4 ms·

> I still don't have anything that's USB-C aside from adapters for work laptop The USB-C thing is culturally a bit curious. It's been three or four years since

by cannam 6y ago

> I still don't have anything that's USB-C aside from adapters for work laptop The USB-C thing is culturally a bit curious. It's been three or four years since reviewers of laptops and the like started complaining if they didn't have USB-C ports - but there still seems to be very little need for them. The few devices I've acquired that have a USB-C socket on the device have all come with a cable having a USB3 type A plug on the other end, never a C to C cable. (I see the article mentions this, but I found it striking because to facilitate home working I've just bought two new devices with USB-C at the device end, and both came with cables to an A socket)

Nextgrid 6y ago
USB-C is garbage from so many perspectives. User friendliness is a problem. There's no easy way to tell what protocols a USB-C device actually supports, whether it's USB 2, USB 3, DisplayPort, etc. USB-C hubs are not possible like you could do with USB 2 or 3, so you're always limited to the number of USB-C ports on your machine. The only possible hubs are those that give out USB-A ports, which is fine now because most peripherals are still USB-A, but will become a problem when peripherals start using USB-C themselves.
- crooked-v 6y ago
  USB4 will in theory fix most of this by setting minimum required capability at 20 Gbit/s with DisplayPort Alt Mode, and laying out support for hubs from the start. It still has a painful number of 'optional' alt modes depending on device type, though.
  - Kirby64 6y ago
    Just because USB4 becomes a thing doesn't mean people will support it. 20Gbit/s and the DisplayPort Alt Mode means people definitely will choose to go with USB3 or USB2 USB Type-C. Remember, all USB Type-A ports aren't USB3. Likewise, all USB Type-C ports won't become USB4.
- IceWreck 6y ago
  > USB-C hubs are not possible like you could do with USB 2 or 3 TIL. Why is this not possible?
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    You'd probably find a more authoritative source and better documentation by searching, but here's my understanding of it: USB-C can be used with alternate modes like DisplayPort or Thunderbolt, where the wires are no longer transmitting USB data but are used as a dumb pipe for the underlying protocol. If you get a hub it can choose to either operate in the following conditions (depending on its type and capabilities): * Upstream port is in USB mode, it can provide USB 2 and 3 to downstream ports, however the downstream device can no longer use DisplayPort or Thunderbolt. * Upstream port is divided into USB 3 lanes and DisplayPort lanes. The DisplayPort side can be mapped to a single downstream port, but there is less USB 3 bandwidth available to share across the remaining ports. Still no luck if a downstream device wants to use Thunderbolt. * Upstream port is Thunderbolt. Since TB is essentially PCI Express the hub could pass through some TB lanes to a single downstream port while having its own USB 3 controller to provide the USB side of things. Still no luck for DisplayPort downstream devices. This doesn't even address the issue that not all devices can do Thunderbolt (my 12-inch Macbook can't) and it becomes very hard to find a hub that will actually work and do what you want. It took quite a bit of research for me to understand the specs so I could find a solution to do both 4K 60Hz video and USB (2 only, not enough bandwidth for 3) on my MacBook with a single USB-C port. I won't even get into the bullshit naming conventions they use that they decided to apply retroactively. WTF is USB 3.1 Gen 1? Is the next one gonna be called USB 10 X Pro Max?
    - cannam 6y ago
      Oh that's interesting. That might be an extra reason why devices are still preferentially coming with USB3 type A plugs on the other end - it's actually more flexible that way? I am in fact plugging both of my new USB-C devices into a USB3 hub, and had no idea I wouldn't have been able to do the same with USB-C cables and hub. (I assume you can still have a USB3 hub with type A sockets on it, plugged in to a USB-C port? - edit: oh, just noticed a sibling comment says this doesn't seem to exist either. Now that is very odd.)
karatestomp 6y ago
I don't get why they didn't do a transitional design for a few years. Replace the Thunderbolt ports with USB-C but leave the rest the same. It takes me probably damn near a decade to cycle even half my peripherals to a new interface, and I bet that's closer to the norm than people going out and replacing 100% of their stuff with USB-C and Bluetooth within a year, so going to using a port that I had not even actually seen yet in the wild when they switched cold-turkey was a baffling decision. Hell, to this day the only actual USB-C devices I've seen in person are Apple peripherals and monitors catering to Macbook users, which almost all include other ports anyway. I'd add Android phones but those mostly have USB-A connectors on the other end of the cable (like the iPhones that were shipping for a while after the USB-C Macbooks came out—there's another giant WTF). USB-C market for flash drives seems to suck (form factor's worse, price is higher). [EDIT] oh and when the new port is intended to replace all other ports the half-life on "legacy" devices for me probably goes from ~10 years to ~20. Seriously. WTF Apple.
- Lio 6y ago
  What kills me is that Apple are still so random about ports themselves. They could have replaced the USB-A to Lighting cable and charger they ship with iPhones for USB-C to Lightning years ago. (Personally I’d like to see Lightning replaced too but that’s a different story).
  - karatestomp 6y ago
    Going USB-C on their phones and tablets while also swapping the Thunderbolt ports and maybe the power ports on their computers for USB-C, then leaving it that way for three years or so before removing the other ports, seems like it would have been a much better lead-in if they really had to do it. At least then we'd have been able to slowly accumulate USB-C dongles without feeling bitter about it, since they'd work on i-devices too so feel like they're providing some kind of benefit or future-proofness. As it is it's 2020 and I still feel like I'm wasting money buying either USB-C or Lightning dongles—the former because I don't need them for anything but very new Macbooks, and the latter because surely they're going to switch those to USB-C eventually (surely... right?) so those thunderbolt cables and adapters will become junk long before they should. [EDIT] go figure, my wife just today bought a new iphone, wants to put some music from her 2019 Macbook Air onto it, needs to plug it in at least once in order to do that (have to plug in first to enable wifi sync), and can't because the phone shipped with a fucking USB-A cable and the single lightning-to-usb cable we have in our house is missing. This is going down right now. So much for not needing USB-A ports on a laptop in 2020 even if you're fully in the Apple ecosystem. She's so annoyed I wouldn't be surprised if she returns the phone. I mean granted the phone isn't the latest model but it came out way after they made the all-USB-C switch on their laptops.
bxparks 6y ago
What is concerning that is that other laptop makers are following Apple like lemmings. My current favorite laptop is the Dell Precision 55xx series, the business version of the XPS 15. The newest models of this line, the 15" 5550 and the 17" 5750, are USB-C only. Couldn't they have kept just one USB-A port? I have dozens of peripherals, and I literally have nothing that uses USB-C. One of the main reasons that I left the Apple laptops after using 3-4 of them over 10 years was because of the removal of the USB-A ports. Adding new USB-C, great. But removing all of the older ones? A big middle finger to the users. Then there's the removal of the ESC key, the butterfly keyboard debacle, the touchbar that removes the function keys, etc. Sorry Apple, you are going off in a direction that I cannot follow.
llampx 6y ago
It's me, I'm that guy. I absolutely wanted a Thunderbolt port on my laptop and paid for it, and how often have I used it? Never.

by cannam 6y ago

Nextgrid 6y ago

USB-C is garbage from so many perspectives. User friendliness is a problem. There's no easy way to tell what protocols a USB-C device actually supports, whether it's USB 2, USB 3, DisplayPort, etc. USB-C hubs are not possible like you could do with USB 2 or 3, so you're always limited to the number of USB-C ports on your machine. The only possible hubs are those that give out USB-A ports, which is fine now because most peripherals are still USB-A, but will become a problem when peripherals start using USB-C themselves.

crooked-v 6y ago
USB4 will in theory fix most of this by setting minimum required capability at 20 Gbit/s with DisplayPort Alt Mode, and laying out support for hubs from the start. It still has a painful number of 'optional' alt modes depending on device type, though.
- Kirby64 6y ago
  Just because USB4 becomes a thing doesn't mean people will support it. 20Gbit/s and the DisplayPort Alt Mode means people definitely will choose to go with USB3 or USB2 USB Type-C. Remember, all USB Type-A ports aren't USB3. Likewise, all USB Type-C ports won't become USB4.
IceWreck 6y ago
> USB-C hubs are not possible like you could do with USB 2 or 3 TIL. Why is this not possible?
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  You'd probably find a more authoritative source and better documentation by searching, but here's my understanding of it: USB-C can be used with alternate modes like DisplayPort or Thunderbolt, where the wires are no longer transmitting USB data but are used as a dumb pipe for the underlying protocol. If you get a hub it can choose to either operate in the following conditions (depending on its type and capabilities): * Upstream port is in USB mode, it can provide USB 2 and 3 to downstream ports, however the downstream device can no longer use DisplayPort or Thunderbolt. * Upstream port is divided into USB 3 lanes and DisplayPort lanes. The DisplayPort side can be mapped to a single downstream port, but there is less USB 3 bandwidth available to share across the remaining ports. Still no luck if a downstream device wants to use Thunderbolt. * Upstream port is Thunderbolt. Since TB is essentially PCI Express the hub could pass through some TB lanes to a single downstream port while having its own USB 3 controller to provide the USB side of things. Still no luck for DisplayPort downstream devices. This doesn't even address the issue that not all devices can do Thunderbolt (my 12-inch Macbook can't) and it becomes very hard to find a hub that will actually work and do what you want. It took quite a bit of research for me to understand the specs so I could find a solution to do both 4K 60Hz video and USB (2 only, not enough bandwidth for 3) on my MacBook with a single USB-C port. I won't even get into the bullshit naming conventions they use that they decided to apply retroactively. WTF is USB 3.1 Gen 1? Is the next one gonna be called USB 10 X Pro Max?
  - cannam 6y ago
    Oh that's interesting. That might be an extra reason why devices are still preferentially coming with USB3 type A plugs on the other end - it's actually more flexible that way? I am in fact plugging both of my new USB-C devices into a USB3 hub, and had no idea I wouldn't have been able to do the same with USB-C cables and hub. (I assume you can still have a USB3 hub with type A sockets on it, plugged in to a USB-C port? - edit: oh, just noticed a sibling comment says this doesn't seem to exist either. Now that is very odd.)

karatestomp 6y ago

I don't get why they didn't do a transitional design for a few years. Replace the Thunderbolt ports with USB-C but leave the rest the same. It takes me probably damn near a decade to cycle even half my peripherals to a new interface, and I bet that's closer to the norm than people going out and replacing 100% of their stuff with USB-C and Bluetooth within a year, so going to using a port that I had not even actually seen yet in the wild when they switched cold-turkey was a baffling decision. Hell, to this day the only actual USB-C devices I've seen in person are Apple peripherals and monitors catering to Macbook users, which almost all include other ports anyway. I'd add Android phones but those mostly have USB-A connectors on the other end of the cable (like the iPhones that were shipping for a while after the USB-C Macbooks came out—there's another giant WTF). USB-C market for flash drives seems to suck (form factor's worse, price is higher). [EDIT] oh and when the new port is intended to replace all other ports the half-life on "legacy" devices for me probably goes from ~10 years to ~20. Seriously. WTF Apple.

Lio 6y ago
What kills me is that Apple are still so random about ports themselves. They could have replaced the USB-A to Lighting cable and charger they ship with iPhones for USB-C to Lightning years ago. (Personally I’d like to see Lightning replaced too but that’s a different story).
- karatestomp 6y ago
  Going USB-C on their phones and tablets while also swapping the Thunderbolt ports and maybe the power ports on their computers for USB-C, then leaving it that way for three years or so before removing the other ports, seems like it would have been a much better lead-in if they really had to do it. At least then we'd have been able to slowly accumulate USB-C dongles without feeling bitter about it, since they'd work on i-devices too so feel like they're providing some kind of benefit or future-proofness. As it is it's 2020 and I still feel like I'm wasting money buying either USB-C or Lightning dongles—the former because I don't need them for anything but very new Macbooks, and the latter because surely they're going to switch those to USB-C eventually (surely... right?) so those thunderbolt cables and adapters will become junk long before they should. [EDIT] go figure, my wife just today bought a new iphone, wants to put some music from her 2019 Macbook Air onto it, needs to plug it in at least once in order to do that (have to plug in first to enable wifi sync), and can't because the phone shipped with a fucking USB-A cable and the single lightning-to-usb cable we have in our house is missing. This is going down right now. So much for not needing USB-A ports on a laptop in 2020 even if you're fully in the Apple ecosystem. She's so annoyed I wouldn't be surprised if she returns the phone. I mean granted the phone isn't the latest model but it came out way after they made the all-USB-C switch on their laptops.

bxparks 6y ago

What is concerning that is that other laptop makers are following Apple like lemmings. My current favorite laptop is the Dell Precision 55xx series, the business version of the XPS 15. The newest models of this line, the 15" 5550 and the 17" 5750, are USB-C only. Couldn't they have kept just one USB-A port? I have dozens of peripherals, and I literally have nothing that uses USB-C. One of the main reasons that I left the Apple laptops after using 3-4 of them over 10 years was because of the removal of the USB-A ports. Adding new USB-C, great. But removing all of the older ones? A big middle finger to the users. Then there's the removal of the ESC key, the butterfly keyboard debacle, the touchbar that removes the function keys, etc. Sorry Apple, you are going off in a direction that I cannot follow.

llampx 6y ago

It's me, I'm that guy. I absolutely wanted a Thunderbolt port on my laptop and paid for it, and how often have I used it? Never.