Comment by jmull
Comment by jmull 21 hours ago
USB-C for your gadgets is not a good regulation. The hurdle to adopting anything better is probably too high to overcome now.
Comment by jmull 21 hours ago
USB-C for your gadgets is not a good regulation. The hurdle to adopting anything better is probably too high to overcome now.
There should be no need whatsoever to convince your competitors and/or bureaucrats that allowing your new connector to be produced is in their interest. Only one should be convinced: the person buying the device.
We tried that for 40 years. The result is drawers full of chargers.
But clearly there is a price for the standardisation, it makes progress slower. On the other hand it makes everyone's lifes easier. Just as with e.g electrical outlets in the house there is a time for exploration and innovation, and there is a time for standardisation. And we are ready for standardisation now, USB-c is good enough.
USB-c is absolutely not good enough. The connectors are often incompatible due to tiny manufacturing tolerances, cables from different manufacturers often fall out of the port after longer term use, don't make good connection so you have flaky charging, the cables and connectors look the same but are actually incompatible due to supporting only USB 2/3/4 or thunderbolt, whether displayport/hdmi alt mode is supported, etc. This small short-term gain at the cost of locking in USB-c forever was a terrible idea, brought to you by the same hypercompetent group that mandated cookie banners.
> We tried that for 40 years. The result is drawers full of chargers.
Which is a fine? The industry eventually converged to just a handful of common standards on its own.
You can’t innovate without being able to experiment. Which is only possible if there are actual people using your product. Thinking that a committee of bureaucrats can replace that is silly.
The "bureaucrats" are a proxy for the person buying the device. That's literally the point of representative democracy. The average person doesn't want to make a million decisions on technical standards, so they elect somebody they trust to make them for them.
> convince most of them that the new method is better, and then the commission will likely adopt a new standard.
Only way they could actually prove that is by demonstrating it empirically. i.e. by implementing the technology in products which consumers use.
Any government commission is inherently incapable of making a legitimate proactive decision is such case. You might as well use some sort of a lottery system at that point..
Well, physical interoperable things are done by committees. You need the industry players involved if you want new interoperable standard to be widely spread. Unless it is one of the first movers.
Say how would you improve speed of copper based ethernet. Using nearly same cables and connectors? Every party making the chips must agree on very specific details.
> fewer chargers, less e‑waste, less drawer chaos.
care to mention what negates those things to make it a “not good” regulation?
as a consumer, i think it’s a good thing to not need Nx different charging cables / plugs to go away for a weekend. usb-c is basically the de-facto standard for charging all but apple devices anyway.
hardware manufacturers might have a different opinions/motivations (but that was kind of the point really wasn’t it)
Everything seemed to have been moving towards USB-C regardless for a few years now, so it seems somewhat superfluous at this point in time? Apple was a major holdout though, due to Apple reasons.
Not strongly against it as such, but also not entirely convinced it's needed either.
Well I did say "somewhat superfluous", not "entirely superfluous" :-)
This is where the up- and down-sides need to be considered. Everyone moved from micro-USB to USB-3 because it was easier and better, and this will now be harder (not impossible, as another comment says, this is supposed to be evaluated 5 years). There may also be special cases where there's a good reason to use something other than USB-C Is that a big problem? Maybe not? I don't know.
They should have let apple continue selling garbage connectors so I can’t use my wife’s phone adapter to charge my phone. and have to buy an iphone charger because it is better(not)
I hear your concerns, but the future is probably wireless charging and wifi communication
What would be the next better feature for a plug? It seems USB-C has it all except for being expensive on the port side with the muxers. Anything different would require tossing a bunch of still useful things. It supports fast charging and good data rates.
That's the entire problem though, isn't it? Now we'll never know.
The one thing I can think of off the top of my head is some sort of magnetic connection similar to macbook chargers to prevent damage when the cord gets pulled out. (Also I would like the USB-3 standard to not suck, but that's never happening and doesn't relate to the physical hardware anyways)
> That's the entire problem though, isn't it? Now we'll never know.
There are definitely a lot of harmful regulation, but this one is amazing with close to no downsides. For one, there are magnetic adapters for everything nowadays, including USB-C ports so you can have your cake and eat it too. Second is the environmental impact of the old charger ecosystem. I lost count of how many cables and chargers I have that are now trash^1. Third one is that historically standardizing interfaces was great for innovation.
^1: Here is the various USB e-waste that I have - usb micro C (2 separate types with same name), micro usb super speed (this one is particularly cursed), mini-usb types A and B, and normal USB type A and type B.
> Here is the various USB e-waste that I have - usb micro C (2 separate types with same name), micro usb super speed (this one is particularly cursed), mini-usb types A and B, and normal USB type A and type B.
Catch just two more and you can challenge the USB trainer in Viridian City!
The protocol was flawed in its design in that it does not standardize or communicate the capabilities of the cable. How do I know whether it’s charging only, data, or thunderbolt? No standard way to understand this
The relevant commission is supposed to re-assess and come up with new recommendations every 5 years.
If someone comes up with a better method for charging, they can get all the big device manufacturers in the room, convince most of them that the new method is better, and then the commission will likely adopt a new standard.
This is not far-fetched. All the players relevant to internet, for example, collaborate to determine how web standards should evolve. It works pretty well. It's more or less the same companies who need to collaborate to build something better than USB-C.