After charger, Apple removes USB-C cable from the box
After charger, Apple removes USB-C cable from the box
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173 comments
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After being forced to standardise to usb c and be responsible for some of the e-waste it produces, apple has finally relented.
They fought tooth and nail against the EU regulations to force charging standards. I don't care if they up sell cables to some people; most people will reuse what they have and thats the whole point of the regulations.
Regulation works.
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They transitioned most of their devices to usb save the iPhone before the EU legislation went into effect.
Apple caught shit for going USB-C only on their laptops years ago.
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Exactly, and it's still kind of annoying years later on my work laptop (2019 Macbook Pro). I got a USB hub and now I get all those other ports, but that wouldn't have been necessary if they just gave me an HDMI and USB-A port. The newer M-series Macbook Pros went back to having HDMI, which is really nice.
I wish everything I had was the same port, but I'm not going to go out and repurchase everything to standardize on one plug.
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HDMI is a dogshit standard and everyone should've moved over to DisplayPort or Thunderbolt over the USB-C form factor.
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Nah, it's totally fine, and it's ubiquitous. Ideally, I get both, so if I'm connecting to a TV or something, I can use HDMI, and if I'm connecting to a monitor, I can use DP.
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Are people connecting their laptops to TVs frequently enough that this should be built into every single unit shipped? I can't imagine the percentage of users who actually use their HDMI ports is very high.
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Yes? Someone in my group connects to our work TV pretty much every day for our morning meeting, and I connect to a monitor at home and at work multiple times every day. Yeah, I guess you could ensure that every TV supports streaming and have a USB-C hub at every desk, but that sounds odd compared to just adding an HDMI port or something.
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You use HDMI for all those use cases? Seems like Thunderbolt is a much better dock for workstations, and DisplayPort is generally better for computer monitors and the resolution/refresh rates useful for that kind of work. The broad support of cables and HDMI displays is for HDMI 2.0, which caps at 4k60. By the time HDMI 2.1 hit the market, Thunderbolt and DisplayPort Alt mode had been out for a few years, so it would've made more sense to just upgrade to Thunderbolt rather than getting an all new HDMI lineup.
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Yep!
Thunderbolt only works for workstations if the monitor supports it, and none of my monitors at home do. My gaming PC doesn't have USB-C out on the GPU, so even if my monitors supported it, I couldn't use it. I do use DisplayPort for my gaming PC, but the monitor for my home office doesn't have it.
I do have Thunderbolt at work, but it's super finicky (sometimes have to unplug/replug a few times for it to register) and I'd honestly rather just use HDMI because it pretty much always works for me.
DisplayPort is only better than HDMI if your monitor sends more data than HDMI can support, and HDMI can support all resolutions and refresh rates that I use (basically, the only thing it doesn't support are high res ultra-wide screens, or high res high refresh screens). I don't need high refresh for my work computer (I just use 1080p/60; I'm just dealing w/ text), so I'm well within that range. At work, I use a high res ultra-wide, which is nice I guess, and I use Thunderbolt there. My coworkers, however, use HDMI w/ a dongle just fine on similar screens (the ones that don't support Thunderbolt).
just upgrade to Thunderbolt
Yeah, I'm not going to throw out perfectly good hardware just to unify cables somewhat.
Adding an HDMI port really isn't a big deal. Apple did that with the M-series chips after having USB-C only on the previous gen, so HDMI isn't obsolete in any way. I only ever use 2 USB-C at a time anyway, and I'd honestly rather have a USB-A and HDMI on the other side than more USB-C ports. Variety > quantity IMO.
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Yeah, I’m not going to throw out perfectly good hardware just to unify cables somewhat.
I was referring to the replacement of HDMI 2.0 stuff with 2.1 stuff - not seeing an advantage to choosing HDMI 2.1 over Thunderbolt. And then there's the support hell of intermingled HDMI 2.0 and 2.1 stuff, including cables and ports and dongles and adapters.
Either way, I'm still stuck on the idea of direct HDMI use as being so ubiquitous that it warrants being built into a non-gaming laptop that already has Thunderbolt and DP (and USB-PD) support through the preexisting USB-C ports.
Thunderbolt only works for workstations if the monitor supports it
Even if driving multiple monitors over HDMI or DVI or DP or VGA or whatever, the dock that actually connects directly to the laptop is best served with Thunderbolt over USB-C, since we'd expect the monitors and docking station (and power cords and an external keyboard/mouse and maybe even ethernet) to all remain stationary. That particular link in the chain is better served as a single Thunderbolt connection, rather than hooking up multiple cables representing display signal data, other signal data, and power. And this tech is older than HDMI 2.1!
So I'm not seeing that type of HDMI use as a significant percentage of users, enough to justify including on literally every 14" or 16" Macbook Pro with their integrated GPUs. At least not in workplaces.
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non-gaming laptop
It's perhaps more important for non-gaming laptops, because if you're buying a gaming laptop, you're probably also buying a higher-end monitor (so USB-C/Thunderbolt). For a regular laptop, having HDMI means you can connect to a TV and play a video, share a screen, etc. You're more likely to do that with a more portable laptop than a bulky gaming laptop.
The alternative is needing to bring a dongle everywhere. On a non-gaming laptop, I only really need like three ports: USB-A for older stuff, USB-C for dock and power, and HDMI for TVs and monitors. An extra USB-A would be nice, but hardly necessary (I'd prefer an ethernet port, but I think that ship has sailed).
Here are the things I use most frequently:
- power - USB-C
- display - USB-C at work, HDMI (through USB-C dock) at home, dongle when a conference room's wifi sharing doesn't work
- USB-A - older drives, headphone recharging, etc; annoyingly, this has to go through my dock because the laptop doesn't have the port
So outside of charging and plugging into the dock at my desk, I have zero use for USB-C. So I only need one USB-C, because the only time I use it is when I can just use a dock at my desk. I have never used more than 2 USB-C ports at a single time (and that only happens at work, when I'm rechanging the laptop while plugging into the USB-C monitor), and that's only because my work monitor doesn't provide enough power to charge my laptop.
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Definitely.
People who never connect their laptop to a second screen are in the minority.
I never encountered one that has never done so, including Mac users.
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To a second screen, sure. But I'm saying that DisplayPort and Thunderbolt are so much better, are generally supported by more computer monitors (but probably fewer TVs). I'd be surprised that there are a lot of people using HDMI in particular.
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Displayport have bad connectors compared to HDMI. They break so regularly, I switched back to HDMI after every single one of those cables died.
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They switched back to the much more durable MagSafe (3?) connector. I have 3 MagSafe MacBooks and one usc-c model. The only one I have issues not charging is the USB-C one, and it’s the newest by 2 years.
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Not if
whenthey add a chip in the official Apple cable that the iPhone/iPad/iwhatever checks for, and refuses to properly charge or transfer data without it. At this point, a generic USBC will only work for a short time, before the device rejects it, forcing you to bin it and buy a new one, which negates the benefits of the regulation. Regulations do work, but they have to be thorough, and this one isn't covering all the corners.Edit: changes when to if. It was causing confusion as to what I meant.
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I too like to get mad at made up scenarios
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If only.
Now, I don't know if it's in USBC cables, but it was in their lightning cables.
Edit: apple isn't hiding this program, either. Nor should they. It has merit. But it can be abused, as it was with certified lighting cables.
Edit: also, I think it's funny that you assumed I was angry/mad about this hahahahaha I'm really not. I no longer buy apple, so it really doesn't affect me. And if I did buy apple, I don't think I would care that much, as when I did buy apple, I bought certified add-ons. I was simply pointing out the gap in the passed regulation. It seems that you're more upset about this than I am. Sorry my comment affected you this way--it was not my intention.
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Now, I don't know if it's in USBC cables
It's not. Apple specifically follows the USB-PD standard, and went a long way in getting all the other competing standards (Qualcomm's Quick Charge, Samsung Adaptive Fast Charge) to become compatible with USB-PD. Now, pretty much every USB-C to USB-C cable supports USB-PD.
Also a shout out to Google Engineer Benson Leung who went on a spree of testing cables and wall adapters for compliance with standards after a charger set his tablet on fire. The work he did between 2016-2018 went a long way in getting bad cables taken off the market.
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Is this true?
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No, they made it up. There's nothing special about the USB C port on any Apple products.
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Nope
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Not sure about USBC, but it was in their lightning cables.
It's not farfetched that they would also add it to their "certified USBC".
Edit: apple isn't hiding this program, either. Nor should they. It has merit. But it can be abused, as it was with certified lighting cables.
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173 comments