Marco Arment:
I love the idea of USB-C: one port and one cable that can replace all other ports and cables. It sounds so simple, straightforward, and unified.
In practice, it’s not even close.
And:
USB-C normally transfers data by the USB protocol, but it also supports Thunderbolt… sometimes. The 12-inch MacBook has a USB-C port, but it doesn’t support Thunderbolt at all.
And:
If you bought a USB-C cable, it might support Thunderbolt, or it might not. There’s no way to tell by looking at it. There’s usually no way to tell whether a given USB-C device requires Thunderbolt, either — you just need to plug it in and see if it works.
This goes on and on. The most frustrating part of all this is the opacity of it all. All the details hidden. True for both ports and cables.
Be sure to scroll down to the end for conclusion. Marco nails this.
LOL I just ran into this. Had been connecting a USB3 external HD to my touchbar MBP via a multi-port USB-C to USB-A adapter, and it worked fine. Since I only needed one port, I though I’d tidy things up and bought a USB-C to USB-A cable (tested by Benson Leung according to the comments on the Amazon product page, no less) to connect the drive directly, and quelle surprise, it does not work.
i knew he would insert a jab at apple, being part of the pro troll techie echo chamber.
MA’s Apple jabs make for a great drinking game. Double jeopardy when followed by that laugh.
IAS, MA makes some decent points, but I find it pretty tiresome that Apple’s always to blame when it comes to peripherals. The company’s damned if it does [keep everything in house] and it’s damned if it doesn’t [opening the door 3rd parties join the party…suitably dressed or not].
I don’t necessarily enjoy reading Arment’s posts, but this level of variability about any given port or cable sounds ridiculous to me.
It’s a mess. Which is why I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple sticks with lightning on iOS for the foreseeable future.
I’ll be a counterpoint to John’s comment. I’ve not had any USB-C issues, but my requirements for this Mac dictate that I only need to connect the occasional storage device.
While l understand issues arise when peripherals enter the picture, I imagine the majority of users rarely connect anything to their Macs.
I’ve been using my MacBook for nearly a year and I only buy Apple cables.
“Be sure to scroll down to the end for conclusion. Marco nails this.”
No he doesn’t. But y’all like to celebrate cynicism as genius. Not saying this to troll. It’s a fact.
Yes, we WERE overdue for Arment whining about something again. How DID we survive? We should obviously go back to the time of serial ports, parallel ports, VGA video output and…oh wait, that DID suck.
For a 35 year old Marco’s well on his way to crusty curmudgeon who hates everything-hood.
Eh. To counterpoint this, I have an A to C adapter and use it to connect to several different 3.1 drives via whatever A to 3.1 cable I have around (I have a few).
And it’s fine. The adapter? Is from Apple. I don’t think you can blame either the standard or Apple for cheap-ass, poorly built/engineered cables.
I’m no great fan of Arment, but he states a legitimate complaint that doesn’t argue to extremes, as you are. But perhaps you feel each USB-C cable and component should simply be marked “RTFM”?
No, I feel that life’s not perfect, that people who buy cheap, crappy cables get what they pay for and that the problem may well be transitional in part (the MacBook not being a TB3 device may simply be because of space or cost of the controller when it was made).
I’m tired of Marco’s little diatribes that life isn’t perfect and therefore it’s all bad. The fact is that as people buy new peripherals USB-C has the possibility to drastically simplify the cable mess and that if you compare where we are now to where we were a few years ago it’s far better.
Finally, what’s the alternative? Never change? Don’t do new things because the entire world won’t change with you and there will be glitches? That’s ridiculous.
Settle down, please. You’re still arguing to extremes as though I’ve threatened to take candy away from you.
“I’d have thought this obvious,” but I’m not advocating for cheap knockoffs in any way (see my comment above), and I’m not in the mood to dogpile on Marco to support the angry assumption that he’s always wrong (he isn’t) or just a moody whiner ( which he occasionally is).
Your breathless, defensive recitation of those awful nasty old ports has little to do with the current inadequately differentiated design which adds to the user’s cognitive load. Except insofar as the current design recapitulates those round-port points of confusion for users who should be spared such things in 2017.
To rephrase, my issue is with identical-looking ports that aren’t identical. I don’t need them all to have the same capability. I do need to be able to quickly identify their differences. And the differences of the cables that connect to them. And the peripherals that connect to both. Even a damned stripe of color would have sufficed.
You’re saying “be happy with what we’ve got!” I’m saying “this could still benefit from improvement. It’s not finished.”
This is about simple UI. We should all be able to do better than this by now. Including the people who approved this standard, and including Apple.
The proliferation of cheap, crappy cables is one of the problems of USB C, but not the most egregious one.
Even the expensive ones don’t work in all cases – essentially by “design”. For example, the USB C “power” cable that came with my very expensive MacBook Pro won’t drive my portable USB C display because it only does USB 2.
There’s no indication on the cable or the computer or display that this combination won’t work – it just doesn’t. This is a stupid step backward.
The only thing worse than a bunch of different connectors and cables that look different is a bunch of different connectors and cables that look the same.
Thank you!