6 ms·

The fact that I can successfully plug in a USB-C cable on the first try as opposed to the 3-7th time is a strict improvement. Perhaps I've been lucky, but I've

by vegai_ 5y ago

The fact that I can successfully plug in a USB-C cable on the first try as opposed to the 3-7th time is a strict improvement. Perhaps I've been lucky, but I've only had good experience with external monitors et al.

kkielhofner 5y ago
I was always lucky with port and connector alignment - I appreciated the jokes but never personally identified with them. My experience has been so frustrating and such a time sink if you have recommendations of working hardware combinations I'm happy to hear. I'm already > $3k in hardware at this point. What's another $1k or so?!
naoqj 5y ago
I've been able to do that for a long time with lightning cables. Too bad the EU outlawed them ;)
- mathw 5y ago
  What's that on the latest iPhone in the EU? Oh it's a lightning port. You were saying??
  - naoqj 5y ago
    https://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-lightning-port-ban https://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-lightning-port-ban
    - staticman2 5y ago
      The article says the EU rule to stop using the lightning port is non binding. I. E. just a suggestion.
- sofixa 5y ago
  The Lightning cables are a waste because they have one use only, on a few devices by a single manufacturer only. Type C is widely adopted, including by the same manufacturer that does Lightning. It's a no-brainer and thankfully finally someone had the guts to force Apple. We also have the EU to thank for the fact that non-Apple devices all use one or two standards ( micro usb or type c for newer ones) and not the bazillion others we had before.
AlexAltea 5y ago
> The fact that I can successfully plug in a USB-C cable on the first try Depends on the device, I've had low-quality USB-C devices whose transfer speed inexplicably decreased when connected "the wrong way". Not knowing which orientation is the right one until you initiate the transfer is frustrating, and worse IMHO than physically preventing the wrong orientation. Of course, this issue affects only a subset of mediocre hardware... But the fact that [1] this is possible is quite a downside to USB-C. [1] https://hackaday.com/2021/03/22/cursed-usb-c-when-plug-orientation-matters/ https://hackaday.com/2021/03/22/cursed-usb-c-when-plug-orien...
- EricE 5y ago
  So shitty hardware that doesn't comply with the spec is the spec's fault? Love the logic in this thread!
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    There’s beauty in making a spec that can’t be broken or doesn’t make financial sense to do so. USB-C has much more complexity and corners that can be cut than USB-A. The cheapness of USB-A is also valuable. The other day I bought 5 USB-A to B cables for less than 5 bucks for various microcontroller-related hackery. I can treat them as disposable and won’t hesitate to cut one open should I need some kind of shielded multi-core wire. In USB-C land, a single cable would cost more than that.
  - AlexAltea 5y ago
    Yes, making accidental non-compliance easy and thus commonplace is IMHO a shortcoming of spec as per Nextgrid's comment. Also, you can express disagreement without throwing Reddit-style sarcastic snarks.
turminal 5y ago
My experience with plugging in/out is that the plugging in part is better now, but C connectors require much less force to be plugged out by themselves and I have been bitten by cables unplugging just because they were bent in the wrong direction multiple times.
PaulHoule 5y ago
Before USB 3 I thought USB was highly reliable but since USB 3 every Windows laptop I’ve had has had problems with devices being recognized, devices dropping out, plugging a device in causing another to drop out. I don’t know how I’ve gone for years this way without serious data corruption. (Thumb drives and hard drives drop out.) External monitors with combined USB and display have generally behaved a lot worse with Windows than Mac OS with symptoms like: some endpoints work and others don’t (often the USB Ethernet doesn’t work), the monitor that the Mac enumerates in 5 seconds takes 50 sec on Windows, etc.
baal80spam 5y ago
Ah, the classic USB plug superposition: https://i.imgur.com/yyEwOHK.png https://i.imgur.com/yyEwOHK.png
titzer 5y ago
About 5 years ago I took the time to learn how to plug in USB-A properly. All you have to do is look. The male side of a USB-A plug has two holes on it. They correspond to a small void where part of the female port[1] connector has to slide in. The two holes on the male plug should almost always face up when the female port is horizontal. If it is vertical, all you have to do is look at the female port to see which side has the internal protrusion. That part has to slide into the male part. It's not that hard. I can do it 99% of the time now. [1] In truth, both sides of USB-A have male/female parts.
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  Spec compliant USB A cables and devices make it that the USB logo on the connector is on top (for horizontal ports) or on the left (for vertical ports). Nobody ever really told the general public that, and now manufacturers are messing it up too.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
I actually have a cable somewhere where the USB-A side is reversible; it has a plastic tab in the center that can shift up or down so it'll always plug in. I mean I don't know if it has any data connections or anything, I think it came with either a JBL speaker or a power bank, but it's pretty clever.
- cosmie 5y ago
  I bought 10 of these[1] about 4 years ago for the kids, and several more times since. The USB-A side is reversible, and the other side combines lightning and micro-usb into a single connector that'll work in either one. And I can't recall if it's this cord or another I have, but the micro-usb side may be reversible as well. When the kids were getting to the age where they had their own devices, the learning phase was painful (for me more so than them). They kept getting confused between the lightning cable used for their iPad and the micro-usb cables used for everything else (like their battery pack and the random kid gadgets they had that used micro-usb for power supply). Their learning phase was painful (for me) as they'd try whatever cord they came across first in whatever device they needed it for, and continue that cycle until they got a match. And with no sense of how easy it is to break charging ports, they'd be pretty aggressive about it. Same with trying the USB-A side of the cord in the charger/battery, aggressively trying one direction before finally flipping it to try the other (and flipping it again because third try's the charm). The kids love them because they Just Work for everything with no fuss (at least until recently when USB-C started popping up in some stuff like their Bluetooth headphones). The durability is a bit mixed, as some of the cords started having issues after just a few months while others are still going strong after years of daily use. But between how handy they are and the price, it's worth just treating them as expected consumables and getting enough at once to stockpile. [1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32847997542.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32847997542.html
swah 5y ago
I'm with you. Why isn't everything perfect already? Because it takes time... Eg: now that there are cheap 4K 60Hz, displays, we are not happy... We need at them at 144Hz. And being able to chain two of chose. With good speakers... etc etc Birds eye view: every issue is minor and current state of tech is awesome...
- avian 5y ago
  > Why isn't everything perfect already? Because it takes time... The corollary of this is that some technology getting close to perfect means it's several years old, obsolete and ready to be thrown away to make place for a shiny new thing that's starting from scratch as far as ironing various bugs go.
- layer8 5y ago
  I’m old enough to remember when USB 1.x came out, and I was incredulous at the time that the standard type-A connector didn’t either (a) use an asymmetric shape like for example the D-sub connectors or (b) wasn’t reversible or coaxial like for example the TRRS connectors. It seemed so obviously stupid. The previously existing connectors that USB was intended to replace mostly didn’t have that problem.
mnkmnk 5y ago
I actually can’t on my MacBook Air M1. You have to get the connector in the right horizontal orientation and at the right physical position. And the portable usb-c docks are so heavy and unwieldy that it becomes difficult to get them in place. If I try to plug it in without looking, then I risk scratching around the MacBook ports. A circular physical connection would be a lot better in my opinion, or at least some kind of physical slotting to help it get the connector in place.
- lsaferite 5y ago
  That sounds more like an Apple "form over function" issue than a USB-C issue.
- Melatonic 5y ago
  You could put a very small piece of tape over the port and then cut out just the area where the port itself is - that would at least mean that it would stop the connector from scratching the laptop. Clear tape might be pretty invisible.

by vegai_ 5y ago

kkielhofner 5y ago

I was always lucky with port and connector alignment - I appreciated the jokes but never personally identified with them. My experience has been so frustrating and such a time sink if you have recommendations of working hardware combinations I'm happy to hear. I'm already > $3k in hardware at this point. What's another $1k or so?!

naoqj 5y ago

I've been able to do that for a long time with lightning cables. Too bad the EU outlawed them ;)

mathw 5y ago
What's that on the latest iPhone in the EU? Oh it's a lightning port. You were saying??
- naoqj 5y ago
  https://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-lightning-port-ban https://www.techradar.com/news/iphone-lightning-port-ban
  - staticman2 5y ago
    The article says the EU rule to stop using the lightning port is non binding. I. E. just a suggestion.
sofixa 5y ago
The Lightning cables are a waste because they have one use only, on a few devices by a single manufacturer only. Type C is widely adopted, including by the same manufacturer that does Lightning. It's a no-brainer and thankfully finally someone had the guts to force Apple. We also have the EU to thank for the fact that non-Apple devices all use one or two standards ( micro usb or type c for newer ones) and not the bazillion others we had before.

AlexAltea 5y ago

> The fact that I can successfully plug in a USB-C cable on the first try Depends on the device, I've had low-quality USB-C devices whose transfer speed inexplicably decreased when connected "the wrong way". Not knowing which orientation is the right one until you initiate the transfer is frustrating, and worse IMHO than physically preventing the wrong orientation. Of course, this issue affects only a subset of mediocre hardware... But the fact that [1] this is possible is quite a downside to USB-C. [1] https://hackaday.com/2021/03/22/cursed-usb-c-when-plug-orientation-matters/ https://hackaday.com/2021/03/22/cursed-usb-c-when-plug-orien...

EricE 5y ago
So shitty hardware that doesn't comply with the spec is the spec's fault? Love the logic in this thread!
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  There’s beauty in making a spec that can’t be broken or doesn’t make financial sense to do so. USB-C has much more complexity and corners that can be cut than USB-A. The cheapness of USB-A is also valuable. The other day I bought 5 USB-A to B cables for less than 5 bucks for various microcontroller-related hackery. I can treat them as disposable and won’t hesitate to cut one open should I need some kind of shielded multi-core wire. In USB-C land, a single cable would cost more than that.
- AlexAltea 5y ago
  Yes, making accidental non-compliance easy and thus commonplace is IMHO a shortcoming of spec as per Nextgrid's comment. Also, you can express disagreement without throwing Reddit-style sarcastic snarks.

turminal 5y ago

My experience with plugging in/out is that the plugging in part is better now, but C connectors require much less force to be plugged out by themselves and I have been bitten by cables unplugging just because they were bent in the wrong direction multiple times.

PaulHoule 5y ago

Before USB 3 I thought USB was highly reliable but since USB 3 every Windows laptop I’ve had has had problems with devices being recognized, devices dropping out, plugging a device in causing another to drop out. I don’t know how I’ve gone for years this way without serious data corruption. (Thumb drives and hard drives drop out.) External monitors with combined USB and display have generally behaved a lot worse with Windows than Mac OS with symptoms like: some endpoints work and others don’t (often the USB Ethernet doesn’t work), the monitor that the Mac enumerates in 5 seconds takes 50 sec on Windows, etc.

baal80spam 5y ago

Ah, the classic USB plug superposition: https://i.imgur.com/yyEwOHK.png https://i.imgur.com/yyEwOHK.png

titzer 5y ago

About 5 years ago I took the time to learn how to plug in USB-A properly. All you have to do is look. The male side of a USB-A plug has two holes on it. They correspond to a small void where part of the female port[1] connector has to slide in. The two holes on the male plug should almost always face up when the female port is horizontal. If it is vertical, all you have to do is look at the female port to see which side has the internal protrusion. That part has to slide into the male part. It's not that hard. I can do it 99% of the time now. [1] In truth, both sides of USB-A have male/female parts.

jeroenhd 5y ago
Spec compliant USB A cables and devices make it that the USB logo on the connector is on top (for horizontal ports) or on the left (for vertical ports). Nobody ever really told the general public that, and now manufacturers are messing it up too.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

I actually have a cable somewhere where the USB-A side is reversible; it has a plastic tab in the center that can shift up or down so it'll always plug in. I mean I don't know if it has any data connections or anything, I think it came with either a JBL speaker or a power bank, but it's pretty clever.

cosmie 5y ago
I bought 10 of these[1] about 4 years ago for the kids, and several more times since. The USB-A side is reversible, and the other side combines lightning and micro-usb into a single connector that'll work in either one. And I can't recall if it's this cord or another I have, but the micro-usb side may be reversible as well. When the kids were getting to the age where they had their own devices, the learning phase was painful (for me more so than them). They kept getting confused between the lightning cable used for their iPad and the micro-usb cables used for everything else (like their battery pack and the random kid gadgets they had that used micro-usb for power supply). Their learning phase was painful (for me) as they'd try whatever cord they came across first in whatever device they needed it for, and continue that cycle until they got a match. And with no sense of how easy it is to break charging ports, they'd be pretty aggressive about it. Same with trying the USB-A side of the cord in the charger/battery, aggressively trying one direction before finally flipping it to try the other (and flipping it again because third try's the charm). The kids love them because they Just Work for everything with no fuss (at least until recently when USB-C started popping up in some stuff like their Bluetooth headphones). The durability is a bit mixed, as some of the cords started having issues after just a few months while others are still going strong after years of daily use. But between how handy they are and the price, it's worth just treating them as expected consumables and getting enough at once to stockpile. [1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32847997542.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32847997542.html

swah 5y ago

I'm with you. Why isn't everything perfect already? Because it takes time... Eg: now that there are cheap 4K 60Hz, displays, we are not happy... We need at them at 144Hz. And being able to chain two of chose. With good speakers... etc etc Birds eye view: every issue is minor and current state of tech is awesome...

avian 5y ago
> Why isn't everything perfect already? Because it takes time... The corollary of this is that some technology getting close to perfect means it's several years old, obsolete and ready to be thrown away to make place for a shiny new thing that's starting from scratch as far as ironing various bugs go.
layer8 5y ago
I’m old enough to remember when USB 1.x came out, and I was incredulous at the time that the standard type-A connector didn’t either (a) use an asymmetric shape like for example the D-sub connectors or (b) wasn’t reversible or coaxial like for example the TRRS connectors. It seemed so obviously stupid. The previously existing connectors that USB was intended to replace mostly didn’t have that problem.

mnkmnk 5y ago

I actually can’t on my MacBook Air M1. You have to get the connector in the right horizontal orientation and at the right physical position. And the portable usb-c docks are so heavy and unwieldy that it becomes difficult to get them in place. If I try to plug it in without looking, then I risk scratching around the MacBook ports. A circular physical connection would be a lot better in my opinion, or at least some kind of physical slotting to help it get the connector in place.

lsaferite 5y ago
That sounds more like an Apple "form over function" issue than a USB-C issue.
Melatonic 5y ago
You could put a very small piece of tape over the port and then cut out just the area where the port itself is - that would at least mean that it would stop the connector from scratching the laptop. Clear tape might be pretty invisible.