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Free Software Will Help Detect Faulty and Malicious USB-C Cables
Reader Mickeycaskill writes: The USB 3.0 Promoter Group, of which HP, Intel and Microsoft are members, has developed authentication protocols for USB-C and will offer free software to detect faulty or malicious cables.This tool will alert users if they are using a non-authenticated cable. It has been suggested that hardware manufacturers could ship devices with an authentication system already installed. It is hoped that the specification will help end a number of recent incidents where sub-standard cables have either ripped off buyers or damaged devices. Most recently, Amazon said it would be adding USB-C cables and adapters that do not comply with standard regulations to its list of prohibited electronics items.
It's not really DRM. The "authentication" information is more an informational block - like EDID in monitors, SPD in memory modules and such.
The reason is it allows for smarter management. A USB-C charger can provide up to 100W of power, but you need some way of telling the device that it's available, and the current methods are generally quite... crappy. But you also don't want to have the charger implement a full USB stack. So you implement this mechanism and it tells you how much power you can draw. And if you use a crappy USB cable that doesn't put in the resistors correctly, you could detect that as well and charge at the agonizingly slow rate, while displaying a dialog to change the cable to a certified one because it's wired incorrectly.
Basically this whole thing stemmed from that Google guy reviewing all the USB-C cables out there, and finding a huge number of them were pretty awful and resulting in crippled charger performance, if the devices could charge at all.
It's less about tying products and accessories together and more about being able to tell the user that the $1 USB-C cable they bought is incorrectly manufactured and to expect problems like slow charging or slow data transfers.
You're factually wrong on so many counts that it's not even funny.
A) The cables you're comparing are different lengths. 1m for the "Apple" cable vs. 2m for the Amazon cable. No wonder it's cheaper.
B) That "Apple" cable is being sold by a third-party via Amazon. Apple doesn't sell a single one of their products directly via Amazon. Buyer beware.
C) To compare apples to Apples, an actual 2m Apple cables costs $29 ($19 for 1m), not the $7.50 you suggested it was.
D) If you want to whip out your Apple e-peen to see if it's bigger than mine, I'd wager good money I have you beat. Macs have continuously been my primary computers since the late '80s. A Mac Classic, Performa 400, PowerMac G3 300, Titanium PowerBook DVI, HiRes Aluminum PowerBook, 2008 Mac mini, 2011 Mac mini. My wife uses them, my parents use them, my siblings use them, and my wife's siblings and parents do too. Likewise for phones and tablets: iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 5s, iPad 2, and iPad Air 2. I could list off Time Capsules, Airport base stations, and other accessories too, if you'd like.
I use Apple products on a daily basis and absolutely love them (we're planning to buy an iPhone SE this weekend, in fact, assuming they're in stock), but there's no (sane) way to deny that actual Apple dongles and cables are far more expensive than their generic counterparts. It's no different than the advice we'd give people about BTO RAM upgrades: do it yourself after buying from a third-party.
So, as someone whose love for Apple likely runs far deeper than yours: stop with the lies and misinformation, since it makes us all look like we have no clue what we're talking about.
I think a part of the problem with USB-C is that it can handle up to 100 watts of power delivery! If your cable is of questionable quality or has issues, messing up 100 watts of power can definitely break things or cause a fire. I think amazon decided to go the safer route instead of destroying equipment or causing fires.