitely more finicky. But it has more capability, which is important.
USB-C is very far from a perfect connector. The female side still has a fragile plastic tongue that can break. They also reliably wear out with use, both the cables and the socket. We've all seen them fail. Actually all the USB connectors do eventually, because they all rely on a thin piece of sheet metal not bending when lateral force is applied. And, reversibility notwithstanding, they are still hard to fumble into place compared to (say) RJ45, or 3.5mm TRRS.
I have no love for Apple and their proprietary nonsense, but even lightning is a strictly better connector than USB-C - easier to insert, less fragile, better wearing. Still too many wires though.
I wish we'd used something like TRRRS, and stuck to 4 wires. Very robust, any orientation, easy to fumble in blind.
Standard plug is great but government need to mandate labeling.
I'm stuck putting wire labels on every USB c cable I own. I can't tell the difference between a 3A and 5A cable otherwise, same for usb2.0 only cables vs 3.1 vs 3.2 4x,whatever the fuck.
Lightning remains a better physical connection. So many USB-C connections I have are flimsy as hell.
USB-C is much better than micro or mini, but still lacks the robustness of A. I would far rather have something a few mm bigger but tough.
No need to overthink it. USB cables should just label themselves with their bandwidth - it's not rocket science. Lots of other kinds of cables have a similar requirement. And I guess their maximum watts too. Admittedly I'm not sure why so few USB cables do this.
I'd very much rather not have a new connector shape every time the technology improves and devices and cables gain new capabilities. The benefit of where USB-C is at, is the new stuff is backwards compatible with previous generations. The complaints in the early years - about one connector, unpredictable capabilities - were wrong. It took time for this benefit to accrue.
Also all the version numbers and brand names have been confusing, but the bandwidth is just a single number that goes up each generation and covers most of the issues now. There are just a few edge cases this doesn't cover these days.
Most USB C cables do have a label, but it's an electronic one. Desktop and mobile OSes could do a better job of surfacing this information for the user.
> USB cables should just label themselves with their bandwidth
Article: "MacBook Neo’s two USB-C ports look identical. One is 20× faster."
The anti-UX designers have escaped from the web design containment dimension and started to ruin the physical world. I didn't mind at all the different colors on ports for USB 2.0, 3.0 and the unofficial teal 10 Gbps USB 3.x (whatever revision) etc.
The most infuriating part is that the USB-IF actually designed those labels already!
The graphics already exist[0], and they are quite clear about what the cable is able to do. Manufacturers just... can't be bothered?
[0]: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb_type-c_cable_log...
>No need to overthink it. USB cables should just label themselves with their bandwidth - it's not rocket science.
And yet, this requirement already misses the other thing it should state: it's power rating. Because even two cables with the same bandwidth can have widely different power rating, and thus powering capacity or charging speed for different devices.
https://randsinrepose.com/guides/usb/usb-guide.html
this is 100% Claude-generated,and without citations I'd be very careful at trusting it. wonder why whoever prompted this in existence would not include actual references and sources of information.
disclaimer: me -> everyday CC user, so trust me, this thing loves to spit nonsense.
https://randsinrepose.com/guides/usb/sources.html — every single fact is sourced.
Yes I gave up reading half way and came here for the discussion because the style of writing was so bad and it doesn’t really seem to have a point to make.
Not sure what value someone generating slop like this thinks they are adding but I think it’ll become a strong social stigma to generate articles and people will later be very embarrassed by all this slop.
USB-C is in fact completely fine in normal use, and cheap cables are about the only problem with it.
In an alternate world, Ethernet took on the role of the universal serial bus, and we have laptops that charge via PoE, but only possible on one of their ports (the others are usable for peripherals --- with protocols running over Ethernet too, of course.) But the same confusion regarding power and speed capabilities exists.
We'd have to invent a new connector first. It's too thick for modern laptops, not to speak of cell phones.
Also, RJ45 is terribly fragile if you keep plugging and unplugging it, eventually that latch will break. And copper can barely support 10G and is terribly power hungry when it does that. And the cables get thick and inflexible.
People would still complain that you can pickup the wrong cable and it won't work for 10GbE and that the ports look the same but some work on 10Mbit and others on 2.5GbE!
Some can even give and receive power and look the same as others that can't!
I modded a laptop to charge over PoE in 2007. Before realizing that the places that had PoE, and the places I wanted to charge my laptop, had nearly zero overlap. It was virtually useless in practice, but I still love the idea.
I have not yet made a laptop to output PoE. Though it would be tremendously useful for provisioning IP cameras, there are dedicated thick-tablet-shaped devices for that, which do source PoE from their batteries.
Even though both USB and Ethernet transport bits, the surrounding ecosystem is so different that it couldn't really be a replacement.
Devices plugged into an Ethernet network are true peers, but USB is master-slave by necessity. Ethernet devices have unique addresses, but USB devices can be anonymous, only identified based on the port they're plugged into. Ethernet is best-effort with buffering and packet dropping, but USB provides guaranteed delivery with tightly bounded latency. Ethernet signals must travel up to 100 meters but USB requires the host and device to be within a few meters. You could reuse the physical wires, maybe (we already do! USB runs on twisted-pair) but nothing else, from the connector to the topology, is usable.
I wish they would have developed a data-over-powerline protocol specifically to link your monitor's USB to your PCs. Especially for computers 20+ years ago, almost everyone plugged their monitor into the same AC power jack as the PC. They could have had a USB 1.x connection between the monitor -> AC power -> power supply -> motherboard so you could plug your slower USB devices into your monitor and skip the USB cable. Apple had this, I guess, with imac, and I know about powerline ethernet devices, but I think they skipped the most obvious use case.
I'd rather prefer Ethernet over USB 2.0. Full duplex, galvanically isolated and cheap fiber converters, (relatively) lightweight host implementation possible, no "transaction translator" madness (at the cost of slightly more expensive hubs). Too bad it is such a power hog.
Ethernet is different in part because it's for much longer cable runs (both average and maximum) than usb is. It's a lot easier to maintain signal integrity for 10 gbps or 40 gbps when you're dealing with a few meters maximum (0.8m max I guess for usb4?).
One of my pet peeves with USB C is that many laptop manufacturers went "great less space occupied we can push the porta closer together to make space for something else", but many USB C devices (particularly USB Sticks ...) have inherited the dimensions of USB A. So there is not enough space for a plug and cable, e.g. I can't use my yubi key while my monitor is connected to the laptop.
The USB-C specification[0] recommends a minimum 12.85mm heart-to-heart distance between ports. Fine for cables, probably not fine for dongles.
USB-A mandates[0] a maximum overmold size of the plug of 16mm, so the minimum heart-to-heart distance is going to be a hair above that, although I don't think anyone is placing them that tightly together in practice.
[0]: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB%20Type-C%20Spec%...
It would help if computers / phones had an easy way to just identify a cable when you plug it in. Is this hard to do or just something normal people never care about?
Per Dave Barry
"The plug on this device represents the latest thinking of the electrical industry's Plug Mutation Group, which, in a continuing effort to prevent consumers from causing hazardous electrical current to flow through their appliances, developed the Three-Pronged Plug, then the Plug Where One Prong is Bigger Than the Other. Your device is equiped with the revolutionary new Plug Whose Prongs Consist of Six Small Religious Figurines Made of Chocolate. DO NOT TRY TO PLUG IT IN! Lay it gently on the floor near an outlet, but out of direct sunlight, and clean it weekly with a damp handkerchief."
Feels like the appropriate place to put this link: https://www.lttstore.com/products/ltt-truespec-cable-usb-typ...
I would love it if newer revisions of USB specified standard colors for indicating negotiated mode and cable support.
The main issue I have is the lack of visibility.
“The lie”, “The Gap”, “The Trap”…
Ugh.
I get the frustration over standards for high speed and high power applications. I note this:
For many/most applications, 5V/1A power + 480Mbps USB 2.0 data is supported on every or almost every USB cable and device, and exceeds requirements. USB C being ubiquitous and capable of these makes it a the most consolidated/universal power + data standard I have experienced in my life. It's also a small connector that's easy to plug in.
There are exceptions: Charging your laptop or phone benefits from higher current. External drives or other mass data transfer benefits from high speed. I look at the electronics devices (Computer peripherals and otherwise), and most are fine with USB-C for power and data, not coming close to the limits on either.
And on top of that, Apple has that thing where only some devices can charge from their adapters. I have a special adapter just for non-Apple things because the white bricks (despite the usb-c) sometimes just refuse to give power to things. So frustrating.
Yup. I have a work laptop that is meant to charge via USB ... But only one of the two ports will charge ... They are right beside each other! An evil trick at the office is to move someone's USB cable from one port to the other.
Unfortunately, the USB label is trying to capture too many things and they really should've learned their lesson with USB 2.0 but they didn't.
So USB 1.1 was 12Mbps (theoretical). USB 2.0 as 480Mbps (theoretical)... kind of. It got complicated because a distinction was made between USB 2.0 Full Speed and USB 2.0 Hi Speed. "Full" Speed was just USB 1.1 (12Mbps). USB 2.0 Hi Pseed was the 480Mbps. I assume they didn't want to confuse consumers who might wonder if they can plug USB 1.1 and 2.0 together but they just created more confusion. Nikon famously started saying USB 2.0 for Full speed, as just one example.
So the version number is useless to consumers and should never be used.
This got a whole lot worse with USB 3.0+ because more capabilities got added to the standard but not all cables supported them so you could look at a cable and have no idea what it could do. Capabilities include:
- Data. This started at 5Gbps for SuperSpeed but has gone higher with subsequent versions.
- Power (max wattage varied)
- USB Alt Mode (DP, HDMI or TB over USB-C)
So how do you capture at least 5 capabilities of a cable? You can't make a cable do everything. That's prohibitively expensive and also massively limits cable length.
Whatever the case, saying things like "USB 3.2 Gen 2" was not the answer.
The two things every IT person now needs, a USB-C cable tester[0] and a USB Charger tester[1].
0. https://www.pcworld.com/article/3014680/your-usb-c-cables-ar...
Never forget Rands was in Jerkcity (now Bonequest) and had them retroactively replace his character with atandt:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170918052437/http://www.jerkci...
> The USB situation.
> The lie.
> The gap.
> The names.
> The age.
> The trap.
> The buy.
> The truth.
> The chain.
> The lunacy.
> The cheat sheet.
Fucking LLMs have literally ruined the word "the" for me.
To be fair, even state of the art of high-speed data cables are thick and relatively inflexible. I simply wouldn't want every cable to be a high-speed cable if that meant they were all chunky. I do agree that it should be clearer at a glance what you can expect from a port or cable.
Was HDMI any better? =P
And somehow, we survived.
IME, having the right cable is 100x more useful than having a fast one.
That said, the only weirdness I've experienced is a device that came with a USB C to A cable that would not take power from a C to C
It's not about USB, it's cry about Apple.
Don't cry, just throw all bad apples away.
The problem with USB-C is more in explaining it to the non-technical than it is a problem for HN crowd.
The most straightforward solution is to buy the highest speed/power rated cables from Apple/Anker and throw away whatever slop comes with your devices. As far as I can tell, there is generally no downside to using the best cable for everything, aside from cost. But then you are spending $70 at Apple or $45 with Anker per cable.
Short of doing that I have dealt with every stupidity between brand new 2026 cables that are USB-2 speed, power cables that do not move data, data cables that do not offer power, and even cheapo cables that are directional and do not work if plugged in the other way.
Another problem with USB-C is the non-standard connector plastic shapes/sizes. Some percent of my cables don't fit into my personal and/or work iPhone cases because they have an oddly sized plastic connector.
None of this seems optimal for explaining to my senior parents why [Device A] won't plug into [Device B] via [Cable C].
I think USB-C is certainly a step in the right direction.
The remaining problem is the lack of CLEAR, easy to understand markings on the cable that indicate whether it’s intended as power delivery cable or as a 10Gbps data cable or as a thunderbolt-capable cable or any of many combinations in between those. This should not be limited to physical markings on the cable itself but also in the form of electronic self-identification so that you could plug in a cable and have the OS tell you exactly what cable you plugged in. Why not? We have power-delivery protocols, adding cable self-id would be a trivial addition.
I suspect the vendors of these, and perhaps the designers of the spec too, have deliberately made this confusion an integral part of the standard. It creates churn and consumers buying more cables than they need.
Just switch to a different brand then.
I hate obviously AI written posts so much. Not spending my time with reading
What in the slop is this.
Yet another interesting article wit grey text on white background, making it very hard for me to read.
I wish people would realize doing this can lockout people with some eye issues.
@dang, can we please get a flag function for ai slop?
"The lie, the age, the gap, the trap, the names, the buy, the ..."
I really don't come to HN to read such a stuff and HN is full of it since months. Please let us flag it and filter it out.