We’ve known that the iPhone is switching to USB-C for a while now, but there was always a possibility that Apple would stick with Lightning for one more year. Based on the latest leaked images, however, Apple is all-in on USB-C for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models, with USB-C parts for the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, and iPhone 15 Pro Max all shown in a leaked image by X user fix Apple.
With the switch to USB-C, nearly all of Apple’s devices will have adopted the new standard, with only AirPods, Mac accessories, and the iPhone SE remaining aside from older iPhones and the 9th-gen iPad.
Government regulation works.
The real test on this one is going to be in how well those regulations support the eventual transition from USB-C to something else.
There’s inevitably going to be a use case for new connectors that have some yet-unidentified advantage over USB-C for certain devices, and there’s going to be hurdles convincing regulators to grant exceptions for those devices or to adopt one of them as the new standard for everybody.
There’s plenty of examples of government regulations gone wrong trying to transition from an old technology to a new one. (i.e. the REAL ID format in the US, or the switch from analog to digital broadcast TV).
The regulation is worded to require whatever the USB-IF currently requires, which is what companies that adopted USB already follow. The concern here died before the ink on the law even dried.
Earlier rumors speculated that Apple would cripple it via software, either restricting charging speed, data transfer, or both.
Always have been
And ever will.
I think the jury is still out on this one imo. If Apple does what the rumors are saying and limit it to 500mA @ 5V and 480Mbps transfer speed unless you have a MFI chip in the cable, then I don’t think these regulations worked.
Also, if a hypothetical USB type D comes out some time in the future and blows USB type C out of the water in every category, but phones can’t use it because the EU said, then these regulations didn’t work. It’s my understanding that the EU protected against this possiblity, so I’m hopeful that this won’t happen. But I haven’t actually read the bill myself. I have only heard this from comments on the internet, so I don’t know for sure.
This is not correct for devices being sold to the EU at least. Part of the amendment to the Radio Equipment Regulation outlines the exact standards for power delivery that must be used, and that interfaces which are capable of being charged @ > 15W must “ensure that any additional charging protocol allows for the full functionality of the USB Power Delivery…”.
For data transfer, I don’t see the point and future improvements to USB will come from industry in future.
The only way around this is with a wireless charging protocol, but manufacturers are moving away from that it appears.
If the EU covered all their bases here and Apple doesn’t find a way to screw their customers, I will be extremely happy. I just feel like they always find some way to be shitty. 😂
The EU requirement isn’t actually USB-C. It’s whatever USB-IF says is the standard connector. So if USB-C gen2x2 (or wherever they will call it) comes out, that will be what everyone has to implement.
The problem would arise when USB-IF stops being the de-facto innovation driver for peripheral interconnection.
deleted by creator
Yeah, sure! Let me tell the tale of W3C and WHATWG.
It’s also worth pointing out that Apple is part of the USB-IF and was one of the early pioneers of the Type C connector, so it’s not like the EU is forcing them adopt some random foreign design.
It’s amazing how few people know this very basic fact about EU regulation yet are so quick to criticize it. Internet in a nutshell I guess…
Even if they limit the speed of other cables I think for the most part it’s still worked
Looking forward to the day a charger cable is a charger cable and no more of this “could I borrow your charger? Sorry only got an iPhone charger/micro USB” problem
Slow charging is infinitely better than no charging in an emergency
The power numbers I mentioned above would just cause modern phones to die slightly slower. But that’s the minimum required for USB 2.0, and that was the rumored amount that Apple was going to allow without an MFI chip. But other users seem pretty confident that it won’t matter because Apple won’t be able to find a loophole there.
Still potentially the difference between being stranded without a phone and managing to trickle charge it over a long period of time while it’s off
True. But I still think this would be a huge oversight, as it would completely go against the spirit of this regulation. It should be easy to keep this hole closed and a huge slam dunk if they can do it. If the EU whiffs on this, I definitely won’t consider it a win. All it will do is make Apple users upset that they can’t really use all the cables that they already own for non-apple devices. This will cause some families to purge every cable in their house and replace them with MFI cables, resulting in a ton of money for Apple, a ton of money spent by consumers, and a ton of e-waste. Is all that worth it when they could have just kept the loophole closed? An argument could be made, but I wouldn’t change my mind on it, especially when it would have been so easy for the EU to do it right in the first place.
But again this argument is kind of moot, because other users are confident that the alleged loophole doesn’t even exist.
We’ll see I suppose
Also my argument is not that it won’t suck if they find a loophole but it’s still better than what we’ve got right now
I’ll agree with that for sure.
Even if companies keep trying to be anti-consumer despite regulations, it doesn’t mean we need to stop trying.
Don’t forget that, at least in Europe, governments are elected by Europeans so they’re our representatives. Companies however only represent their shareholders, and their bigger ones in particular.
Consumer-based regulation works better.
ie- when people stop spending billions on iphones that don’t use standardized hardware… Then, perhaps Apple will stop being anti-competitive assholes.
Right now, they can get away with being anti-competitive assholes, because everyone keeps buying their products.
Money speaks.
Just watch- apple will indeed release a phone that has a USB-Type C port. Then, disable data transfer to any non-apple certified USB cord, due to “security concerns” or “fire hazards”
It’s not so simple. If my parents stopped buying iPhones, they would need to replace their watches, their TV streaming device, their car chargers, and all their apps. You can’t expect normal people to collectively switch from an ecosystem designed around lock-in.
How is it not so simple, when all that still falls under them being anti-competitive assholes?
Consumer based regulation only works when consumers care enough to have a sense of dignity about it.
So… in other words, it doesn’t work.
That’s my thought. I’d go so far as to say it should work, but humanity is broken.
replace their watches,
Never really got the craze around smart watches.
their TV streaming device
if your streaming device requires you to have a certain type of phone to use, you should replace it regardless. Roku/AndroidTV/etc… They don’t care WHAT type of device you try to stream media from. Have an IPhone? Sure. Android? No problem. Blackberry? That might not work.
their car chargers
Wait until you realize any 5$ charging cord from the corner store can charge your phone, and connect it to your car!
all their apps
Most of those work just fine on android. Just swapped my Dad’s phone from apple to android a few months ago, and was able to find all of his apps without any issues.
Consumer-based regulation works better.
Consumer-based regulation doesn’t exist lol
It literally does not, as evidenced by the state of chargers in the 2000s and early 2010s, before the EU threatened to regulate if phone companies didn’t get their shit together. Back then you’d have a different charger design for virtually every phone, including new models of the same phone. USB only became ubiquitous because the EU told companies to stop fucking around and legislate themselves, or the EU would make formal legislation. Most companies got the memo, but Apple decided to be cunts for long enough that the EU decided they needed to finally step in.
Consumer-based regulation being the end-all is based off the classical- and neoliberal ideas that humans are rational actors and companies have a greater incentive to compete than to collude. Both of which are lies.
humans are rational actors and companies have a greater incentive to compete than to collude
Touché. Point taken, you aren’t wrong there.
the classical- and neoliberal ideas that humans are rational actors
Be very careful with this, because this is also the very foundation of democracy. If we start saying humans can’t decide for themselves over insignificant phone charger, how could we trust them selecting the people who has much more power than that?
how could we trust them selecting the people who has much more power than that
Who else is there to trust but us humans?
humans can’t decide for themselves over insignificant phone charger
Individual humans don’t have the ability to choose their phone based on their preferred charger. Each purchase is made between one buyer with fairly limited funds and few large corporations with extensive funds.
between one buyer with fairly limited funds and few large corporations with extensive funds
Which is the same as saying that every vote is transferred between one voter, with very limited knowledge and political awareness and a few politicians with extensive power because politics is what they do their entire life.
Democracy is, in many practical sense, a market for votes. One which is way less regulated than the one for goods and services
There’s nothing to be careful about, it’s absolutely true. Democracy isn’t flawless and is capable of leading to demagogues and reality-denying lunatics coming to power precisely because humans aren’t rational actors. But just because democracy isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s worse than the other systems we’ve come up with.
That’s actually the opposite of the foundation of democracy. Democracy spreads the power out through as many people as possible in order to lessen the potential for abuse by any individual actor. Electing representatives who have near unlimited power and no recourse for constituents isn’t democracy, its oligarchy.
Democracy spreads the power out through as many people as possible in order to lessen the potential for abuse by any individual actor
Well, that’s not our democracies work. We don’t let people vote every law by referendum, that would be spreading power as much as possible.
In ancient Athens it was common, as was common for judiciary decision to be made by 3-4 hundreds people drawn at random. But that’s something almost universally considered stupid now, we have a judge, who we consider an “expert” in law.
By your definition, we don’t live in a democracy, on the contrary, democracy is extinct on this planet
There are indeed democracies on the planet that work in a way that both allows the use of representation and maintains the power in the hands of the constituency by allowing easy recall processes and mandates that officials follow the will of their constituency. We just don’t have them in liberal democracy, which was created, in part, to specifically guard against the possibility of majority rule, as mentioned in multiple of the Federalist papers, including but not limited to Federalist 9 and 10.
But you just negated your initial argument by using Apple as an example…?
EU is the real MVP. Hoping that a few more years now and we’ll have iphone with USB C, app sideloading, user replacable battery. I’ve never owned an iphone before but if that happens, I might consider one.
This and we are gonna have replaceable batteries in the future as well. Thanks EU!
If you don’t need access to iMessage or are not part of the iCloud ecosystem (i.e. do most/all of your work on a Mac), it’s still not worth it. I switched ~3-4 years ago for iMessage and the Lidar sensor. The lidar is shit for technical work, or really anything other than the simplest in-phone diversions. If iMessage were available on Android I’d almost certainly swap back. It’s not that the phone is bad, per se, just that there are weird limitations that pop up from time to time that wouldn’t exist with an Android device.
Edit: I was going to jump on the 15 for the USBC, but I’ll probably wait for the hype to die down unless I get a sweetheart upgrade deal from my provider. My airpod case is still lightning, so there’s no economy for me in getting my phone switched over.
I don’t really care about imessage or icloud. But apple have a much better track record for providing updates for old iphones. Android is quite enshittified these days. Filled with sponsored unremovable apps, abandonware stock rom, and if you try to use something else like lineage os, it is no longer possible to use banking apps etc. Really all iphone need for me to consider it is sideloading apps which is presumably on its way.
[edit - my first response was combative; I didn’t intend it to be]
Sadly, iOS is filled with sponsored, unremovable apps - the only difference is that they are Apple branded. I lock down my notifications pretty hard, and I generally don’t subscribe to streaming media. I get regular, invasive pop-ups to join Apple Music and Apple TV+. You can’t turn those off, you can’t uninstall them. Yes, they keep devices updated for longer, but once you fall out of that period almost none of the apps will work anymore and you can’t get versions that will work with your OS revision until you’re left with a brick (it’s happened on multiple iPads for me). It may be the lesser evil, but it’s still annoying at times.
Damn that’s a bummer. So the strategy of all the tech corporations now is to annoy us into paying yet another subscription.
If you’re happy using a third party app then you can use iMessage on Android.
Good to know. That’s an interesting app all around.
I moved because of the insular iMessage (including facetime) system my family uses, and have tried several hacks over the years prior to access it on my phone/desktop. During the time we were auditioning apps, there simply wasn’t a more reliable mobile system that worked on iOS with the features we wanted (and, trust me, I tried several).
About damn time
Yes because wireless charging is still very inefficient. Most of the energy seems to go into cooking your phone for you rather than actually recharging the battery.
It’s fine for a quick top-up but if you want your phone to go from flat to 30% in 15 minutes you’re going to need wired charging for the foreseeable future.
Going over to full wineless charging would have been very anti-consumer. Not that I’m going to get an Apple device, but I’m glad that they didn’t try and screw people over on that one.
Yet.
One year early, so they can make a big deal about proprietary restrictions if you don’t use Apple accessories, which won’t be the case the following year with no mention.
This is the one iPhone left that they can do anything they want regarding USB-C, without being under the new law as it won’t be in place yet and won’t apply to product SKU’s that were released prior.
I wonder how they’re going to announce it at their keynote. Because Apple was strong armed into doing this they didn’t want to. At all. They kicked and screamed the whole way but they did comply.
So. Will they present it as an evolution like they almost invented the thing? Will they be passive aggressive about it? Or will they just say nothing about it.
I’m also expecting Apple to basically use the worst USB-C standard possible, which, just like Lightning, will basically be USB 2 in terms of speeds and so on. At least on the non-pro models. :/
Apple actually pioneered and pushed USB-C use with their Macbooks which had only USB-C ports. Pretty sure they kept lightning out of pure greed.
That Macbook was too ahead of its time… 12 inches was such a good size. It was so thin, too. Wish they’d make a MacBook SE or some sort and bring it back with an M1 or M2 chip in it.
The big MacBook Pro was shit. Almost switched to other brand after it.
You’re 100% right.
The 12" MacBook had a great form factor right at the time that Intel CPUs really started to struggle with performance at lower power consumption, so the design turned into a huge weakness for thermal management. If they had similar performance per watt as the base M1 later showed off, that device would’ve been perfect for an ultraportable laptop, the spiritual successor to the discontinued 11" MacBook Air.
Yup, and as far as I can tell they still require custom chips for “made for iPhone” approval.
The lighting port has one good thing though, it’s robust and easy to clean. I’ve cleaned my fair share of dirty charging ports on phones and USB-C is a bitch to clean sometimes. Really depends on what you have at hand.
Also funny to hear when people replace their phones because the USB port was dirty (cable doesn’t stick and the “phone just doesn’t charge anymore”. A toothpick and a blast of compressed air later and the phone is as good as new.
Yes USB is annoying to clean. We were on a trip and had nothing at hand except a piece of a plastic zip tie lying on the ground which worked wonders. It took a while though.
I thought I read there was an agreement with accessory manufacturers about keeping the same port for 10 years. Because they didn’t want to run into previous issue of the iPod pin port being discontinued quickly.
Maybe they won’t even announce it.
I think they’re going to hint at it for a few seconds and very quickly move on. I wonder how it’s going to affect MFI products though
They wanted to software-limit non-MFI usb cables, not sure if the EU will stop them in time.
They already stopped them … the EU law that mandetes the USB-C conenctor also mandates support of USB-PD if the device supports fast charging.
But that still won’t affect 3rd party accessories other than just chargers.
Iirc the EU said it was expected to have feature parity between apple and non apple cables.
Also, if they did that, it would be a characteristic that makes iphones look worse than android. Just imagine being an iphone owner needing a charger and your friend hands you their fast charging android one only for it to be slow as piss for you right after they spent 10 minutes getting 40% charge.
They will probably introduce some dock to monitor mode that is super limited in functionality and talk about how they just couldn’t get it working right with lightning or something.
Honestly, some kind of dock that would turn iOS into iPadOS on a display sounds kinda neat.
Why not just full blown MacOS?
It’s Apple we’re talking about, I’m being realistic. Plus, that would require two OSes on the device. iPadOS is not really another OS, just iOS for larger devices.
Samsung is doing it with Dex. I don’t think MacOS and iOS are that different anymore. I’m not saying there isn’t work to do, but it’s far from being outside of Apples ability.
One of the good things coming out of the EU.
I still wonder if Apple will do a split between EU iPhones and the rest of the world, though. Lightning accessories make money.
It makes them a very small amount of money. But they’ve also been rumored to be making iPhones use a “Made for Apple” type of cable for faster charging speeds. I think that would be really dumb but here we are.
Don’t worry, Apple fans will happily buy an official charger for 3x the price even if third party work perfectly well.
At least then there will be no more confusion over who’s fault it is when your iPhone doesn’t charge as fast as you’d like.
It’s always been Apple’s fault, but now there will be no more saying it’s because Lightning is somehow better.
I’ll give them some fairness. When lightning originally launched, it was a great interface for lightweight power delivery and was more sturdy than the deplorable micro USB. I can’t explain just how bad microUSB is. So it made sense. I think USB-C just put in the legwork to be a much better adapter.
Also the giant plot hole missing here is that Apple sits on the USB forum I believe and so has some say in what the billions of devices they produce use to charge. They just can’t make money off of a standard now.
deleted by creator
Well my anecdote is that every single micro USB device I have has either a stuffed port or stuffs the cable. Those things are so incredibly flimsy.
I hate microUSB so much. I always feel like I have to treat microUSB ports like fine china or they will break on me. That nervous anticipation every time you plug something in that this will be the time it finally breaks. Too bad mini USB ports had that problem with getting loose over time.
Removed by mod
a “Made for Apple” type of cable
That is absolutely ridiculous, but not surprising at all.
making iPhones use a “Made for Apple” type of cable for faster charging speeds
They can’t do that. The iPhone must comply with PD.
Yes they can. Its just all about labeling. They can label a cable that fits to the standard and say “made for apple”
No, the regulation isn’t just usb-c, it’s usb-c and power delivery. Apple can’t magically escape both of them with a “made for apple” cable. It must accept all third party cable and charger.
Of course they can:
USB -PD support at limited speeds.
A proprietary Apple chip enables higher speeds, either using USB-PD still or another proprietary charging protocol.
They can just have both
No:
In so far as they are capable of being recharged via wired charging at voltages higher than 5 volts, currents higher than 3 amperes or powers higher than 15 watts, the categories or classes of radio equipment referred to in point 1 letters a) to m) shall:
(a) incorporate the USB Power Delivery, as described in the standard EN IEC 62680-1- 2:2021 ‘Universal serial bus interfaces for data and power - Part 1-2: Common components - USB Power Delivery specification’;
(b) ensure that any additional charging protocol allows the full functionality of the USB Power Delivery referred to in point (a), irrespective of the charging device used.
https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-10713-2022-INIT/x/pdf
As I commented above, the regulation clearly states “any additional charging protocol allows for the full functionality of PD… irrespective of the charging device used.”
So they can’t have both unless they split EU & RoW devices.
I hadn’t heard this. Good on the EU not letting them squirrel out of this (hopefully)
The question is more about “how much” of PD they support right? Like PD has standards for charging at higher or lower currents.
My understanding of the current-gen MacBook Pro is that they support some kind of “fast charging”, but only if you use their MagSafe port. You can still charge on the USB-C ports, but not as fast as you could with MagSafe. I’m not sure if that’s a violation of the regulations, or if PD simply doesn’t have support for the amount of power they’re pushing through the MagSafe.
But I think the point is that they’ll continue to look for ways to offer a better experience with their proprietary stuff, even if they’re forced to support a standard in addition.
The regulation actually enforces that PD is implemented if high speed charging is available and that it can’t be limited in speed compared to any other charging protocol that’s also available on the device, irrespective of the charging device used.
We don’t need to guess if we can just read the regulation: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32022L2380&qid=1691523718368.
Wouldn’t that be false advertising? It needs some internal feature that makes it faster, and there’s no way it’ll naturally be faster than a regular USB-C.
How is it false advertising? Apple makes a cord to spec and standard and slaps a “made for apple” tag line on it. Its just marketing. Nothing special about the cable. Its just a way to ensure apple fanboys buy it.
making iPhones use a “Made for Apple” type of cable for faster charging speeds
The bolded part is the problematic bit.
I never said for faster speeds. All it has to say is “made for apple”.
deleted by creator
iirc the new EU law that apple is responding to doesn’t say that a mobile device can’t have a proprietary port, rather it says that a mobile device must have a USB-C port for charging. But i might be wrong about that.
Wireless charging is a pretty bad option for a sole charging source though, it is highly inefficient and heats up the phone more than using a wire. My last phone actually had issues from overheating because I used it a lot while on a wireless charging dock.
Given how frequently something gets stuck in the port or it gets slightly damp and refuses to charge, I won’t go on travel without a wireless charger. The only time I plug in is if I’m charging from an external battery.
Definitely a good idea to have both.
deleted by creator
Yeah, I’m sure it is great for a situation like that. When I worked from home I’d use it pretty much all day while charging on a dock, like, 100% screen on time. It caused the battery to swell up and pop the back glass off though, so I don’t do that anymore.
Downvoted for sucking off apple
Just let people enjoy what they like. Not everyone cares about the same things and that is okay. And I’m using a Pixel 3, before you start making accusations.
Also there are no downvotes on Beehaw.
Unilem lets me downvote. Not sure what to tell you there. I’m not even sure what comment I meant to reply to before, but it seems like it wasn’t yours. My bad.
Don’t know what unilem is, but a lot of apps will show the button even though it gets blocked on the backend.
though Apple is expected to adopt curved edges for the first time since the iPhone 11.
Damn, I use a Pixel but I’ve always liked how the 2018+ iPad Pro and 2020+ iPhones looked. I wonder if the front will still be flat with a curved back, like the Nothing Phone 2
I wish I could get a 15 mini with usbc. That’s all I want.
15 mini pro
This is all I want
I’ll start saving up then. Still on the XS max but this is finally worth the upgrade.
Not sure how a leaked photo can ‘confirm’ anything but good news regardless
I’m still surprised they didn’t just go MagSafe only for non pro models.
I’m really curious how apple will present that on stage. If they say anything positive about the change everyone will ask why they didn’t do it sooner. But they also can’t just not say anything about it
Two possibilities:
- It’s a revolution. They give it a specific name and blablabla.
- They don’t say anything.
It’s a revolution. They give it a specific name and blablabla.
iBS™
deleted by creator
I don’t know what people don’t understand about this. Lighting is way better than microUSB, the only other option at the time. I cant imagine how many accessories will be rendered useless or at least inconvenient to use after this change. Probably gonna be an ewaste disaster.
It doesn’t really matter anyway, how many people really care about the port they have to plug their phone into at the end of the day as long as it works? I’ll admit I used to care A LOT but I just don’t anymore, bigger fish to fry and all.
I cant imagine how many accessories will be rendered useless or at least inconvenient to use after this change. Probably gonna be an ewaste disaster.
On the upside, everyone in this thread bitching about Apple hanging on to Lightning for all these years will have something new to hate them for, thus maintaining balance in the universe.
I think there’s a good chance that they act like it was their idea and that they are doing a the world a huge favor by switching.
I’m confident Apple will use whatever the currently top performing variant of usb-c is.
My understanding is that USB-C as a standard is pretty all over the place. Some can fast charge etc. So my guess is that Apple will come up with some superduper performance USB-C or they’ll at least present it as such. And why not sooner? Because they were in the lab perfecting it.
It depends what the device supports. It’s on Apple to implement the standard to the fullest extent the device can utilize. If they don’t implement fast charging, that’s on them. There was a lot of complaints when the Nintendo Switch came out because they didn’t implement all the features.
USBC is a hot god damned mess.
The C describes only the shape of the connector.
The numbered specification (“2.0”, “3.0”) describes the speed.
But USBC can also do non-USB protocols like HDMI and Thunderbolt and DisplayPort.
Things got better as manufacturers now implement the standard correctly.
Nowadays you can plug any device to any charger and the worse that can happen is your device not charging fast enough (sometimes actually discharging).
So if you get a powerful enough charger, you’ll be able to charge all your devices.
And yes, you can also do video out and for that you need to check the compatibility of your devices but it’s still not that bad, compared to the days where you could fry a device by using the wrong charger.
This is why I haven’t really been clamoring for this change. USB-C SUPPORTS cool things, but doesn’t guarantee that it’ll be available to use. Most of the time that’s a silent fallback, but I’ve seen a lot of odd things with USB-C cables and chargers in the past, all followed the standard, the standard just allows for only supporting partial feature sets.
At least with Lightning I know what I’m getting. I’ve got usb-c cables that don’t support 1.1 data lines for keyboards or mice, yet pass 40gbit. I’ve got chargers that support, in fine print, high output at 5v, 9v and 20v, but plug a 12v device in and it negotiates it down to 5v. Etc. and these are all brand name things. I even have a cable that supports more if you flip It over than it does on the other side.
I really hope D is better, but I also kinda hope they don’t call it D…
For sure, they’ll make some spec that isn’t very compatible with lots of cables, chargers, devices, etc. But, it will charge. A normal usb c cable might not Super Ultra Mega Charge your iPhone like an apple cable and adapter would, but it will charge, and vice-versa. That’s basically what we have with usb-c standards currently, though.
USB Type-C is not all over the place, it’s a pretty normal connector standard, that was updated a few times.
What may be confusing to is that there are also two other relevant standards:
- USB Power Delivery 2.0 and its updates
- USB 3.0 and its updates
Both of these standards require the USB Type-C connector for some of their features. Sometimes in a specific revision, for example at least USB Type-C Rev 2.1 is required for the Extendend Power Range introduced in USB Power Delivery 3.1 for charging at more than 100W.
Furthermore USB 3.1 has absorbed USB 3.0 and USB 3.2 has absorbed USB 3.1. Each time they renamed the old connection speeds. For example a USB 3.2 Gen 1×1 connection used to be called a USB 3.1 Gen 1 connection and before USB 3.1 came out it was called a USB 3.0 connection.
Finally USB Type-C has so called alternate modes, where the lanes for SuperSpeed USB can instead be assigned to carry other protocols, like DisplayPort.
Since very few features are actually required to be supported, and marketing managers are apparently allergic to precision, it’s hard to find out what feature is supported on which interface for any given device.
I think what confuses people is precisely the fact that we finally have one universal connector, because previously each connector basically only had one set of standards.
USB-C is a victim of its own success
Removed by mod
USB C is confusing because it pretends to be universal
In reality USB Type-C is only a connector, not all the features people associate with it. Of course it’s going to be confusing if you insist on mushing the concepts up in your head even after an explanation. Just accept that there are at least four different things, Type-C, USB 3.2, Alternate Modes and USB PD, and start thinking in those categories.
Removed by mod
They’ll do like they always do and pretend it’s the greatest, most innovative feature ever. They’ll probably give it a hip new name like ‘light speed port’ and make it only compatible with Apple-branded products.
The EU specifically disallowed that in their terms.
- Harmonised fast charging technology will help prevent that different producers unjustifiably limit the charging speed and will help to ensure that charging speed is the same when using any compatible charger for a device.
My guess is they spend less than 60 seconds on it, in the same way they talked about it when it came to the iPad Pro in 2018: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bfHEnw6Rm-4&t=3309
In summary: “We changed a thing. It’s a big deal but also not. Here are three benefits this change brings for users. Also this other benefit. On to the next thing.”
Hot damn! Thank you, EU. Maybe we’ll finally be able to climb out of connector hell.
The beauty is that it will start extending to devices like notebooks. So goodbye those stupid barrel plugs most still use that all vary in size for whatever goddam reason.
Mice too. Why no one makes usbc dongles is just insane to me. Even if it was an extra $10 give us the option.
deleted by creator
I’m already out of the connector hell for several years by buying only devices with USB-C.
The iPhone doesn’t have USB-C, I don’t even consider buying one.
My new connector hell is trying to find a micro usb cable to charge that one device I still have that uses it.
