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John Gruber: Apple Invented USB Type C
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Copy what? A standard that anyone can use?
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Did they say anything about it?
It's kind of amazing how so many people cannot grasp these points. Everybody is complaining about one port on the new MacBook as if the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro don't exist. Same thing, except worse, with the Apple Watch Edition.
As far as I can remember, Apple has been pretty good about pushing cutting-edge tech into one line, improving upon it as well as waiting for it to spread in the industry, and then adopting it across the line.
Two great recent examples are the removal of optical drives and hard drives. Optical drives really got hurt in each generation (CD, DVD, BD) by increased DRM in media. If DVDs and BDs didn't have DRM, you might even still see them in Macs. But because of the increased hoops, that extra hardware was nowhere near worth keeping in a computer. They still offer good ways to store tons of data for cheap and a way that isn't killed by magnets, but the external BD drive I have is thicker than my MBA. Hard drives are the same way, except I have two recently deceased drives -- one internal iMac drive, one external -- to prove how unreliable that tech is compared to flash. I know flash isn't perfect, but so far I haven't had any "dead flash drive" issues with my iDevices or Macs.
I did agree with one article I read that thought if Apple is trying to make bus connections more wireless, it maybe should've included one of the upcoming wireless technologies whose names escape me. But they're probably too immature to use right now. I do like the vision of killing every wire. That MacBook might be a good playground for implementing inductive charging.
USB-C sounds just like:
USB 1.0
USB 2.0
Firewire 400
Firewire 800
Thunderbolt 1.0
Displayport
Which is to say, a Macbook, or any other Mac that gives up yesterdays ports instead of simply adding this new one will feel pretty outdated once USB-C becomes USB-C 2.0 or 3.0. I only hope 3rd parties make things a little more tolerable by making their USB-C 1.0 devices cheaper than all devices that used the last 4 ports on my list.
USB 1.0
USB 2.0
Firewire 400
Firewire 800
Thunderbolt 1.0
Displayport
Which is to say, a Macbook, or any other Mac that gives up yesterdays ports instead of simply adding this new one will feel pretty outdated once USB-C becomes USB-C 2.0 or 3.0. I only hope 3rd parties make things a little more tolerable by making their USB-C 1.0 devices cheaper than all devices that used the last 4 ports on my list.
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No, the statement was "completely different uses". Clearly this is not the case.
Also when something like the 11" Macbook Air or Mac Mini comes with Thunderbolt and you can hang a VGA monitor off it saying it is limited to the pro market makes no sense either. In fact you can't buy a Mac today which doesn't have Thunderbolt which demonstrates Apple using it as a highly versatile expansion port.
It caters for the whole market - including pro.
Thunderbolt is faster and hanging off the PCI-E bus, other than that, the common uses for both are extremely similar.
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USB-C and Thunderbolt can both be used to connect displays.
From the Apple site.
intel HD Graphics 5300
Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 3840 by 2160 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colours
Not sure if thats is 30 or 60 hz.
There will be some serious engineering challenges getting that to work through a metal chassis.
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I think they meant lightening cannot support 4k.
USB C is USB 3.0, all they did was combine 7 different connectors in 1
Type A
Type A mini
Type A Micro
Type B
Type B Mini
Type B Micro
Type B Micro 3.0
into
C
Getting rid of all wires is great only after all the other technologies needed catch up to what they are replacing. They are selling us today on the idea of going fully wireless but to do so with todays tech means your going to have fewer devices to connect to at slower speeds and with less battery life. Once wifi is gigabit, all USB devices are wireless, bluetooth is faster and has a wider range, and every place you go has a gigabit wifi signal and wireless charging signals, then its going to be a great day for being a Macbook user. I think all the different ports on macs while PC's had to deal with usb 2 and 3 and not much else show that the reality never catches up with the promise. Apples research labs are a good playground to test things out, not shipping products. Or at least don't sell them like your improving peoples lives with them.
If you want to experience what its like to use usb-c on a Macbook just take your current macbook, let someone hold it so you don't feel how heavy it is and put tape over all but the power port. How you connect to other devices will be the same. This has all the trappings of a first gen Apple product. I am sure people will enjoy using them, but there is a reason first gen Apple products usually are less expensive when buying them used than later models, its because they are much less useful than models just one year older. Also, the 2nd and 3rd gen new models usually go down in price too. Like what happened to Macbook airs that started at $1,800. USB-C in the way its being implemented in the first computers that use them gives me that first gen vibe.
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If there were 2 usb-c ports in any usb-c cable mac there wouldn't be a problem. If there was a usb-c and a separate power port there would be less of a problem. But if there is only one usb-c port, there might occasionally be a problem.
Unfortunately, that's not a wise habit to invest in. The finite number of recharges on those batteries is far shorter than just keeping your laptop plugged in to an outlet and having MagSafe.
No, it will not go undetected. Have you even tried pulling the USB cable during a transfer to external storage? The computer will invariably tell you that something went wrong, and it will prevent the removal of the original file being copied. It is theoretically possible to design a broken application that violates this basic principle, but it does not apply to the file operations in OSX or any other modern operating system.
If screws, clips and bayonnets are essential to maintaining data integrity, then where are they when it comes to USB, Firewire and Thunderbolt? Are they absent because nobody ever transfers files over those connections?
I don't get it... in the first paragraph you pretend to forget that the error correction can be done at protocol layers above those covered in the USB standard. And then... in the last sentence of the second paragraph you turn around and shoot down the argument from your first paragraph. But you still ignore that Apple can (and does, today!) ship software with solutions in higher protocol layers for these error scenarios!
What are you really trying to accomplish here?
why would you want wireless charging on a laptop? most people like to take it around and even use it on the couch. unless you're talking about the wireles. charging that can charge your device with a signal like a wifi signal. they showed this at a D conference a few yrs ago
Are you sure about that? My understanding is that when you are plugged in, you're actually taking charge from the battery for power while continuously topping it up from the mains. On that basis I don't see how keeping the laptop plugged in all the time saves on battery life.
None of this is part of any USB protocol and is completely dependent on the OS to implement it... I thought we were talking about USB?
Also, what about copy operations? after you yank the cord you will not have a valid file on the destination drive.
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I did not say they are essential to ensure data integrity. I was pointing out that they are widely used in order to help ensure data integrity. Accidental disconnection becomes one less thing you need to worry about.
And USB, Firewire and Thunderbolt are clearly less permanent connections but still utilise a decent amount of friction/tension to hold them in place.
All of which is a massive difference from the idiotic idea of using a weak magnetic connection designed to fall apart for data transfers.
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Your initial argument was that link permanence doesn't matter because error detection is implemented.
My point is that the type of error detection and correction implemented in USB is very low level and still leaves the possibility of file corruption occurring when the physical link fails.
I then stated that if you wanted to do the type of error detection you were erroneously claiming would already occur when the connection was broken, it would need to be implemented much higher. Then issue is then that the system is breaking USB spec. What happens when this magnetic connector is used on a non-OS X system which doesn't provide for these data protection implementations (extensions) because they aren't part of the standard? Bad things...
I'm actually trying to educate you.
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My understanding also, backed up by my battery discharging while mbp plugged in but under heavy load on cpu and gpu (gaming in Windows). The charger is not providing enough juice to keep the battery topped up.
Specifically, we are talking about computer systems equipped with USB, and the implications of USB link failures in the handling of data on such computer systems. It's right there in the first of your posts I responded to, you mention a concern about corrupted files. And in later posts you have even pointed out yourself that files are out of scope in any discussion concerning only the USB standard and the protocol layers it deals with. You brought the discussion to the topic of USB in a wider context also involving other layers. And now you say I'm wrong in discussing the other layers you already brought to the table?
Exactly. And you will know you don't have a valid file on the destination drive, because your computer will tell you!
You made that up. I never said anything like that. What I said was that a link failure will not cause data corruption to go undetected. That link performance "doesn't matter" in a wider sense is a silly straw man, and if you want to complain about the stupidity of that statement you need to first find someone who said such a thing.
In the physical layer a severed link is nothing more than a never-ending sequence of bit errors or loss of sync. This will be detected by layer 1. Like any failure that is not correctable by layer 1, it will be reported to layer 2. If layer 2 can't take care of it, the error is reported to layer 3, and so on. This is the way error handling works in every modern digital communications system on the planet: If a lower layer encounters a problem it can't fix, it says to the higher layer "I can't handle this, you deal with it". The lower layers will not silently pretend that the link is up and send a stream of zeroes or random data to fool the higher layers.
Yes, it must be (and is) implemented in higher layers. The hypothetical non-OSX system in your example is completely unusable as a consumer OS if it does not implement any higher layer error handling than what is provided in the USB standard itself. Creating such a broken OS is certainly possible as an academic research project or similar, but his limitation does not exist in Windows, Linux, BSD, iOS, Android or OS X. Should the design of the connector necessarily take into account a very hypothetical problem that is not present in the mainstream operating systems that will run on 99.5% of all systems using that connector.
Just to be clear, I don't necessarily think a magsafe connector would necessarily have been a good idea for USB. There are plenty of arguments against it. It would require a bigger connector, probably the size of USB-A or even larger. The reduced mechanical force between the leads in the connectors would affect the electrical properties of the junction, probably causing increased reflections and a lower data throughput. Not a problem for many people who are just fine with USB 2 speeds, but would be a deal breaker for situations where USB 3 speeds are needed. This is a trade-off between performance on one hand, and the protection of hardware integrity offered by magsafe on the other hand. A choice was made. I'm not saying the choice was wrong, not at all.
But silent corruption of files? How can you believe that even though you have correctly understood that the concept of a file flies over the head of the USB standard? File integrity is not the responsibility of the USB link, it's the responsibility of the higher layers and the OS! The USB link is responsible of the integrity of the data transferred over that link, but it's not responsible for the integrity of data that is not transferred over that link. Without this division of responsibility it wouldn't even be possible to design digital communications systems as we know them today.
I use my Mac like that and I have only used about 550 cycles in the last 5 years, out of the 1000. I still get over 4 hours of battery life out of a 5 year old machine.
It may not be the most efficient way to use a battery but it's not as bad as many people claim.
Does this mean, Thundberbolt is going slowly to die?
Nope thunderbolt 2 does 20Gbs usb3.1 does 10 max
TB3 will do 40... Plus all the other good stuff TB can do that usb cannot
It's used everywhere In the video / graphic industry
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Perhaps should have 2 usb3 ports
As for the price hike. Nothing to do with apple. Everything to do with import duty, VAT, taxes and the fact the euro is dropping like a stone.
If the teens just want to look cool why don't they buy the 11" Air. It'll look even cooler and also save them $400 to buy more cool toys with?
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Yep. I thought the MacBook Air was awesome when it first came out mainly for ditching those slow hard disks for solid state storage. But it was $1,800. I hadn't paid that since I got a 15" MacBook Pro for that price years before. I never exactly wanted to pay that much for a computer again.
But then last year I got a 13" MBA for $900. Flash got cheaper and everything else stayed pretty much the same. Boom, half the price of the original. And when people complain about only one port on the new MacBook, I don't get it because I rarely plug up anything other than power. There would be a few times I would need power and other ports, but I would either get the adapter or -- much more likely right now -- get a MacBook Air.
Plus it kind of feels good to see a few people slammed in the face over this. I had no idea why people were getting all excited about a 12" MacBook Air. We already had the 11.6" and 13.3" MBA. I had no idea why some slightly tweener product was continually some big rumor thing. So it ends up being basically the next MBA evolution and people get all shocked when it's something quite different. That's Apple in a nutshell, and it takes a while for people en masse to want the latest teeth-kicked-in computer change Apple puts out.
See post 288
Phil Schiller said:
see youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5osYMY5n3Q&t=2659