10 ms·

Honestly to me the worst thing about the new MacBook Pro isn't that there are no legacy ports on it or that the battery may be smaller, it's that the new all-th

by spilk 10y ago

Honestly to me the worst thing about the new MacBook Pro isn't that there are no legacy ports on it or that the battery may be smaller, it's that the new all-things-for-all-people ports it has are confusing. The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can you tell what sort of devices will work with a port by its physical shape. For instance, I have a Windows desktop machine with a single USB-C port on the back, but it's not a Thunderbolt 3 port. So while I could physically plug in a Thunderbolt 3-only device, it wouldn't function at all. Thunderbolt 3 is backward compatible with Thunderbolt 1/2 via an adapter, but the Thunderbolt 2 adapter that Apple sells does not function identically to a Thunderbolt 2 port on previous generation Macs - e.g. you cannot plug a Mini DisplayPort display into it. Thunderbolt displays do work with it though. Also, the lower-end 12" MacBook that Apple sells with a single USB-C port is NOT a Thunderbolt 3 port, so you have to know which devices that have identical connectors will work with it. Apple makes the distinction on its peripherals by screenprinting a little Thunderbolt logo onto the cable/connector housing. The messaging was reinforced with corresponding Thunderbolt logos next to the connectors on previous iterations of the MacBooks - making it obvious that these ports were not just Mini DisplayPorts but also Thunderbolt ports - but the new 2016 models don't appear to have anything like that on the hardware. Additionally, there are USB-C cables and Thunderbolt 3 cables. Thunderbolt 3 cables are apparently higher-spec and will always work as USB-C cables, but the opposite is not necessarily true.

IBM 10y ago
In practice most people aren't going to have multiple Macbooks, and if that's you you should go to Monoprice and just get different color cables for different types.
- fpgeek 10y ago
  People? So Apple isn't interested in selling to families and couples anymore?
  - IBM 10y ago
    Families is fair, but I think my advice still stands.
- ryanSrich 10y ago
  I don't think I'm an outlier. I have a late 2013 Macbook Pro issued from my employer. I also have a personal Macbook Pro. My wife has a new Macbook. I also have an old 2012 Macbook Air. So between two people there are 4 apple computers in a single household. Add in 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, and an Apple watch and this whole adapter situation starts to become a major issue.
wyager 10y ago
Putting everything and the kitchen sink into USB-C was a mistake. I already have a horrible mess of weird cables that aren't interoperable, don't support Superspeed, have current limits, etc. USB should be one thing and one thing only; a Universal Serial Bus. Can you send video over a serial connection? Great, let's do that instead of using the same physical connector for 85 different incompatible video cable designs that may or may not work with any given device. USB 1.1 was about the right level of complexity. Maybe a bit too high. Since then, we have gone off the rails. It's no longer reasonable to suspect that anything except super-high-end devices will even bother to support a majority of the things in the USB spec. How many laptops actually support most of the charge profiles? The MacBooks do, but none of my friends' non-mac laptops do. It's a mess. The speed we have now is great. Let's keep that. But let's also erase all the cruft and bring USB back to the simple, universal protocol it was supposed to be.
- krinchan 10y ago
  Even better, try finding a laptop that will run DisplayPort alternate mode over the USB-C port. EDIT: Or HDMI for that matter.
  - phil21 10y ago
    Ironically the MBP 2016 is probably the best for DP alternate mode over USB-C - thus far it's just worked for me on 3 different monitors. HDMI you should just give up on though...
  - jsjohnst 10y ago
    Apple: 12" rMB previous or current gen, 13"/15" rMBP current gen. Other: Alienware, Dell, HP, etc all have laptops doing it. I don't have the link handy that lists ten windows laptops supporting it last Spring, but I'm sure Google can find it for you and there's likely dozens more now.
krinchan 10y ago
Actually it isn't precisely Apple's fault. It's the USB-IFs fault. USB 3.1 in general is a mess. The spec allows for Alternate Modes, where the port is hardwired on the Motherboard to be able to be switched to deliver DisplayPort, HDMI, MHL, Thunderbolt, and damn near anything else you can figure out how to mux over the port's pins and cheaply demux on the other end of the cable. The best part is no one will actually list what Alternate Modes their laptop or motherboard supports. So if I want a laptop that supports, DisplayPort Alternate Mode with dual monitors, I'm opening support tickets with manufacturers asking "Does your USB-C port run this?" Apple and Intel simply followed along what with what was already a mess.
- riazrizvi 10y ago
  Apple is lauded for making confusing technology simple. It's not Apple's fault, it's Apple's missed opportunity and it's our high expectations of Apple that are being eroded.
  - Philipp__ 10y ago
    This! Thing is that situation with ports and adapters has never been worse, but Apple came there, wanted to be first again that will pull the plug on old technology and embrace the new one! But their execution was a miss. But anyway, my predictions are that from 2017. every Apple machine, wether it's computer or iPhone or iPad, will go down the USB-C route. Most probably next iPhone would use USB-C. And I just hope 2016. will be the year that was bad, and won't happen again. Since some Apple's small decisions were completely off, and we as costumers (or fans), are not used to it.
    - jellicle 10y ago
      Apple has never gone with an open standard when a proprietary closed standard would do. More likely than using any sort of standard port would be Apple inventing yet another new proprietary port.
      - stcredzero 10y ago
repler 10y ago
I dunno man, my eyes glazed over somewhere in the middle of that third paragraph and I'm just happy I don't have to deal with any of that. Think they'll wise up and change any of it on the next model?
- dave_sullivan 10y ago
  "Steve never would have backed down, remove more ports!" is how that product meeting will go.
  - supster 10y ago
    "The future is wireless!"
    - FireBeyond 10y ago
      That was actually Apple's summation when it came to issues like "why not support metered connections and data use limiting?" - that they didn't feel that is a compromise they should have to make.
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    The thing that bugs me about the argument for USB-C only on the new MBPs is that the early 2011 MBPs came out while Steve Jobs was alive. That year was the first appearance of the Thunderbolt port on a Macbook Pro. You could have theoretically removed every legacy port outside of the MagSafe port and only had a bunch of TB ports to handle the I/O of peripherals. Yet Apple left the USB, FW800 (on the 15/17, maybe the 13 too) and SD reader instead of making people buy dongles to make up for the slack.
    - jsjohnst 10y ago
      Jobs took medical leave January 17th, 2011.
      - slantyyz 10y ago
0x09 10y ago
I've gotten myself into a stupid situation where I have purchased something like 4 adapters that don't accomplish what I thought they would when I bought them. USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to HDMI -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to DVI-D -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to Ethernet - doesn't work I'm actually planning to just go to Best Buy today and try to find anything that will let me plug this into my old monitor here even if it has to be the official USB-C to VGA cable from Apple since I don't have time to wait for shipping at this point. I suppose this is my own fault but somehow I've never had this kind of problem in ~20 years of using a computer. Edit: There are also currently very few resources about compatibility between all these new adapters and Apple hasn't done anything to help in their spec info so it's really just a guessing game right now.
- sfifs 10y ago
  And I suppose Apple has also made a healthy profit, either directly or through licensing on each of the purchases?
  - evilduck 10y ago
    Apple receives licensing fees on USB Type C?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Bud 10y ago
    You suppose wrongly. It's clear from context that the user wasn't buying Apple adapters, and no, Apple doesn't get any licensing fees here either.
    - floatrock 10y ago
      I get that the chinese manufacturers reverse-engineer everything, but you're saying that you can use "thunderbolt" on your packaging without paying some licensing fee to apple? I mean, a bunch that just have the no-name plastic-bag packaging probably slip by on Amazon, but I would assume the lawyers wouldn't let you brand your cable "thunderbolt" without some official licensing fee process.
pash 10y ago
> The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can you tell what sort of devices will work with a port by its physical shape. For instance, I have a Windows desktop machine with a single USB-C port on the back, but it's not a Thunderbolt 3 port. So while I could physically plug in a Thunderbolt 3-only device, it wouldn't function at all. There is no such thing as a "Thunderbolt 3-only device". Support for USB 3.1 is a part of the Thunderbolt 3 spec, and in your example the Windows machine and the device would talk to one another over USB 3.1. If you can plug it in, it will work: every device with a standards-compliant USB-C port will work with any other device with a standards-compliant USB-C port. The only question is which underlying protocol will be used; in the worst case, it will be USB 3.1, and if both devices support Thunderbolt 3, it will be something fancier.
- tbagman 10y ago
  > If you can plug it in, it will work Unfortunately, this hasn't been my experience. As an example, I have a display-port-based Apple cinema display, and I bought this adapter to try to connect it to a new macbook pro 15": http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter The physical size of the connectors are compatible, of course; you can plug the monitor into the thunderbolt-2-side of the adapter, and you can plug the thunderbolt-3-side of the adapter into the laptop. But, since the adapter isn't display-port compatible, no joy. If I remember correctly (and I might not), the apple store page for this adapter didn't originally carry a warning about this, but instead had text that made it easy to misunderstand whether this would work. The text on the page has changed. As a weaker example, I have an LG 27UD88 Monitor. The USB-C connection from it works, but only carries 60W of charging "oomph," and the 15" macbook pro needs 85W of charging. So, even though the menubar icon on the mac signals that charging is happening, the battery is actually depleting over time. (Yeah, this one is more caveat emptor than the other, but still.)
  - blowski 10y ago
    I had a similar experience. Two identical looking cables but one was mini display port, the other Thunderbolt. An old Mac Pro could be used as an external display with one cable but not the other.
Bud 10y ago
> No longer can you tell what sort of devices will work with a port by its physical shape. This isn't a new issue and USB-C is far, far from being the first port type to be ambiguous in this manner.
digi_owl 10y ago
I think it is more a case that ports are USB-C, as Thunderbolt 3 can be used via their alternate mode (thanks to Intel). Thing is that displayport over thunderbolt used half the bandwidth of thunderbolt to carry displayport signals (raw, not coded on top of thunderbolt). This similarly to how you can use USB-C alternate mode to carry displayport. Thus using thunderbolt over USB-C alternate to carry displayport is superfluous to the extreme.
aljones 10y ago
USB 1, 2, and 3 all used the USB A plug.
- saurik 10y ago
  Yeah; and I have a special camera which works over USB 3 but simply does not function when plugged into a USB 2 port (as there is not enough bandwidth to transfer its information). The power differences among various USB-C ports is also not special: I have tons of USB-A power adapters which are capable of providing different amounts of power, and computers are also sometimes different in what they are willing to provide.
pasbesoin 10y ago
Your description reminds me of the '90's Apple that had so many fricking Mac models that ordinary mortals didn't know what to buy. I remember fielding those questions more than once, and only barely having an answer because I frequently browsed the hobbyist and trade press at that time. 200\* Apple became one of a few models choices, each designed to (for something of a premium) deliver a consummate experience within its niche. Apple buyers -- both professionals and premium-paying consumers -- want something that "just works", and works well. For Apple to foist the Emotibar on them, before solving these other problems... Back-asswards.

by spilk 10y ago

IBM 10y ago

In practice most people aren't going to have multiple Macbooks, and if that's you you should go to Monoprice and just get different color cables for different types.

fpgeek 10y ago
People? So Apple isn't interested in selling to families and couples anymore?
- IBM 10y ago
  Families is fair, but I think my advice still stands.
ryanSrich 10y ago
I don't think I'm an outlier. I have a late 2013 Macbook Pro issued from my employer. I also have a personal Macbook Pro. My wife has a new Macbook. I also have an old 2012 Macbook Air. So between two people there are 4 apple computers in a single household. Add in 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, and an Apple watch and this whole adapter situation starts to become a major issue.

wyager 10y ago

Putting everything and the kitchen sink into USB-C was a mistake. I already have a horrible mess of weird cables that aren't interoperable, don't support Superspeed, have current limits, etc. USB should be one thing and one thing only; a Universal Serial Bus. Can you send video over a serial connection? Great, let's do that instead of using the same physical connector for 85 different incompatible video cable designs that may or may not work with any given device. USB 1.1 was about the right level of complexity. Maybe a bit too high. Since then, we have gone off the rails. It's no longer reasonable to suspect that anything except super-high-end devices will even bother to support a majority of the things in the USB spec. How many laptops actually support most of the charge profiles? The MacBooks do, but none of my friends' non-mac laptops do. It's a mess. The speed we have now is great. Let's keep that. But let's also erase all the cruft and bring USB back to the simple, universal protocol it was supposed to be.

krinchan 10y ago
Even better, try finding a laptop that will run DisplayPort alternate mode over the USB-C port. EDIT: Or HDMI for that matter.
- phil21 10y ago
  Ironically the MBP 2016 is probably the best for DP alternate mode over USB-C - thus far it's just worked for me on 3 different monitors. HDMI you should just give up on though...
- jsjohnst 10y ago
  Apple: 12" rMB previous or current gen, 13"/15" rMBP current gen. Other: Alienware, Dell, HP, etc all have laptops doing it. I don't have the link handy that lists ten windows laptops supporting it last Spring, but I'm sure Google can find it for you and there's likely dozens more now.

krinchan 10y ago

Actually it isn't precisely Apple's fault. It's the USB-IFs fault. USB 3.1 in general is a mess. The spec allows for Alternate Modes, where the port is hardwired on the Motherboard to be able to be switched to deliver DisplayPort, HDMI, MHL, Thunderbolt, and damn near anything else you can figure out how to mux over the port's pins and cheaply demux on the other end of the cable. The best part is no one will actually list what Alternate Modes their laptop or motherboard supports. So if I want a laptop that supports, DisplayPort Alternate Mode with dual monitors, I'm opening support tickets with manufacturers asking "Does your USB-C port run this?" Apple and Intel simply followed along what with what was already a mess.

riazrizvi 10y ago
Apple is lauded for making confusing technology simple. It's not Apple's fault, it's Apple's missed opportunity and it's our high expectations of Apple that are being eroded.
- Philipp__ 10y ago
  This! Thing is that situation with ports and adapters has never been worse, but Apple came there, wanted to be first again that will pull the plug on old technology and embrace the new one! But their execution was a miss. But anyway, my predictions are that from 2017. every Apple machine, wether it's computer or iPhone or iPad, will go down the USB-C route. Most probably next iPhone would use USB-C. And I just hope 2016. will be the year that was bad, and won't happen again. Since some Apple's small decisions were completely off, and we as costumers (or fans), are not used to it.
  - jellicle 10y ago
    Apple has never gone with an open standard when a proprietary closed standard would do. More likely than using any sort of standard port would be Apple inventing yet another new proprietary port.
    - stcredzero 10y ago

repler 10y ago

I dunno man, my eyes glazed over somewhere in the middle of that third paragraph and I'm just happy I don't have to deal with any of that. Think they'll wise up and change any of it on the next model?

dave_sullivan 10y ago
"Steve never would have backed down, remove more ports!" is how that product meeting will go.
- supster 10y ago
  "The future is wireless!"
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    That was actually Apple's summation when it came to issues like "why not support metered connections and data use limiting?" - that they didn't feel that is a compromise they should have to make.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  The thing that bugs me about the argument for USB-C only on the new MBPs is that the early 2011 MBPs came out while Steve Jobs was alive. That year was the first appearance of the Thunderbolt port on a Macbook Pro. You could have theoretically removed every legacy port outside of the MagSafe port and only had a bunch of TB ports to handle the I/O of peripherals. Yet Apple left the USB, FW800 (on the 15/17, maybe the 13 too) and SD reader instead of making people buy dongles to make up for the slack.
  - jsjohnst 10y ago
    Jobs took medical leave January 17th, 2011.
    - slantyyz 10y ago

0x09 10y ago

I've gotten myself into a stupid situation where I have purchased something like 4 adapters that don't accomplish what I thought they would when I bought them. USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to HDMI -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to DisplayPort -> DisplayPort to DVI-D -> Monitor - doesn't work USB-C to Ethernet - doesn't work I'm actually planning to just go to Best Buy today and try to find anything that will let me plug this into my old monitor here even if it has to be the official USB-C to VGA cable from Apple since I don't have time to wait for shipping at this point. I suppose this is my own fault but somehow I've never had this kind of problem in ~20 years of using a computer. Edit: There are also currently very few resources about compatibility between all these new adapters and Apple hasn't done anything to help in their spec info so it's really just a guessing game right now.

sfifs 10y ago
And I suppose Apple has also made a healthy profit, either directly or through licensing on each of the purchases?
- evilduck 10y ago
  Apple receives licensing fees on USB Type C?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Bud 10y ago
  You suppose wrongly. It's clear from context that the user wasn't buying Apple adapters, and no, Apple doesn't get any licensing fees here either.
  - floatrock 10y ago
    I get that the chinese manufacturers reverse-engineer everything, but you're saying that you can use "thunderbolt" on your packaging without paying some licensing fee to apple? I mean, a bunch that just have the no-name plastic-bag packaging probably slip by on Amazon, but I would assume the lawyers wouldn't let you brand your cable "thunderbolt" without some official licensing fee process.

pash 10y ago

> The ports are all Thunderbolt 3 ports, which I believe by definition means they are USB 3.1 ports as well. But some devices out in the world have USB-C ports that are not Thunderbolt 3 compatible. No longer can you tell what sort of devices will work with a port by its physical shape. For instance, I have a Windows desktop machine with a single USB-C port on the back, but it's not a Thunderbolt 3 port. So while I could physically plug in a Thunderbolt 3-only device, it wouldn't function at all. There is no such thing as a "Thunderbolt 3-only device". Support for USB 3.1 is a part of the Thunderbolt 3 spec, and in your example the Windows machine and the device would talk to one another over USB 3.1. If you can plug it in, it will work: every device with a standards-compliant USB-C port will work with any other device with a standards-compliant USB-C port. The only question is which underlying protocol will be used; in the worst case, it will be USB 3.1, and if both devices support Thunderbolt 3, it will be something fancier.

tbagman 10y ago
> If you can plug it in, it will work Unfortunately, this hasn't been my experience. As an example, I have a display-port-based Apple cinema display, and I bought this adapter to try to connect it to a new macbook pro 15": http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter The physical size of the connectors are compatible, of course; you can plug the monitor into the thunderbolt-2-side of the adapter, and you can plug the thunderbolt-3-side of the adapter into the laptop. But, since the adapter isn't display-port compatible, no joy. If I remember correctly (and I might not), the apple store page for this adapter didn't originally carry a warning about this, but instead had text that made it easy to misunderstand whether this would work. The text on the page has changed. As a weaker example, I have an LG 27UD88 Monitor. The USB-C connection from it works, but only carries 60W of charging "oomph," and the 15" macbook pro needs 85W of charging. So, even though the menubar icon on the mac signals that charging is happening, the battery is actually depleting over time. (Yeah, this one is more caveat emptor than the other, but still.)
- blowski 10y ago
  I had a similar experience. Two identical looking cables but one was mini display port, the other Thunderbolt. An old Mac Pro could be used as an external display with one cable but not the other.

Bud 10y ago

> No longer can you tell what sort of devices will work with a port by its physical shape. This isn't a new issue and USB-C is far, far from being the first port type to be ambiguous in this manner.

digi_owl 10y ago

I think it is more a case that ports are USB-C, as Thunderbolt 3 can be used via their alternate mode (thanks to Intel). Thing is that displayport over thunderbolt used half the bandwidth of thunderbolt to carry displayport signals (raw, not coded on top of thunderbolt). This similarly to how you can use USB-C alternate mode to carry displayport. Thus using thunderbolt over USB-C alternate to carry displayport is superfluous to the extreme.

aljones 10y ago

USB 1, 2, and 3 all used the USB A plug.

saurik 10y ago
Yeah; and I have a special camera which works over USB 3 but simply does not function when plugged into a USB 2 port (as there is not enough bandwidth to transfer its information). The power differences among various USB-C ports is also not special: I have tons of USB-A power adapters which are capable of providing different amounts of power, and computers are also sometimes different in what they are willing to provide.

pasbesoin 10y ago

Your description reminds me of the '90's Apple that had so many fricking Mac models that ordinary mortals didn't know what to buy. I remember fielding those questions more than once, and only barely having an answer because I frequently browsed the hobbyist and trade press at that time. 200\* Apple became one of a few models choices, each designed to (for something of a premium) deliver a consummate experience within its niche. Apple buyers -- both professionals and premium-paying consumers -- want something that "just works", and works well. For Apple to foist the Emotibar on them, before solving these other problems... Back-asswards.