27 ms·

I would basically never assume that the EU actually understand the technical parts of these regulations. On its face it sounds pro-consumer, but USB-C is hardly

I would basically never assume that the EU actually understand the technical parts of these regulations. On its face it sounds pro-consumer, but USB-C is hardly a unified experience and I am almost sympathetic with Apple here from a user experience perspective.

have_faith 3y ago
Can you elaborate?
- kweingar 3y ago
  To be clear, I am pro USB-C, but I do get the arguments from the other side. If I have a lightning cable and a device with a lightning port, I can plug it in and not really think much about it. If I have a device with a USB-C port and a USB-C cable, I have no idea whether I can charge at full speed or even charge at all. As an example, I plug my Xbox controller into my PC via USB-C. It keeps it fully charged. Recently I tried to plug in my USB-C headset into the same cable and it didn’t charge at all. In fact my headset died shortly after I unplugged it (after “charging” it all night), which was a bit of a pain. Turns out it can charge with my laptop charger or my iPad charger but not the Xbox cable plugged into my PC. Maybe this isn’t a totally fair comparison, but it’s my personal experience.
  - henearkr 3y ago
    With the same Xbox cable but with a proper charger, does it work? Most of the time, you avoid problems of "PD device hierarchy" by using a proper charger (i.e. a device that only has the functionality to charge other devices).
    - kweingar 3y ago
      Using the Xbox controller cable with an actual charger does work. The confusion came with how the PC delivers power to the controller but not the headset. It’s ultimately not a big deal, and it’s surely something I can learn to intuit. But I think lots of consumers (I think about my poor mother) would benefit from a clearer labeling scheme on the various devices, ports, chargers, or cables.
    - vladvasiliu 3y ago
      > Most of the time, you avoid problems of "PD device hierarchy" by using a proper charger (i.e. a device that only has the functionality to charge other devices). The problem is with the "most", which means you can't count on it. I have usb-c headphones that can be charged with my hp usb-c laptop charger (which is a "proper charger", I guess, since it only does charging) or from a regular computer usb port. They don't pretend to have any high-powered charge mode (manual says 3 hour charge time and "usb charging"). My usb-c ecig won't charge from that. It will only charge from either my pc's usb-a port or random "low power" usb phone charger. I haven't tested it with any of the fancier high-powered adapters, since I don't own any. But, clearly, usb-c charging ports are not that universal.
      - raverbashing 3y ago
        > My usb-c ecig won't charge from that Sounds like a "Fake" usb-c. Actually not fake because the usb-c is the connector, not the standard behind it So I'm not surprised it doesn't charge, it's a "pretend USB-C" thing from China
        vladvasiliu 3y ago
        Sure, as a technically inclined user, I can understand that. It actually is a Chinese brand, but not some one-off brand bought off Ali Express. It's a device bought from a reputable store in France with a name that I've seen around for several years (Vaporesso). Sure, that fact, in and of itself, is not enough to guarantee that corners haven't been cut and that the product is actually up to spec. But, as a random consumer, how am I to know that it's "a pretend USB-C"? It looks exactly the same as my headphones, comes with the exact same-looking cable. There are no markings on it. The usb-c ports on my laptop have a bolt icon next to them, but its usb-c charger doesn't have any marking. They also don't say it shouldn't be used with anything other than the laptop it came with, and actually is able to charge my headphones and my mom's usb-c phone. Even though I've kinda followed the talks about PD, negotiation, etc. its still not clear to me why this particular combination doesn't work. I was under the impression that, lacking any negotiation, ports should default to the basic 5V 500mA. So my fat laptop charger should be able to at least trickle-charge the e-cig.
  - franga2000 3y ago
    Lightning "just works" only because it's all made and validated by Apple. If you want guaranteed compatibility, just keep buying Apple-branded Type C cables and adapters like you did for Lightning. The only difference now is that you also have the option of using other cables and adapters if you want/need to, as well as use your Apple charging stuff for charging other things.
    - kweingar 3y ago
      Yeah, I totally agree. The only annoyance I see is that you have to experiment with what cables and power adapters through trial and error to find what works with particular devices. I mentioned in a different reply in this thread that there ought to be some kind of consumer-friendly labeling on these things, so that you can see at a glance what will work with what.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - viraptor 3y ago
        > you have to experiment You don't have to. You can. As the previous comment mentioned, nothing stops you from buying all the accessories and cables from Apple at a premium like you used to with lightning.
        DRW_ 3y ago
        Funnily enough, this is why the only USB-C chargers and cables I carry around are my Apple ones - because they've been the only ones that I've been able to reliably trust across all my other devices (including USB-C Apple devices).
  - tyfon 3y ago
    That's really weird, but I remember in the past there were some older usb-a ports that did not send enough power to charge some stuff, perhaps your headset requires a higher current than the controller or something. Here I can charge my laptop (although slowly) via the usb-c on my PC. All other devices work fine too.
  - throwaway2990 3y ago
    USB-C is so frustrating. I have different cables to charge headphones, keyboard, switch, iPad. Cos they don’t “just work”. And I’ve had more lightening cables break in the last 2 years than I have had lightening cables in the last 7 years.
    - saiya-jin 3y ago
      What kind of piece-of-shit cheapest junk cables do you guys buy? Is it another 0.99$ Amazon/aliexpress cable that you expect handles 130W charging while transmitting 10GB/s or similar? I have cca 10 different usbc devices, and use all their provided cables to charge all other accessories. All works as expected, charges fast, transfers fast. The key is to not cheapen out and buy the cheapest crap. Just like with anything else in life.
      - throwaway2990 3y ago
        The ones that come with the devices. Never bought 3rd party.
    - crote 3y ago
      For low-speed (USB 2.0) devices, there are exactly three cables. One supports up to 60W, one supports up to 100W, and one supports up to 100W. Considering all the devices you listed need less than 60W, they should charge with all cables. If they do not, the manufacturer gave you a broken cable which does not follow the USB-C specification. Blame the manufacturer, not USB-C.
      - throwaway2990 3y ago
        The fact there are different cables is what makes USB-C stupid. Do you think a mum and dad at home know the difference? My dad had a USB-C cable for his android tablet. When I got him an iPad he tried using the same cable. It wouldn’t change. That makes the whole point of USB-C pointless Defending the stupidness of USB-C cables just makes you a fanboy.
        3y ago
  - crote 3y ago
    In almost every instance of stuff like that it is caused by the manufacturer not reading the specifications and implementing it improperly. Usually the cause is them trying to save literally $0.001 by leaving out a component they think is "optional". The specification is very clear with regards to chargers: a charger with more watts is always better than one with fewer watts. For any pair of chargers, if charger A provides X watt and charger B provides Y watt, if Y > X every device which can be charged by A can also be charged by B. This means a laptop charger will always also charge your smartphone - although the opposite might not be true due to the laptop having a minimum power requirement.
- dan-robertson 3y ago
  The general problem with USB-C is that the connectors support multiple different protocols, cables are allowed to not be of sufficient quality for all use-cases (the worst example is probably high-bitrate cases like cables for computer monitors) including high power charging. Similarly, the devices on either end needn’t support all the potential protocols/uses. Furthermore, many USB-C devices that are sold are low quality and can damage devices that are plugged into them by failing to follow the specification (eg delivering too much power). So, if you’re a consumer and you have two devices with USB-C ports, and a cable with USB-C on both ends, connecting the two together might either work fine, work with poor performance (without telling you this), not work, or damage your device. And there isn’t really a good way to tell this will happen. Lightning isn’t that much better though. You can get lightning to USB-C cables so you can plug into various bad devices and have other USB-C problems, though you likely won’t try to plug into a monitor for example. There’s maybe an argument to be made about the ports too. I think it would be harder to clean dust/fluff out of a USB-C port and maybe they could be more fragile too because of the spike in the middle of the port. It still seems to me like Apple probably also like that they have a lot more control over lightning. And they already have USB-C on iPads and computers so they clearly don’t think it is totally terrible. But there are a lot more iPhones in the world than other Apple devices and I can imagine eg Apple having to spend a load of money on customer support, etc, due to the USB-C issues, or getting blamed when things go wrong because of the cable or device on the other end. I think it would be better if the possibility of connecting two devices with a cable implied that they would work together, but I’m not sure how that could be done without either more ports or more expensive cables/charging bricks. And I don’t know why a USB-like organisation would have more success at ensuring things follow the standards than USB currently have.
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    Lightning cables are USB 2.0. I think you'll find every USB-C cable supports the USB 2 feature set.
    - crote 3y ago
      In theory, yes. The specification mandates that all USB-C cables must have 2.0 wires, but in practice some cheap brands have invented "charge-only" cables which lack them.
bpfrh 3y ago
Could you expand on that? The EU effort to standardize phone connectors led to nearly every phone manufacturer adopt micro usb and then usb c. I don't see any reason that apple would be unable to use usb c after a everyone else uses it for more then 2 years.
- misnome 3y ago
  > The EU effort to standardize phone connectors led to nearly every phone manufacturer adopt micro usb and then usb c. So, in other words, the EU forced one standard, which it is now abandoning (generating piles of micro-usb e-waste), and is now doing it again. And this is Apples' fault for not moving to USB-C in... 2012. Didn't Apple use USB-A wall chargers with the 30-pin for phones at a time when everyone else was on proprietary power bricks?
  - orra 3y ago
    > So, in other words, the EU forced one standard, which it is now abandoning (generating piles of micro-usb e-waste), This is hyperbole. Especially because a common retort on these articles is “surely this standardisation kills innovation”. A standard was adopted, preventing lots of e-waste. However, the old standard is now past its useful life, so a revised standard is being universally adopted. This is the best of both worlds: a standard reduces the amount of duplicate adapters manufactured. However, it doesn't hold back progress and innovation when needs genuinely change.
    - blokey 3y ago
      That makes no sense. If USB-C is mandated, there will never be a newer standard to replace it, because no company will invest any time or money into developing it as it would not be legal to ship it until it’s blessed by the government and it won’t be blessed until it’s got a critical mass which it can never have! If the rest of the world mandated the Micro-USB standard at the same time as the EU previously, we would never even have USB-C! No one would have bothered to invent it.
      - 3y ago
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
They had enough confidence in the spec to have 5 years of laptops where it was the only charging option…
avereveard 3y ago
Also we are locking down a technology in law, so then now improving the standard is no longer about technological advantage but lobbying power. Heck it's not even hard to imagine a world where the EU was a little bit faster and phones would be stuck on micro or mini ports. But today these concerns get heavily suppressed. Funny how open and free never quite mean that. Anyway we shall see in ten years.
Moldoteck 3y ago
I have a single cable that can handle up to 100W of charging power and a single anker charger with usb-c port. I can charge my phone, headphones, laptops(macbook included), powerbanks, I can transfer data and power between my devices just by connecting them(want to charge a phone with another? Easy peasy, want to transfer data across devices? Easy peasy). And all this with a single usbc cable, so tell me again how this is not a unified experience compared to the need to bring with me 2/3 cables to charge macbook/ipad and iphone/airpods?

have_faith 3y ago

Can you elaborate?

kweingar 3y ago
To be clear, I am pro USB-C, but I do get the arguments from the other side. If I have a lightning cable and a device with a lightning port, I can plug it in and not really think much about it. If I have a device with a USB-C port and a USB-C cable, I have no idea whether I can charge at full speed or even charge at all. As an example, I plug my Xbox controller into my PC via USB-C. It keeps it fully charged. Recently I tried to plug in my USB-C headset into the same cable and it didn’t charge at all. In fact my headset died shortly after I unplugged it (after “charging” it all night), which was a bit of a pain. Turns out it can charge with my laptop charger or my iPad charger but not the Xbox cable plugged into my PC. Maybe this isn’t a totally fair comparison, but it’s my personal experience.
- henearkr 3y ago
  With the same Xbox cable but with a proper charger, does it work? Most of the time, you avoid problems of "PD device hierarchy" by using a proper charger (i.e. a device that only has the functionality to charge other devices).
  - kweingar 3y ago
    Using the Xbox controller cable with an actual charger does work. The confusion came with how the PC delivers power to the controller but not the headset. It’s ultimately not a big deal, and it’s surely something I can learn to intuit. But I think lots of consumers (I think about my poor mother) would benefit from a clearer labeling scheme on the various devices, ports, chargers, or cables.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    > Most of the time, you avoid problems of "PD device hierarchy" by using a proper charger (i.e. a device that only has the functionality to charge other devices). The problem is with the "most", which means you can't count on it. I have usb-c headphones that can be charged with my hp usb-c laptop charger (which is a "proper charger", I guess, since it only does charging) or from a regular computer usb port. They don't pretend to have any high-powered charge mode (manual says 3 hour charge time and "usb charging"). My usb-c ecig won't charge from that. It will only charge from either my pc's usb-a port or random "low power" usb phone charger. I haven't tested it with any of the fancier high-powered adapters, since I don't own any. But, clearly, usb-c charging ports are not that universal.
    - raverbashing 3y ago
      > My usb-c ecig won't charge from that Sounds like a "Fake" usb-c. Actually not fake because the usb-c is the connector, not the standard behind it So I'm not surprised it doesn't charge, it's a "pretend USB-C" thing from China
      - vladvasiliu 3y ago
        Sure, as a technically inclined user, I can understand that. It actually is a Chinese brand, but not some one-off brand bought off Ali Express. It's a device bought from a reputable store in France with a name that I've seen around for several years (Vaporesso). Sure, that fact, in and of itself, is not enough to guarantee that corners haven't been cut and that the product is actually up to spec. But, as a random consumer, how am I to know that it's "a pretend USB-C"? It looks exactly the same as my headphones, comes with the exact same-looking cable. There are no markings on it. The usb-c ports on my laptop have a bolt icon next to them, but its usb-c charger doesn't have any marking. They also don't say it shouldn't be used with anything other than the laptop it came with, and actually is able to charge my headphones and my mom's usb-c phone. Even though I've kinda followed the talks about PD, negotiation, etc. its still not clear to me why this particular combination doesn't work. I was under the impression that, lacking any negotiation, ports should default to the basic 5V 500mA. So my fat laptop charger should be able to at least trickle-charge the e-cig.
- franga2000 3y ago
  Lightning "just works" only because it's all made and validated by Apple. If you want guaranteed compatibility, just keep buying Apple-branded Type C cables and adapters like you did for Lightning. The only difference now is that you also have the option of using other cables and adapters if you want/need to, as well as use your Apple charging stuff for charging other things.
  - kweingar 3y ago
    Yeah, I totally agree. The only annoyance I see is that you have to experiment with what cables and power adapters through trial and error to find what works with particular devices. I mentioned in a different reply in this thread that there ought to be some kind of consumer-friendly labeling on these things, so that you can see at a glance what will work with what.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - viraptor 3y ago
      > you have to experiment You don't have to. You can. As the previous comment mentioned, nothing stops you from buying all the accessories and cables from Apple at a premium like you used to with lightning.
      - DRW_ 3y ago
        Funnily enough, this is why the only USB-C chargers and cables I carry around are my Apple ones - because they've been the only ones that I've been able to reliably trust across all my other devices (including USB-C Apple devices).
- tyfon 3y ago
  That's really weird, but I remember in the past there were some older usb-a ports that did not send enough power to charge some stuff, perhaps your headset requires a higher current than the controller or something. Here I can charge my laptop (although slowly) via the usb-c on my PC. All other devices work fine too.
- throwaway2990 3y ago
  USB-C is so frustrating. I have different cables to charge headphones, keyboard, switch, iPad. Cos they don’t “just work”. And I’ve had more lightening cables break in the last 2 years than I have had lightening cables in the last 7 years.
  - saiya-jin 3y ago
    What kind of piece-of-shit cheapest junk cables do you guys buy? Is it another 0.99$ Amazon/aliexpress cable that you expect handles 130W charging while transmitting 10GB/s or similar? I have cca 10 different usbc devices, and use all their provided cables to charge all other accessories. All works as expected, charges fast, transfers fast. The key is to not cheapen out and buy the cheapest crap. Just like with anything else in life.
    - throwaway2990 3y ago
      The ones that come with the devices. Never bought 3rd party.
  - crote 3y ago
    For low-speed (USB 2.0) devices, there are exactly three cables. One supports up to 60W, one supports up to 100W, and one supports up to 100W. Considering all the devices you listed need less than 60W, they should charge with all cables. If they do not, the manufacturer gave you a broken cable which does not follow the USB-C specification. Blame the manufacturer, not USB-C.
    - throwaway2990 3y ago
      The fact there are different cables is what makes USB-C stupid. Do you think a mum and dad at home know the difference? My dad had a USB-C cable for his android tablet. When I got him an iPad he tried using the same cable. It wouldn’t change. That makes the whole point of USB-C pointless Defending the stupidness of USB-C cables just makes you a fanboy.
      - 3y ago
- crote 3y ago
  In almost every instance of stuff like that it is caused by the manufacturer not reading the specifications and implementing it improperly. Usually the cause is them trying to save literally $0.001 by leaving out a component they think is "optional". The specification is very clear with regards to chargers: a charger with more watts is always better than one with fewer watts. For any pair of chargers, if charger A provides X watt and charger B provides Y watt, if Y > X every device which can be charged by A can also be charged by B. This means a laptop charger will always also charge your smartphone - although the opposite might not be true due to the laptop having a minimum power requirement.
dan-robertson 3y ago
The general problem with USB-C is that the connectors support multiple different protocols, cables are allowed to not be of sufficient quality for all use-cases (the worst example is probably high-bitrate cases like cables for computer monitors) including high power charging. Similarly, the devices on either end needn’t support all the potential protocols/uses. Furthermore, many USB-C devices that are sold are low quality and can damage devices that are plugged into them by failing to follow the specification (eg delivering too much power). So, if you’re a consumer and you have two devices with USB-C ports, and a cable with USB-C on both ends, connecting the two together might either work fine, work with poor performance (without telling you this), not work, or damage your device. And there isn’t really a good way to tell this will happen. Lightning isn’t that much better though. You can get lightning to USB-C cables so you can plug into various bad devices and have other USB-C problems, though you likely won’t try to plug into a monitor for example. There’s maybe an argument to be made about the ports too. I think it would be harder to clean dust/fluff out of a USB-C port and maybe they could be more fragile too because of the spike in the middle of the port. It still seems to me like Apple probably also like that they have a lot more control over lightning. And they already have USB-C on iPads and computers so they clearly don’t think it is totally terrible. But there are a lot more iPhones in the world than other Apple devices and I can imagine eg Apple having to spend a load of money on customer support, etc, due to the USB-C issues, or getting blamed when things go wrong because of the cable or device on the other end. I think it would be better if the possibility of connecting two devices with a cable implied that they would work together, but I’m not sure how that could be done without either more ports or more expensive cables/charging bricks. And I don’t know why a USB-like organisation would have more success at ensuring things follow the standards than USB currently have.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  Lightning cables are USB 2.0. I think you'll find every USB-C cable supports the USB 2 feature set.
  - crote 3y ago
    In theory, yes. The specification mandates that all USB-C cables must have 2.0 wires, but in practice some cheap brands have invented "charge-only" cables which lack them.

bpfrh 3y ago

Could you expand on that? The EU effort to standardize phone connectors led to nearly every phone manufacturer adopt micro usb and then usb c. I don't see any reason that apple would be unable to use usb c after a everyone else uses it for more then 2 years.

misnome 3y ago
> The EU effort to standardize phone connectors led to nearly every phone manufacturer adopt micro usb and then usb c. So, in other words, the EU forced one standard, which it is now abandoning (generating piles of micro-usb e-waste), and is now doing it again. And this is Apples' fault for not moving to USB-C in... 2012. Didn't Apple use USB-A wall chargers with the 30-pin for phones at a time when everyone else was on proprietary power bricks?
- orra 3y ago
  > So, in other words, the EU forced one standard, which it is now abandoning (generating piles of micro-usb e-waste), This is hyperbole. Especially because a common retort on these articles is “surely this standardisation kills innovation”. A standard was adopted, preventing lots of e-waste. However, the old standard is now past its useful life, so a revised standard is being universally adopted. This is the best of both worlds: a standard reduces the amount of duplicate adapters manufactured. However, it doesn't hold back progress and innovation when needs genuinely change.
  - blokey 3y ago
    That makes no sense. If USB-C is mandated, there will never be a newer standard to replace it, because no company will invest any time or money into developing it as it would not be legal to ship it until it’s blessed by the government and it won’t be blessed until it’s got a critical mass which it can never have! If the rest of the world mandated the Micro-USB standard at the same time as the EU previously, we would never even have USB-C! No one would have bothered to invent it.
    - 3y ago

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

They had enough confidence in the spec to have 5 years of laptops where it was the only charging option…

avereveard 3y ago

Also we are locking down a technology in law, so then now improving the standard is no longer about technological advantage but lobbying power. Heck it's not even hard to imagine a world where the EU was a little bit faster and phones would be stuck on micro or mini ports. But today these concerns get heavily suppressed. Funny how open and free never quite mean that. Anyway we shall see in ten years.

Moldoteck 3y ago

I have a single cable that can handle up to 100W of charging power and a single anker charger with usb-c port. I can charge my phone, headphones, laptops(macbook included), powerbanks, I can transfer data and power between my devices just by connecting them(want to charge a phone with another? Easy peasy, want to transfer data across devices? Easy peasy). And all this with a single usbc cable, so tell me again how this is not a unified experience compared to the need to bring with me 2/3 cables to charge macbook/ipad and iphone/airpods?