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Apple's support page on USB-C power seems to be a sign that all is not well at Apple. > https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700 https://support.apple.com/en-u

by jld 10y ago

Apple's support page on USB-C power seems to be a sign that all is not well at Apple. > https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700 You can verify that you're using the correct version of the Apple USB-C Charge Cable with your Mac notebook and its USB-C AC Adapter. The cable's serial number is printed on its external housing, next to the words "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." • If the first three characters of the serial number are C4M or FL4, the cable is for use with the Apple 29W USB-C Power Adapter. • If the first three characters of the serial number are DLC or CTC, the cable is for use with the Apple 61W or 87W USB-C Power Adapter. • If the cable says "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China" but has no serial number, you might be eligible for a replacement USB-C charge cable. For a company whose brand was for quite some time "It just works" to ask you to read a serial number, printed in gray, in 4 or 6 point font, off a light gray cable is dumbfounding. Here's a photo of an Apple USB-C charging cable to illustrate what finding the serial number looks like. http://i.imgur.com/ffVLDYl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ffVLDYl.jpg The serial number is right below the control key, if you're curious.

kylec 10y ago
I knew the power bricks were different between the 12", 13", and 15", but I had no idea that the completely identical cables were also different and potentially incompatible. This whole transition has been a huge mess so far.
- phil21 10y ago
  And absolutely needlessly so. You can ship a fully compliant USB-C 3.1 cable for probably 40 cents more than a cheap version. It makes no sense to start a rollout this way, especially from a company like Apple.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    What about Apple's cables makes them noncompliant?
    - lobster_johnson 10y ago
      The charge cable is USB 2.0, I believe. It's not that it's not compliant, it's just intended for charging only.
      - m_mueller 10y ago
        As someone watching this mess from the sidelines (no intention to buy a computer within a year) I think this annoys me much more than all the other problems reported so far. How can they make a mess out of their own lineup of a newly launched port so much? Inexcusable.
  - whywhywhywhy 10y ago
    > You can ship a fully compliant USB-C 3.1 cable for probably 40 cents more than a cheap version. It makes no sense to start a rollout this way, especially from a company like Apple You're talking about the company that no longer ships power cables with a little plastic clip to keep them tidy and now sells the extended lead as an extra, both of which have been in every one of their laptop chargers for 15 years+
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - drcongo 10y ago
      To be fair, that plastic wind up clip was almost certainly the primary cause of failure in the old power bricks. Anyone who has ever worked as a roadie knows that that's an entirely wrong way to wind a cable.
    - dmtroyer 10y ago
      also, to be fair, I wonder how many of the extensions died in the box.
- bluedino 10y ago
  That's more USB-C than Apple. http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/10/29/total-nightmare-usb-c-thunderbolt-3/ http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/10/29/total-nightmare-usb-c-th...
  - tw04 10y ago
    No, that's literally 100% Apple. They could've very easily shipped the higher specced cables for what amounts to a rounding error in the total overall cost. They just chose not to in order to sell more cables. They can now tell people that a cable is "only compatible with model X" - when in reality the 15" pro cable is compatible with all 3.
    - ChuckMcM 10y ago
      Exactly this. There is absolutely no technical reason that Apple could not ship one cable that works on all adapters, it would be overkill for some and just right for the high end one and the difference in money would be trivial compared to the support calls from people who can't get the cable to work or it fails while they are using it.
      - saurik 10y ago
        I don't think they sell the 12" MacBook cables stand-alone; I went to the store to get a new one, and they just sell the beefier ones. I personally think the problem is that the 12" MacBook was a test run of USB-C, and the cables they shipped for that ended up not being good enough to handle the needs of the new laptop they didn't ship until a year and a half later.
        abritinthebay 10y ago
        That's too sensible for an Apple hate thread, sorry. The inane uninformed rant is more what this comment thread is about.
      - brudgers 10y ago
        I suspect that the root is different purchasing agents writing different contracts based on different specs with different manufacturers. Each of which is optimizing locally and perhaps with an eye on their performance review and bonus. Just because nobody calls Apple 'enterprise' doesn't mean it ain't.
steven777400 10y ago
What happens if the wrong cable/adapter are combined? I'm just curious as a non-Apple user. I mix-and-match USB-B chargers and cables between my various devices all the time, and never experience a problem (except maybe slower than maximum charging sometimes). I assume the issue here would also simply be sub-optimal charging; but I have heard that some USB-C situations can actually be dangerous to the device since more power logic is in the USB cable ends?
- saurik 10y ago
  I am pretty sure you can use the cables that are designed to support the higher wattage chargers on the smaller devices (and that's what I'm doing right now: Apple doesn't even sell the crappier cable the 12" MacBook shipped with a year and a half ago standalone right now, AFAIK).
- colechristensen 10y ago
  Some usb-c cables that don't follow the usb spec can be dangerous (i.e. cheap 3rd party cables) Apple cables wouldn't have a problem with this, they would just charge devices slowly. The only danger occurs when usb cables lie about what they can do (in the physical layer to the host/slave devices)
- bravo22 10y ago
  cables are rated for different power and that is signalled by specific resistor values. I'm assuming in this case Apple just cheaped out, to save a few cents, and didn't make them all rated for 3A. Therefore you'd only get slow charging as a side-effect.
sliken 10y ago
USB replaces a huge number of different cables[1]. [1] With a bunch of incompatible and identical looking USB-C cables.
- ClassyJacket 10y ago
  Exactly. In a way it's worse, because at least before you could tell what a cable was compatible with by looking. HDMI, ethernet, USB, all easily distinguishable. And power cables generally worked with the thing they could plug into (not always, but generally. A lower powered Magsafe charger could at least charge a higher powered MacBook, even if it would drain if in use.) Now we have a mess of incompatible cables AND you can't tell the difference by looking at them. They should've called USB-C, USB 4, and said "Right, there's one type of USB 4 cable, and it works with everything it can be plugged into."
  - tesseract 10y ago
    Even if all USB-C cables were the highest spec and worked with anything USB-C, further multiplexing the port with Thunderbolt 3 adds yet another whole layer of messiness. Not only are Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C cables not interchangeable but there are a whole bunch of interop issues surrounding Thunderbolt 3: http://plugable.com/thunderbolt-3/ http://plugable.com/thunderbolt-3/ gives a good overview.
- qyv 10y ago
  I have said this in other threads: Herein lies the rub of USB-C: It isn't a universal logical interface, it is a multi-use physical connector. By overloading the port's logical functions you introduce incompatible physical configurations.
bla2 10y ago
I've had a Mac since 2004. In that time, I had several defective logic boards and several defective displays, and one (slowly, harmlessly) exploding battery. In these cases, I also had to read off a tiny gray serial number off my laptop somewhere, this isn't really new. Hardware fails sometimes, it happens. In my experience, Apple's hardware in the last few years is much more reliable than their hardware a decade ago. Their software quality, on the other hand...
- vacri 10y ago
  You're talking about returning defective hardware. The OP is talking about determining compatibility on identical-looking hardware.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mmastrac 10y ago
I tried searching for one on my wife's new 13" MBP cable. Holy crap, that took me five minutes to find. If you hadn't given me a rough idea of where to look, never would have found it.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ImeanYeahOK454 10y ago
I mean, compared to MobileMe, Maps, G4 Cube, history of wifi problems, separating rubber charging cables... This hardly seems like one of their worst "It's amazing, just works... except it isn't and it doesn't" moments. Have you tried dealing with all their various programs to get dev certs, or keys for distributing profiles to devices as an IT team? "Fill out this form, and wait." Maybe that's changed, but to get a refund for a mistaken business account purchase of a bundle pack of iLife licenses (before it was included with machines) was filling out and snail mailing a paper form. Then waiting. The "just works" has, IMO, only ever applied to their high-profile products.
coldtea 10y ago
>For a company whose brand was for quite some time "It just works" to ask you to read a serial number, printed in gray, in 4 or 6 point font, off a light gray cable is dumbfounding. They had the same kind of support pages since forever, with the same kind of instructions (checking which exactly model mac or router you have, which cable goes where, what video connections your thunderbolt supports, etc). It's for troubleshooting specific conditions, not for everyday consulting. When you get your laptop and your cable in the box, it just works, obviously.
- m_mueller 10y ago
  Living in a household with all kinds of Apple devices this is just not how this is going to work out long term. Family members borrow cables, you use one to connect something else while leaving the charger in another room, then you put it back but you mix up all these same looking white cables, and next thing you know your computer isn't charging properly anymore. Sorry, this is not acceptable. Apple used to sweat these details. If they don't anymore I can as well buy PCs from now on.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Living in a household with all kinds of Apple devices this is just not how this is going to work out long term. Family members borrow cables, you use one to connect something else while leaving the charger in another room, then you put it back but you mix up all these same looking white cables, and next thing you know your computer isn't charging properly anymore. Then maybe one could just use the higher ranked cables for everything in the family? >Sorry, this is not acceptable. Sounds totally acceptable, and relatively minor. It might be because I'm foreign, but a phrase like "not acceptable" sounds more fit for another country wanting to invade yours, or at least a guest making a pass at your spouse, not whether one can easily re-use cables between devices. Even if we constrain it to computers, Apple did have its share of "not acceptable" issues (e.g. green cooling goo leaking out of old Mac Pros, display glitches, etc). Those were indeed not acceptable as they actually and actively prevented working with the computer. I don't see mixed cables with other devices as a reason not to accept (which to me would mean "return") a laptop.
mrmondo 10y ago
Just like it's always been with chargers - it still does "just work" but the correctly powered charger will charge much faster, no different to previous MacBooks, iPhones or iPads.

by jld 10y ago

kylec 10y ago

I knew the power bricks were different between the 12", 13", and 15", but I had no idea that the completely identical cables were also different and potentially incompatible. This whole transition has been a huge mess so far.

phil21 10y ago
And absolutely needlessly so. You can ship a fully compliant USB-C 3.1 cable for probably 40 cents more than a cheap version. It makes no sense to start a rollout this way, especially from a company like Apple.
- tedunangst 10y ago
  What about Apple's cables makes them noncompliant?
  - lobster_johnson 10y ago
    The charge cable is USB 2.0, I believe. It's not that it's not compliant, it's just intended for charging only.
    - m_mueller 10y ago
      As someone watching this mess from the sidelines (no intention to buy a computer within a year) I think this annoys me much more than all the other problems reported so far. How can they make a mess out of their own lineup of a newly launched port so much? Inexcusable.
- whywhywhywhy 10y ago
  > You can ship a fully compliant USB-C 3.1 cable for probably 40 cents more than a cheap version. It makes no sense to start a rollout this way, especially from a company like Apple You're talking about the company that no longer ships power cables with a little plastic clip to keep them tidy and now sells the extended lead as an extra, both of which have been in every one of their laptop chargers for 15 years+
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - drcongo 10y ago
    To be fair, that plastic wind up clip was almost certainly the primary cause of failure in the old power bricks. Anyone who has ever worked as a roadie knows that that's an entirely wrong way to wind a cable.
  - dmtroyer 10y ago
    also, to be fair, I wonder how many of the extensions died in the box.
bluedino 10y ago
That's more USB-C than Apple. http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/10/29/total-nightmare-usb-c-thunderbolt-3/ http://blog.fosketts.net/2016/10/29/total-nightmare-usb-c-th...
- tw04 10y ago
  No, that's literally 100% Apple. They could've very easily shipped the higher specced cables for what amounts to a rounding error in the total overall cost. They just chose not to in order to sell more cables. They can now tell people that a cable is "only compatible with model X" - when in reality the 15" pro cable is compatible with all 3.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    Exactly this. There is absolutely no technical reason that Apple could not ship one cable that works on all adapters, it would be overkill for some and just right for the high end one and the difference in money would be trivial compared to the support calls from people who can't get the cable to work or it fails while they are using it.
    - saurik 10y ago
      I don't think they sell the 12" MacBook cables stand-alone; I went to the store to get a new one, and they just sell the beefier ones. I personally think the problem is that the 12" MacBook was a test run of USB-C, and the cables they shipped for that ended up not being good enough to handle the needs of the new laptop they didn't ship until a year and a half later.
      - abritinthebay 10y ago
        That's too sensible for an Apple hate thread, sorry. The inane uninformed rant is more what this comment thread is about.
    - brudgers 10y ago
      I suspect that the root is different purchasing agents writing different contracts based on different specs with different manufacturers. Each of which is optimizing locally and perhaps with an eye on their performance review and bonus. Just because nobody calls Apple 'enterprise' doesn't mean it ain't.

steven777400 10y ago

What happens if the wrong cable/adapter are combined? I'm just curious as a non-Apple user. I mix-and-match USB-B chargers and cables between my various devices all the time, and never experience a problem (except maybe slower than maximum charging sometimes). I assume the issue here would also simply be sub-optimal charging; but I have heard that some USB-C situations can actually be dangerous to the device since more power logic is in the USB cable ends?

saurik 10y ago
I am pretty sure you can use the cables that are designed to support the higher wattage chargers on the smaller devices (and that's what I'm doing right now: Apple doesn't even sell the crappier cable the 12" MacBook shipped with a year and a half ago standalone right now, AFAIK).
colechristensen 10y ago
Some usb-c cables that don't follow the usb spec can be dangerous (i.e. cheap 3rd party cables) Apple cables wouldn't have a problem with this, they would just charge devices slowly. The only danger occurs when usb cables lie about what they can do (in the physical layer to the host/slave devices)
bravo22 10y ago
cables are rated for different power and that is signalled by specific resistor values. I'm assuming in this case Apple just cheaped out, to save a few cents, and didn't make them all rated for 3A. Therefore you'd only get slow charging as a side-effect.

sliken 10y ago

USB replaces a huge number of different cables[1]. [1] With a bunch of incompatible and identical looking USB-C cables.

ClassyJacket 10y ago
Exactly. In a way it's worse, because at least before you could tell what a cable was compatible with by looking. HDMI, ethernet, USB, all easily distinguishable. And power cables generally worked with the thing they could plug into (not always, but generally. A lower powered Magsafe charger could at least charge a higher powered MacBook, even if it would drain if in use.) Now we have a mess of incompatible cables AND you can't tell the difference by looking at them. They should've called USB-C, USB 4, and said "Right, there's one type of USB 4 cable, and it works with everything it can be plugged into."
- tesseract 10y ago
  Even if all USB-C cables were the highest spec and worked with anything USB-C, further multiplexing the port with Thunderbolt 3 adds yet another whole layer of messiness. Not only are Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C cables not interchangeable but there are a whole bunch of interop issues surrounding Thunderbolt 3: http://plugable.com/thunderbolt-3/ http://plugable.com/thunderbolt-3/ gives a good overview.
qyv 10y ago
I have said this in other threads: Herein lies the rub of USB-C: It isn't a universal logical interface, it is a multi-use physical connector. By overloading the port's logical functions you introduce incompatible physical configurations.

bla2 10y ago

I've had a Mac since 2004. In that time, I had several defective logic boards and several defective displays, and one (slowly, harmlessly) exploding battery. In these cases, I also had to read off a tiny gray serial number off my laptop somewhere, this isn't really new. Hardware fails sometimes, it happens. In my experience, Apple's hardware in the last few years is much more reliable than their hardware a decade ago. Their software quality, on the other hand...

vacri 10y ago
You're talking about returning defective hardware. The OP is talking about determining compatibility on identical-looking hardware.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mmastrac 10y ago

I tried searching for one on my wife's new 13" MBP cable. Holy crap, that took me five minutes to find. If you hadn't given me a rough idea of where to look, never would have found it.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ImeanYeahOK454 10y ago

I mean, compared to MobileMe, Maps, G4 Cube, history of wifi problems, separating rubber charging cables... This hardly seems like one of their worst "It's amazing, just works... except it isn't and it doesn't" moments. Have you tried dealing with all their various programs to get dev certs, or keys for distributing profiles to devices as an IT team? "Fill out this form, and wait." Maybe that's changed, but to get a refund for a mistaken business account purchase of a bundle pack of iLife licenses (before it was included with machines) was filling out and snail mailing a paper form. Then waiting. The "just works" has, IMO, only ever applied to their high-profile products.

coldtea 10y ago

>For a company whose brand was for quite some time "It just works" to ask you to read a serial number, printed in gray, in 4 or 6 point font, off a light gray cable is dumbfounding. They had the same kind of support pages since forever, with the same kind of instructions (checking which exactly model mac or router you have, which cable goes where, what video connections your thunderbolt supports, etc). It's for troubleshooting specific conditions, not for everyday consulting. When you get your laptop and your cable in the box, it just works, obviously.

m_mueller 10y ago
Living in a household with all kinds of Apple devices this is just not how this is going to work out long term. Family members borrow cables, you use one to connect something else while leaving the charger in another room, then you put it back but you mix up all these same looking white cables, and next thing you know your computer isn't charging properly anymore. Sorry, this is not acceptable. Apple used to sweat these details. If they don't anymore I can as well buy PCs from now on.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Living in a household with all kinds of Apple devices this is just not how this is going to work out long term. Family members borrow cables, you use one to connect something else while leaving the charger in another room, then you put it back but you mix up all these same looking white cables, and next thing you know your computer isn't charging properly anymore. Then maybe one could just use the higher ranked cables for everything in the family? >Sorry, this is not acceptable. Sounds totally acceptable, and relatively minor. It might be because I'm foreign, but a phrase like "not acceptable" sounds more fit for another country wanting to invade yours, or at least a guest making a pass at your spouse, not whether one can easily re-use cables between devices. Even if we constrain it to computers, Apple did have its share of "not acceptable" issues (e.g. green cooling goo leaking out of old Mac Pros, display glitches, etc). Those were indeed not acceptable as they actually and actively prevented working with the computer. I don't see mixed cables with other devices as a reason not to accept (which to me would mean "return") a laptop.

mrmondo 10y ago

Just like it's always been with chargers - it still does "just work" but the correctly powered charger will charge much faster, no different to previous MacBooks, iPhones or iPads.