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I find it incredible that presumably no one tried using a MacBook charger before this shipped. If they did and didn't document the shortcoming that's arguably j

by giobox 7y ago

I find it incredible that presumably no one tried using a MacBook charger before this shipped. If they did and didn't document the shortcoming that's arguably just as bad. Surely a not insignificant number of customers have MacBooks? If I was writing some test specs this use case would almost certainly feature, given the MacBook Pro's USB C adapter must be one of the most widespread high power USB C charger designs in existence. Especially when the stock device does not ship with a power supply, not like it was unforeseeable some customers would just use the chargers they already have.

Narishma 7y ago
You over-estimate how popular Macbooks are outside the US.
- giobox 7y ago
  About two thirds of all Apple's computers are sold outside the US. It's significant enough. In British engineering circles there are plenty of them (relevant given the location in which the Pi team works). The key point here is the standard charger design used on almost all laptop models from the world's 4th largest computer vendor. In my experience laptops from the top three have nothing close to the level of standardization in their charger design, given none of the top three have standardized solely on USB C for laptop charging. It was entirely foreseeable many people would try this and be disappointed when it didn't work.
petecox 7y ago
It seems a case of rushing a product 9-12 months ahead of schedule, scrapping two silicon revisions, as mentioned in the announcement[0] in their haste to be "production ready". "Good, low-cost USB-C power supplies (and USB-C cables) are surprisingly hard to find, as we discovered when sending out prototype units to alpha testers" In hindsight that reads that they tried a bunch of off-the-shelf cables and were perplexed about why some of them didn't work. So they built their own official power supply that worked around the design flaw. [0] https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-4-on-sale-now-from-35/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-4-on-sale-now-...

by giobox 7y ago

Narishma 7y ago

You over-estimate how popular Macbooks are outside the US.

giobox 7y ago
About two thirds of all Apple's computers are sold outside the US. It's significant enough. In British engineering circles there are plenty of them (relevant given the location in which the Pi team works). The key point here is the standard charger design used on almost all laptop models from the world's 4th largest computer vendor. In my experience laptops from the top three have nothing close to the level of standardization in their charger design, given none of the top three have standardized solely on USB C for laptop charging. It was entirely foreseeable many people would try this and be disappointed when it didn't work.

petecox 7y ago

It seems a case of rushing a product 9-12 months ahead of schedule, scrapping two silicon revisions, as mentioned in the announcement[0] in their haste to be "production ready". "Good, low-cost USB-C power supplies (and USB-C cables) are surprisingly hard to find, as we discovered when sending out prototype units to alpha testers" In hindsight that reads that they tried a bunch of off-the-shelf cables and were perplexed about why some of them didn't work. So they built their own official power supply that worked around the design flaw. [0] https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-4-on-sale-now-from-35/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-4-on-sale-now-...