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.

Comments

Stopped reading

[Mr D from 63]

Seems like a stream of thought list of statements rather than a cohesive message. Maybe that's the point?

Re:Stopped reading

[Anubis IV]

I put credence in what he says, but I don't understand why it's on the front page of Slashdot, given that it's basically an op-ed, which doesn't seem appropriate for here.

I follow his blog and listen to (some of) the podcasts he's on. He's opinionated, comes up against a lot of interesting situations because he pushes things in ways they weren't meant to be pushed, and, frankly, has enough disposable income after his successes (e.g. being the #2 employee at Tumblr) that he's able to do a lot of firsthand product research on products I am occasionally interested in purchasing. That said, like anyone else, he's frequently wrong about all sorts of things, and I'm sure he'd be the first to tell you that.

Re:Stopped reading

[Anubis IV]

If he’s “frequently wrong” then why listen to him?

I said, "like anyone else, he's frequently wrong [...]". Anyone who expresses opinions frequently is frequently wrong. That's the nature of expressing opinions, particularly when you're asked to express them off-the-cuff. One of the few things I'm sure of is that I'm frequently wrong.

In his case, however, he's able to accept correction, quick to admit that he's wrong, and whether he's right or wrong or whether I agree or disagree, he does a good job of walking you through his thought process that oftentimes hits on points I wouldn't have otherwise considered. That's why I keep listening to what he has to say.

So no, I don't listen to quack medical advice, but I do listen to opinions expressed by well-informed people who are willing to put themselves out there as having an opinion on various topics, particularly controversial ones, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't.

Re:Stopped reading

[ndnet]

I think part of the problem is that this is a complex issue that it's really hard to boil down to bullet points. Let's see:

• - USB-C connectors are a huge upgrade w/r/t size/sturdiness/reversibility (nice)
• - The USB-C connector was so good that it was rushed to market (bad)
• - USB-C connectors don't tell you anything else about the device or cables (bad)
• - The fact that USB-C makes no modern minimum speed guarantees - ie, there are USB-C devices with USB 2.0 signaling, like the Nexus 6P (bad)
• - USB-3.1+ 'Alternate Mode' is confusing because you can't tell from the port which, if any, are supported at all (bad)
• - USB Charging standards are mediocre. At least you theoretically can charge a phone with a charger you haven't researched. (bad)
• - Quick Charge was a great interim step by one large manufacturer but needs to die because it's not open at all (bad)
• - USB PD seems to be hard for manufacturers to get right, and as such there's risk - see the Nathan K. / Google stuff (bad)
• - Part of the problem is that the 3.1+ chipsets are still immature, and we were just starting to get USB 3.0 down right (bad)
• - Losing the audio jack to USB-C may be more bad-PR than a frequent actual inconvenience, but either way it's (bad)

So, except for that first bullet point, we are in the worst USB timeline. Still, even as bullet points, it's describing a mess.

Short memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude has a short memory, remember when USB stood for Unsupported Serial Bus?

Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Summary

[AmiMoJo]

This. I've been using USB-C for a while on Windows 8.1 and it's fine. Everything works as you would expect.

The only issue I had was with MTP for file transfer, but that turned out to be a software issue and the patch last month fixed it. USB-C itself though has been great, even with cheap cables.

Re:Fuck You Very Much, Apple.

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that USB-C is in no way proprietary crap, right?

Re:Fuck You Very Much, Apple.

[Lunix Nutcase]

USB-C is proprietary? Since when?

My List

[Voyager529]

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.

I'll start using it

[JohnFen]

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.

Re:USB-AC

[MightyYar]

I guess if you are going to make electricity dangerous, you might as well go all the way.

We have those outlets, too, here in backwards North America - but we plug the oven or clothes dryer into them.

I will say that the British have hands-down the best-designed plug for safety: sleeved conductors, ground pin opening shutters for the conductors, a fused plug, and a switch right on the outlet. Definitely a bit on the spendy side, but really well thought-out.

Re:USB-AC

[lisaparratt]

Your mom's vibrator needs more than 240V 32A.

Transition to USB-C

[crow]

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.

Re:This has little to do with Apple

[BronsCon]

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.

Re:Dongles?

[ilsaloving]

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.

Re:dongle

[mccalli]

Then get a dual USB A/USB C flash drive. It's the same as saying I looked for my Zip drive but couldn't remember where the Ultrawide SCSI cable was...it's just a transitory point in time whilst people switch over.

I personally guess this will be five to seven years before you start seeing desktops without USB A, but you've got to start somewhere.

Re:USB-AC

[squiggleslash]

On the other hand, have you ever stood on one?

Makes Lego feel like a foot massage...

Re:USB-A did not "just work" at outset either.

[BronsCon]

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...

Yes, drivers. Software. Which you can add after-the-fact. That's always going to be a problem and is fairly diffeent from the issues USB-C faces.

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.

Ah, yes, cheap crap products and cheap crap cables. You can take a perfect standard (which I'm not saying USB-A is by any means) and make it look like shit by not following it. The problem with USB-C is that it's not a standard, it's a collection of standards which all physically look the same to the end user. Any of those standards might be supported by a given port, with no way to tell which are and are not supported by that port; this leads to a situation where the thing can plug in but can potentially never work because the hardware to make it work simply is not there. This was not a problem with USB-A where, at most, you might need a driver; even USB 1 vs 2 vs 3 was just a matter of speed and devices made for any of those standards would work with any of those standards.

Within just a few years most of the USB-C issues will have smoothed out.

How do you fix a "USB-C" Thunderbolt device not working with a non-Intel system? How do you fix a USB-C display cable not working with your laptop that doesn't support HDMI or DisplayPort passthru? Or supports the HDMI when your display expects DisplayPort (or vise-versa)? How do you fix Thunderbolt and USB protocols requiring different cables despite sharing the same port?

You don't just install drivers like the good old days of USB, these are hardware issues.

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.

Define "USB-C only". Is that USB 3.1 over USB-C, HDMI over USB-C, DisplayPort over USB-C, Thunderbolt over USB-C, analog audio over USB-C, or what? Any of those? All of those? What haopens when you plug your Thunderbolt over USB-C device into a computer which only supports USB 3.1 over USB-C? What drivers make that work?

That;s the mess.

You complain that USB-A was no better because you might have needed some drivers, completely missing that the problems with USB-C cannot be fixed with drivers.