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If you own an M2 MacBook Air or MacBook Pro there’s an update for your cable
- exabrial 4y agoWhen you have so much money and you don't know how to spend it... this is what you get.
- ripvanwinkle 4y ago"Everything that can physically accommodate a processor and be powered, will eventually have a processor" - Anonymous
- adolph 4y agoGoes like peanut butter with the jelly of Atwood's Law: any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least-power/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least-power/
- falcolas 4y agoProbably see more and more of this as cables continue the trend of becoming computers that abstract the communication between the two plugs.
- danpalmer 4y agoA worrying trend given that most people buy the cheapest cables they can from companies who may have questionable motives or state backing.
- hooverd 4y agoI'm more worried about companies forbidding third party cables or bricking cables you own. "Sorry, this cable was only licensed for 100 charging cycles. Please buy a new one, for your safety of course."
- traceroute66 4y ago[flagged]
- pc86 4y agoWhere in the comment above do they even mention Apple?
- boramalper 4y agoI don’t like their tone but they have a point. Historically Apple has been fussier than many other companies.
- hooverd 4y agoIf anything, consumer hardware is amazingly fungible, compared to the things B2B manufacturers do.
- hooverd 4y agoI didn't say anything about Apple. I just don't trust hardware companies to not DRM everything if they know they can get away with it.
- tpxl 4y agoI have been given a 'you need an official USB-C - 3.5mm jack adapter' warning by a non-apple brand. So yeah, this is happening.
- pathartl 4y agoNo reason to forbid cables when you can just remove physical ports.
- closewith 4y agoI wonder if there's a viable business model in "free" cables that inject ads into video streams.
- Tostino 4y agoPlease, just stop with that thought.
- hooverd 4y agoDon't give them ideas.
- closewith 4y agoMaybe the "free" ad-supported cables could have limited charging or data transfer speeds, but those features could be unlocked by paying a subscription or watching more ads.
- doubled112 4y agoI hope the firmware in my eye tracking glasses is compatible with my ad serving cable. Wouldn't want to watch all those ads for nothing.
- Arrath 4y agoIf HDCP protects against such malarkey it will finally be worthy.
- powersnail 4y agoGiven the trend, I've really come to see all electric cables as not-yet-evolved computers, the same way every light bulb is a low resolution display.
- ericboehs 4y agoCan you brick your cable if you unplug it during the upgrade?
- simlevesque 4y agoThat's what I was about to ask. It says that the cable should update itself transparently, but there can always be a chance of corruption. Maybe the cable keeps the old FW and only boots the new one if it is signed.
- prewett 4y agoPresumably there is space for two copies of the firmware, and once the new one decompresses and checksums correctly you update the firmware-start pointer.
- mecsred 4y agoAny reasonable manufacturer will rotate firmware images and have the bootloader fall back to the most recent validated image. Though I imagine this could happen if this practice becomes common enough that you get it on some 5$ gas station charging cable kinda thing.
- avian 4y agoA reasonable manufacturer looks at its bottom line and doesn't waste his engineering hours and BOM costs (double the flash memory!) on silly features like that. Either that or there are many unreasonable manufacturers out there.
- tesseract 4y agoCost (reputational as well as CSR hours and the actual replacement units) of a bunch of warranty claims for bricked units is a factor too. In practice pretty much every embedded device I've worked on that has supported in-field firmware updates has had either double buffering and/or a recovery mode to limit the possibility of bricking. For the products where every last penny really needs to get squeezed out of the BOM (toys, low-end appliances, ...) the ability to do in-field firmware upgrades itself is IME often one of the first things to go.
- crazygringo 4y agoBetween this and "Help, Bing Won’t Stop Declaring Its Love for Me", man... HN headlines are making me laugh today. Keep it up, technological progress! :)
- noodlesUK 4y agoI’m really surprised that these cables have updatable firmware. Surely that makes the attack surface that much larger?
- Arrath 4y agoJust waiting for an 'illegal peripheral' exception when I try to use a cable condom, if those exist for anything other than USB yet.
- peterkelly 4y agoApple's lightning-to-HDMI cable contains an embedded ARM SoC with 256MB of memory running the XNU kernel and a daemon that performs video decoding. https://panic.com/blog/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surprise/#comment-16841 https://panic.com/blog/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surp...
- baq 4y agoI would like to post something substantial or whatever but how can you add anything to that...? Mind blown.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- adolph 4y agoThat post is a classic and the first thing I thought of when I saw the headline.
- b212 4y agoLet’s add an accelerometer and gyroscope and then we can install Quake there and play by simply moving or tapping the cable. The future is now, old man.
- rollulus 4y agoWhat could possibly be the use for any sort of logic in such cable be, given that on both ends of it there’s already a computer as well?
- tesseract 4y ago* Translation between USB PD and whatever communication protocol runs on the center Magsafe pin (in Magsafe 1 and 2 it was Dallas 1-wire) * Disabling power output when the cable is not connected to a computer, so that a metal object touching the spring pins can't create a dangerous short circuit * Driving the LED
- traceroute66 4y ago> What could possibly be the use for any sort of logic in such cable be, given that on both ends of it there’s already a computer as well? Maybe because MacBooks can be charged via both USB-C and MagSafe connector it forms part of the safety mechanism against frying your motherboard and/or against arcing during connection/disconnection. Especially on the higher-end of the spectrum (e.g. 16-inch MacBooks with 140W MagSafe). Sort of like the same way electric car chargers handshake before throwing amps down the cable.
- cal85 4y agoJust been scratching my head about this. Then I thought, is it just so they can detect authentic Apple cables and scold you for using an inauthentic one? Because iOS definitely does that. Some kind of challenge/response thing that requires a full Turing machine maybe. Another thought was something to do with monitoring current or degradation but I cant see why they couldn’t do the same things from either the computer in the power adaptor or the computer in the actual computer.
- duskwuff 4y agoUSB PD negotiation. The MagSafe connector only has three distinct contacts (there are five pins, but it's mirrored), so there has to be some protocol translation between USB PD and the single control signal used in MagSafe.
- Fauntleroy 4y agoIn a few more years, security will simply cease to exist entirely.
- adolph 4y agoThere’s no way to directly update the cable, but it should update automatically when plugged into your Mac. While you can check the firmware of your power adapter by attaching it to your Mac and clicking on the Apple logo in the top left corner of the menu bar, then About This Mac, System Report, and Power, it’s not clear how to check the specific firmware version of the cable. So presumably there is some UART to the cable, and the cable to the power adapter. Is it all stuffed in the cable treated as a USB device or is there some proprietary control on the laptop side to communicate with the cable?
- FateOfNations 4y agoThe only interface the computer normally has to the cable is the single control pin on in the middle of the MagSafe connector, so they are likely having to do something more sophisticated than UART. (Apple could have had you plug the other end that has the USB-C connector into the computer to do the firmware update, but that isn't particularly intuitive or user friendly).
- Maxious 4y ago> The chip uses the 1-Wire protocol, which is a clever system for connecting low-speed devices through a single wire (plus ground). The 1-Wire system is convenient here since the Mac can communicate with the Magsafe through the single adapter sense pin. http://www.righto.com/2013/06/teardown-and-exploration-of-magsafe.html http://www.righto.com/2013/06/teardown-and-exploration-of-ma... Magsafe 3 with USBC makes this even easier https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/11309f3/comment/j8oq05v/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/11309f3/comme... The Lightning comms protocol is interesting too https://hackaday.com/2015/02/14/reverse-engineering-apples-lightning-connector/ https://hackaday.com/2015/02/14/reverse-engineering-apples-l...
- conductr 4y ago> It’s not clear what the firmware fixes or patches I'm on M2 MB Air, and it seems odd to me that it (seems to) runs off battery even when plugged in and fully charged. Mine has been plugged in at desk for over a week, every day when I get on it says it's "Power Source: Power Adapter" yet it battery charging goes "On Hold" and dwindles as if it's running off battery all day. For example, it's mid-day for me and I'm at 79% but it's never been unplugged. My last was a MB Air 2013 so maybe this is new behavior that I'm just not used to, but it seems strange. If I had to unplug and leave, I'd expect to be leaving with 100% charge. Edit: "Optimized Battery Charging" was turned on as commenter mentioned, thanks for the tech support HN!
- crummy 4y agoAre you using the stock charger? I would see similar behaviour on my 2018 MBP when I used a USB-C charger without enough power.
- davidbarker 4y agoIt sounds like Optimized Battery Charging may be turned on. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212049 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212049
- conductr 4y agoYep, solved! Did not know about this setting (kind of buried in the Settings UI) - thanks for the tech support!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- count 4y ago80% is the 'ideal storage' condition for the battery. If it's always charging to 100%, the battery life is pretty dramatically shortened. Apple enabled this new charging manager that tries to learn your patterns (if you always unplug in the AM and leave with it, it'll learn to charge to 100% before you leave, for example). You can also click the battery icon in the tray (if you have that turned on) and tell it to charge to 100% 'right now', which only takes a minute or two with a full size charger. This is a positive thing for the life of your battery, but if you do want to disable it, there's a setting in System Settings - click the 'i' in the circle next to Battery Health, and turn off 'Optimize Battery Charging' there.
- brenouchoa 4y agoI was having problems charging with my magsafe cable and for the last month was using the usb-c port to charge. Today i took if of the drawer and it is magically working again. I am using the beta mac os 13.2 so it may have solved my problem.
- brenouchoa 4y agoI spoke too soon. My cable is still blinking orange after i plug it in. I will try to reboot.
- fourmajor 4y agoI've had a new MacBook Air M2 for a few weeks now. I've been charging exclusively with a USB-C charger. Is there any advantage to charging via magsafe?