Slashdot Mirror
The Impossible Dream of USB-C (marco.org)
Marco Arment, a prominent developer best known for co-founding Tumblr, explains things that are still crippling USB-C, despite being around for years and being used in mainstream products. Arment writes: While a wide variety of USB-C dongles are available, most use the same handful of unreliable, mediocre chips inside. Some USB-A dongles make Wi-Fi drop on MacBook Pros. Some USB-A devices don't work properly when adapted to USB-C, or only work in certain ports. Some devices only work when plugged directly into a laptop's precious few USB-C ports, rather than any hubs or dongles. And reliable HDMI output seems nearly impossible in practice. Very few hubs exist to add more USB-C ports, so if you have more than a few peripherals, you can't just replace all of their cables with USB-C versions. You'll need a hub that provides multiple USB-A ports instead, and you'll need to keep your USB-A cables for when you're plugged into the hub -- but also keep USB-C cables or dongles around for everything you might ever need to plug directly into the computer's ports. Hubs with additional USB-C ports might pass Thunderbolt through to them, but usually don't. Sometimes, they add a USB-C port that can only be used for power passthrough. Many hubs with power passthrough have lower wattage limits than a 13-inch or 15-inch laptop needs. Fortunately, USB-C is a great charging standard. Well, it's more of a collection of standards. USB-C devices can charge via the slow old USB rates, but for higher-powered devices or faster charging, that's not enough current.
Seems like a stream of thought list of statements rather than a cohesive message. Maybe that's the point?
Dude has a short memory, remember when USB stood for Unsupported Serial Bus?
Firewire or bust
I'm going to write a spec for USB-AC... delivers 120 Volts AC to all of your peripherals.
The guy is basically complaining that USB-C doesn't work well on Apple products. Most of his complaints are due directly to design decisions by Apple... "laptop's precious few USB-C ports", "dongles make Wi-Fi drop on MacBook Pros", etc.
Just last night I was trying to copy a small config file to my android box. Samba wasn't working for me. Sftp transfer? I set up an ssh server. Nope wasn't working either. I see a flash drive, and think, why don't I just simply move the file with the flash drive. I grab the flash drive and run to my laptop and remember it's a macbook with usb-c and I have no idea where the usb dongle is. I felt defeated at that point.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You realize that USB-C is in no way proprietary crap, right?
USB-C is proprietary? Since when?
But now I need to worry about injection attacks when connecting to a power source. WTF?
IMHO, USB-C is not a good idea for all things.
That and that the removed interfacens were proprirtary crap.
+----------------- | What is the question!
It's the USB part. In other words, ISB-C should never have come into existence. Trying to build upon the weak foundation that is USB hurt USB-C from the beginning. The effort required for USB compatibility was overwhelming and crippling.
1. He's absolutely right about it being a "collection of standards", where it's unclear whether a USB-C receptacle is power-only, high-power, power+data...etc. That inconsistency is hindrance to adoption, rather than flexibility.
2. There are tens of billions of items with USB-A connectors, for which even the 480mbits/sec of USB 2.0 is 'fast enough', and USB3 speeds are "definitely fast enough". Quite a number of these things are rather expensive. By contrast, there are very, very few devices that have a USB-C port for something other than charging.
3. Machines with USB-A ports tend to have a lot of them. Most standard-sized laptops have 3-5 of them, desktops have 6-10. I've yet to see a computer with USB-C provide more than two such ports. It does not help spur adoption when the number of ports available amount to "one to charge, one for the hub for all the other things".
4. Cables are expensive...except when they are inexpensive and they don't work, or outright combust.
But the really big reason I feel that USB-C hasn't gone much of anywhere is because no one really asked for it. The 12mbits/sec of USB 1.1 was quickly a bottleneck, and it was backwards compatible. The 480Mbits/sec of USB 2.0 was fast enough for plenty of things, but bulk data transfers and other tasks benefit from USB3...and both of them were backwards compatible at a physical level. USB-C is "maybe whatever you want it to be", doesn't have the same connectors, lacks real standardization beyond the connectors...and aside from the ability to flip it, from a customer's point of view it's supposed to be superior, how?
I'm sure it will increase its momentum and/or find a niche eventually, but the fact that it's going to require a painful and expensive transition period makes it the kind of thing that will take far longer than the iterations of USB that have been the standard for nearly two decades.
USB-C doesn't solve any problem I have, so I'm not going to go out of my way for it and am not particularly excited about it. But I won't resist it, either. I'll adopt is as devices I use switch to it.
They decided to push USB-C and removed all USB-A ports before the USB-C specifications were ready? Sure USB-C can replace a lot of things on paper, but in real life it looks like a real mess of nearly a dozen different specifications.
And the only Apple laptop left with USB-A ports is the MacBook Air, with an old 5th-generation intel CPU, a sub-par TN display and a standard of 8GB RAM with no 16GB option.
#DeleteFacebook
Except that this is about USB-C which is in no way proprietary...
The transition is unnecessarily painful, but otherwise USB-C is a great idea that addresses most of the old USB issues.
USB-C allows for must more power--I can plug in a USB-C cable and have power and accessories for my laptop, and it's great for phone charging.
USB-C finally eliminates issues with upside-down USB connectors.
USB-C has the same connector on both ends of the cable.
USB-C should be fully backwards compatible with dongles.
USB-C power should allow for nearly universal DC power. Ideally all home routers, switches, and such will use USB-C power, eliminating a wide assortment of power bricks and connectors. In fact, pretty much every wall wart power brick could be switched to USB-C. (Yes, this may mean USB-C wall warts, but it may also mean USB-C outlets.)
USB-C does have potential security issues, as does any USB-power option. This is something that device manufacturers should have been dealing with all along, but it's even more important now.
But there are problems where USB-C doesn't work as advertised. Many sub-standard cables and such are circulating, causing all sorts of problems. Lack of ports and dongles present a nasty headache in the short term.
My conclusion is that now is a lousy time to buy a new computer. In two years, they should have plenty of USB-C ports, and everything will have switched over to it. Given the choice for a phone, though, I would pick USB-C over micro-USB.
Why does the fella who started Tumblr think hes suddenly part of the IEEE? We need new ports and cables to support this new fangled standard. (Duh.) Old cables are backwards compatible (score!) but dont work the same as the new (double duh!) And not to be hypocritical here by thinking my tiny slice of the world is authoritative but I use HDMI over USB-C daily.
will work for dragon quest localization
No, but it would be nice to keep it around alongside the new and unproven interface until that new interface becomes proven. We're talking about the (still) ubiquitious USB-A port, here, not some dead-end technology we've been trying to get away ffor years. Well, maybe some people have been trying, but even they seem to agree that jumping to USB-C before it was proven was a mistake.
And now? USB-C has, indeed, been proven... to be quite a mess.
I have a USB-C phone that will charge from my backup battery, which will then go to sleep because it is no longer charging something; the phone will then wake it up and begin charging it. I have a laptop that charges via USB-C. Well, no, I don't. I have a laptop that charges via Thunderbolt through a USB-C port; it will not charge from any of the various power supplies I have, even if they support the voltage and current it expects; though it will happily dump the content of its own battery into my phone or a portable battery via the very same port.
That's to add to TFS, of course, as I've experienced most of what the author of that list of complaints has written, as well.
USB-A (and B) never had these problems, USB-C does, primarily because it's trying to be more than just USB. Does the port support Thunderbolt? With which cables? HDMI? DisplayPort? Both? Neither? And with which adapters is it compatible? There is no way to tell without pawing through the manual for the device the port is on, and we don't get manuals with our devices anymore.
The beauty of USB was that anything that could plug in to the port would just work, and we had that for nearly two decades. With USB-C, that's a thing of the past.
Yes, USB-C is a huge step forward... to a time I recall before USB-A took hold. If you're over 30 and remember that time as well, and still think USB-C is a net win, you'll be the first I've met.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Because "Dongle" has a negative connotation of inconvenience, hassle, and dubious benefit. And that's basically what you have today with the dime and quartering morass of dongles people have to deal with now. Seems entirely fitting, IMO.
Oh so you’ve just redefined proprietary to mean something it has never meant. Gotcha.
What do you get then? A windows machine?
Yeah, great choices here.
Either get fucked with the hardware, or get fucked with the software. At least with Apple, you only get fucked once, up front. Microsoft will never stop causing you pain. You will live with the ever present fear that the next unblockable update will trash your machine.
If you remember the times before USB-A you should ALSO remember that it didn't "just work" at the outset either. Specifically I seem to remember an awful lot of different USB devices (from CD-ROM burners to special mice) that needed drivers added to work, so it was absolutely not the case you could plug in any USB-A device and it would just work...
Even today in the waning years of USB-A I have run across devices that do not just work, trying to get a working USB-A -> Serial port adaptor was a very trying experience. I have also had over the years some VERY flaky USB-A external storage devices that were very particular as to which cables they worked well with, or simply were not very stable at all.
Within just a few years most of the USB-C issues will have smoothed out. That is in large part due to Apple shipping a LOT of devices with USB-C only, meaning that there is great motivation to making a lot of components that work well with USB-C which provides a lot of financial motivation as well as making Apple kind of a reference hardware standard for testing, as in if you are shipping a USB-C device or cable today you may make sure it works with a number of Windows laptops or phones, but you WILL make sure it works with a MacBook Pro or your Amazon ratings will be in the toilet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's an example of Worse Is Better. USB was easy to implement for devices because they basically just need to respond to packets in a ping pong manner. It was also covered by a patent pool so if a company joined the USB Implementers Forum it was issues a vendor ID and joined the patent pool.
Later revisions improved the speed and added a bunch of features but they did so on a carefully back compatible way. You can still plug in a USB 1.0 mouse into a USB 3.0 host, and it'll work.
https://www.dreamsongs.com/Ris...
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
USB is a perfect example of "good enough". It is a lowest common denominator where a device can use the USB 1.1 protocol with cheap chips, and it will be acceptably working.
USB-C is a different animal. Because charge current can go either way (charger to a laptop, then from the laptop to a small port replicator), USB-C requires more sophisticated chips to handle the protocol. Chips that the Chinese lowest bidder OEMs/ODMs just don't want to pay for, so they cut corners.
You realize that USB-C is in no way proprietary crap, right?
You realize that other than supplying power, the interface is essentially crap, right?
When functionality becomes that crippled, the interface might as well be proprietary crap.
Moving the goalposts much? You made a specific claim, you were told you were outright wrong, and now you're trying to say that you may as well be right? Huh?
Moreover, I understand having ideological differences with proprietary things, but what the hell does it even mean when you suggest that something that's low quality may as well be proprietary? That makes no sense at all.
Do you also understand that the issues with USB-A came down to drivers, rather than hardware? And that, no, not every complaint against USB-C existed with USB-A -- namethose involving protocol mixing, which wasn't a thing with USB-A. You can't fix missing Thunderbolt suppora non-Intel system with a sofware update; likewise with HDMI/DisplayPort passthru on systems lacking that hardware.
The problem with USB-A was poor initial support for the specification. The problem with USB-C is that it's a collection of specifications with no way for the end user to know what a given compliant port or cable may or may not support; and the spec allows this condition. Things that didn't work with USB-A simply were not compliant; with USB-C, two fully compliant devices with the correct drivers on both ends are allowed to not work, and the spec says that's fine.
That's a problem.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.