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Yeah, unfortunately that is quintessentially apple-y. Even the charging cable has seen endless unnecessary permutation, all proprietary and all expensive as hel

Yeah, unfortunately that is quintessentially apple-y. Even the charging cable has seen endless unnecessary permutation, all proprietary and all expensive as hell. And mostly pointless. It's two wires. Two wires that carry a constant DC charge. Why so complicated? I use my computer in a metal shop and my magsafe gathers iron filings, shorts itself and catches fire. I've gone through so many chargers. I've vowed that the next time it happens, I'm going to mill away part of this laptop's case and solder in a DC barrel jack. So much of apple design is about sleekness and cool factor, not actual robustness or effectiveness. I suppose this isn't the intended use case, but I feel like the use case apple has in mind is unrealistically safe and ideal. And rich. I still like using a mac, as well as a windows machine and several linux distros. If you have a collection of tools in your tool shed, you want to have all sorts of different tools. Not just rows and rows of the same flat-head screwdriver.

paulmd 8y ago
> Even the charging cable has seen endless unnecessary permutation, all proprietary and all expensive as hell. And mostly pointless. It's two wires. Two wires that carry a constant DC charge. Why so complicated? Which voltage, and how much current? Put 20V down the wire and you'd blow up a device expecting 5V. Pull 100W through a cable rated for 5W and you'd burn your house down. As soon as USB-C became the catch-all standard to do all of the things, the complexity was inevitable. It could have been communicated better to the user (proper symbology, color-coded ports, etc) but unless all the devices support all the modes, you are mostly going to be dealing with the minimum standard. And making every device capable of dealing with the full extent of Type-C capabilities (DisplayPort, PCIe channels, etc) is going to get expensive.
- andrei_says_ 8y ago
  I should not be expected to not plug a cable that matches the port. If it fits, it sits. If I should only be using one cable for one port then they should be the only ones matching. And, if that one cable happens to lead to a plug in the wall somewhere then having MagSafe or comparable solutions is a lifesaver. Removing these is beyond comprehension. It may “just work” for Apple but it certainly does not for me.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  > Which voltage, and how much current? Put 20V down the wire and you'd blow up a device expecting 5V. Pull 100W through a cable rated for 5W and you'd burn your house down. Those aren't really cable issues. All USB-C cables support 20 volts and 60 watts. The only cable permutation is whether it's 3 or 5 amps, which isn't a fire-hazard-level distinction, just a small annoyance.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
andromeduck 8y ago
And just how many people work in a metal shop and get iron filings on their connectors?!

paulmd 8y ago

> Even the charging cable has seen endless unnecessary permutation, all proprietary and all expensive as hell. And mostly pointless. It's two wires. Two wires that carry a constant DC charge. Why so complicated? Which voltage, and how much current? Put 20V down the wire and you'd blow up a device expecting 5V. Pull 100W through a cable rated for 5W and you'd burn your house down. As soon as USB-C became the catch-all standard to do all of the things, the complexity was inevitable. It could have been communicated better to the user (proper symbology, color-coded ports, etc) but unless all the devices support all the modes, you are mostly going to be dealing with the minimum standard. And making every device capable of dealing with the full extent of Type-C capabilities (DisplayPort, PCIe channels, etc) is going to get expensive.

andrei_says_ 8y ago
I should not be expected to not plug a cable that matches the port. If it fits, it sits. If I should only be using one cable for one port then they should be the only ones matching. And, if that one cable happens to lead to a plug in the wall somewhere then having MagSafe or comparable solutions is a lifesaver. Removing these is beyond comprehension. It may “just work” for Apple but it certainly does not for me.
Dylan16807 8y ago
> Which voltage, and how much current? Put 20V down the wire and you'd blow up a device expecting 5V. Pull 100W through a cable rated for 5W and you'd burn your house down. Those aren't really cable issues. All USB-C cables support 20 volts and 60 watts. The only cable permutation is whether it's 3 or 5 amps, which isn't a fire-hazard-level distinction, just a small annoyance.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

andromeduck 8y ago

And just how many people work in a metal shop and get iron filings on their connectors?!