Agreed just tell Apple who still have them on IMac, IMac Pro, MBA and neither on IPhones or IPads
Consistently inconsistent
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Why the lack of a standard USB port?
- Thread starter jwolf6589
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Consistently inconsistent
Apart from the mess of not necessarily comparable standards using the plug type, sure...
Why do people keep implying that USB-C is faster than USB-A?
It just isn't.
USB-C carries a single channel of the same USB 3.1 protocol that you can get from a USB-A port (and, yes, you can run 10Gbps 3.1gen2 through USB-A - several high-end PC motherboards offer gen2 USB-A ports).
USB 3.2 will actually allow USB-C to carry 2 USB3.1 channels, but it was only recently announced and when it does arrive you'll need new computers, hubs and peripherals to take advantage of it.
...and while USB-C can carry displayport as well, all the current implementations (and most available displays) only support DP1.2 which needs all the high-speed data lanes of a USB-C port to support 4k@60Hz just leaving the fallback USB 2.0 lane for data. So USB-C docks can't run 4k displays alongside USB3.1 - you need to go to TB3.
Now, Thunderbolt 3 is a different proposition - it has a number of benefits over TB2, including the ability to repurpose any unused TB3 ports as USB ports. The complaints aren't about the presence of TB3/USB-C ports, they're about the lack of anything else. I don't think we'd be seeing this level of moaning if Apple had just upgraded the 2015 rMBP with new chips, improved display and just upped the TB2 ports to TB3.
Yes, because Magsafe sockets and SD readers break down all the time - said nobody ever at all.
That's the point - you have to buy them and (unless you get cheap no-name cables that might fry your computer) the cost soon adds up.
No it isn't. 16 years ago, the only real need for old-style serial ports was a bunch of "niche" industrial equipment that was programmed via RS232. Which was a real issue for people who needed it (dongles were available) but isn't remotely comparable to the ubiquity of USB-A equipment today. Oh, and the reference to parallel printers is ridiculous since the Mac never sported a parallel interface and (with Mac use then at a low ebb) the choice of Mac compatible printers with serial ports was rapidly declining and LocalTalk printer sharing - once the Mac's unique selling point - had been wiped out by ethernet.
The switch to USB may have had a few downsides, but overall the combo of USB and Firewire was a night and day improvement over the proprietary ADB/Localtalk, quirky "differently standard" RS423 serial connector and expensive, bulky and complex SCSI (remember terminators and device numbers?) that it replaced.
USB-C, by contrast, has only marginal improvements over USB-A with a huge side-order of confusion and potential incompatibilities (at least 4 potentially incompatible different types of USB-C to USB-C on the Apple Store, for instance). Most of its advantages are as a replacement for microUSB/MHL on mobile - which is the one place Apple aren't using it.
It’s confusing! The USB Implementers Forum made it so. “USB-C” refers to a standard type of connector. It’s the successor to the standard type A and B connectors. The data transfer protocols are named 1.x, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB
“...there are three basic formats of USB connectors: the default or standard format intended for desktop or portable equipment (for example, on USB flash drives), the mini intended for mobile equipment (now deprecated except the Mini-B, which is used on many cameras), and the thinner micro size, for low-profile mobile equipment (most mobile phones until late 2010s). Also, there are 5 modes of USB data transfer, in order of increasing bandwidth: Low Speed (from 1.0), Full Speed (from 1.0), High Speed (from 2.0), SuperSpeed (from 3.0), and SuperSpeed+ (from 3.1)...”
We see the level of moaning we do because there are a couple dozen posters on this forum who moan about it incessantly. Of course, you know that already, LOL.
SD readers do break all the time. Yes, the Magsafe socket may be quite hardy, but by emphasizing the socket, you're just moving the goal post... for all the complaints about buying a $5 USB-C cable/adapter, just as much whining about $80 magsafe chargers.
Yeah, those $5 USB-C cable/adapters really add up.
Seriously, for the last time... it's 2018... if you're plugging in that many USB devices directly into your laptop... you are doing it wrong. And if that's really necessary for your workflow, hey that's your burden... but for the other 97% of users, they don't need to simultaneously plug in separate cables into every available port on their MBP.
FUD. There is no mass confusion. Almost all of the "complaints" about it have been from users like you who are hell-bent on making an issue out of it. And hardly unique to USB-C.
Drive change and get rid of old technology. I friggen laughed what my new work computer had a vga port.
Come on.
Apple seemingly is driving such changes.
Think about it, tb3/usb-c power, data, video, sound, fast speed.
How is this bad and why isn’t being adopted faster.
Most companies I’ve worked at have docking stations, why not a inexpensive hub with HDMI and Ethernet. Problem solved for a lot less than most docks.
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Ask blackberry about not letting go.
I was against the new mbp format. Now I shrug at the antiquated crap I have to deal with at work.
Luckily my work is ponying up for a new MBP for me.
I’m hoping it’s a 2017. I would simply put it on my desk and my $50 hub and one connector would transform it into a nice desktop
Give it a rest bud, no idea why you follow me around threads whenever I post anything remotely positive about a MBP. No idea why you seem to feel it's your mission to say the same response to every thread either "Buy a 2015...", we get it, you don't like them. Thread was about why the newer MBP's don't have a USB-A port, I said why, you turned this into yet another doom and gloom posting based on your opinion that you don't like the newest MBP's, guess what, don't buy one!
And yes, there are dozens of threads on this, nothing here will cover new ground will it? So why do we need another one?
(Courtesy eGPU.io @theitsage )
If you can't figure out whats going on, A usb 3.0 port would need to hang off the PCH, the inclusion of which would have negatively impacted the available bandwidth for the SSD and/or Wifi controller. Everything on the left of the PCH is USB 2.0, negligible bandwidth needs. Since the needs were already covered by Alpine Ridge (Thunderbolt 3) there's no need to sacrifice either.
Obviously we really don't have the reason but this is a pretty compelling case.
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You have a great machine in the 2012 model you plan on keeping that does everything you you need.
Why another thread on something that we talked to death in 2016?
I’m sure you can sync that audio with iCloud or some other cloud solution.
I suppose they want you to buy more dongles? A £2k laptop isn’t just that any more as you need to fork out another £200 to get a good quality hub that has standard features like HDMI, Ethernet, USB.... terribly annoying and if I wasn’t in love with the butterfly keyboard on my MBPs I’d surely have just bought a windows computer instead.
Sure USB-C is the future, but it's pretty penny-pinching and snobbish of Apple to promote the Macbook as a premium product without including any adapters in the box. If I'm supposed to accept that I can "just buy" a cable, why can't Apple "just include" a basic adapter? They used to do so in the past, so what changed?
Exactly, Apple may be too quick at times, but its going on 2 years now, and people are still wanting Apple to include the legacy port on the laptop
Yeah, I get it, they may not be all that consistant by including a legacy port the iMac and/or what's included on the iPhone. I'm not looking to defend that, just point out that it is a legacy port and its time to move forward.
Legacy on the iMac I can understand.
IF Apple didn’t offer a usbc to lighting cable and the ability to use any of the MBP brick as a charger then a I would have a somewhat different position.
My experience was so positive. I love a mouse but I realized apple provided an awesome track pad. But for those times I bought a mouse and external monitor I purchase a hub, which is adequate but the mouse interface is jerky.
So I bought the Apple usb/hdmi/power adapter. Ythey soaked me for $73. But honestly my MBP runs windows better than the two HPs and dell the last two companies have provided.
But we quietly accept other devices such as media players, TVs, cell phones and etc that don’t come with all the cables or peripherals in the box.
Why can’t a tv with 3 hdmi inputs come with 3 hdmi cables?
Which is why every iPhone is shipped with a USB-C/Lightning cable. Oh, wait...
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Agreed just tell Apple who still have them on IMac, IMac Pro, MBA and neither on IPhones or IPads
Consistently inconsistent
I think what a lot of people react to is this inconsistency.
Apple deemed the 3.5mm headphone jack so important that they put only a single (that's one, 1, uno) USB port on the retina MacBook. Presumably this reflects Apple's priorities.
But the 3.5mm headphone jack was so antiquated that they eliminated it from the iPhone last year. Presumably this reflects Apple's priorities.
Since 2016, all MacBooks (other than the Air, which is a real piece of legacy hardware at this point, reflecting Apple's priorities...) have only USB-C ports, because everyone knows that USB-A is worthless and obsolete. Presumably this reflects Apple's priorities.
But every iPhone and iPad ships with a USB-A cable, and USB-C cables must be purchased separately (and for surprisingly high costs). Presumably this reflects Apple's priorities.
Come on, what is going on? This isn't consistent vision. It's just a mess, and a mess that costs a lot of money for users to straighten out.
Which is why every iPhone is shipped with a USB-C/Lightning cable. Oh, wait...
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I think what a lot of people react to is this inconsistency.
Apple deemed the 3.5mm headphone jack so important that they put only a single (that's one, 1, uno) USB port on the retina MacBook. Presumably this reflects Apple's priorities.
But the 3.5mm headphone jack was so antiquated that they eliminated it from the iPhone last year. Presumably this reflects Apple's priorities.
Since 2016, all MacBooks (other than the Air, which is a real piece of legacy hardware at this point, reflecting Apple's priorities...) have only USB-C ports, because everyone knows that USB-A is worthless and obsolete. Presumably this reflects Apple's priorities.
But every iPhone and iPad ships with a USB-A cable, and USB-C cables must be purchased separately (and for surprisingly high costs). Presumably this reflects Apple's priorities.
Come on, what is going on? This isn't consistent vision. It's just a mess, and a mess that costs a lot of money for users to straighten out.
USB-A is not worthless and obsolete! I went to Best Buy yesterday and most of the external hard drives required a USB-A connection.
USB-A stinks. It takes 3 hours to make a bootable Windows ISO. Sure.. if all I needed usb was to transfer 100kb documents I would be complaining too but for big data transfers, usb C hands down. Apple did go to full C too soon though, but that’s Apple.
You're talking about the shape of the port... not the protocol that runs through it.
USB-A ports and USB-C ports are neither fast nor slow. It all depends on what you are plugging into them.
Try comparing a USB-A 3.0 cable with a USB-C 2.0 cable and see which one is faster.
Again... it has nothing to do with the port itself.
The USB Plug on a drive is the type B plug. Here is an appropriate cable...no USB-A plug required.
http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F2CU035/
maflynn wrote:
"Exactly, Apple may be too quick at times, but its going on 2 years now, and people are still wanting Apple to include the legacy port on the laptop"
I'm just over the 1-year mark in ownership of a 2015-design MBPro 13". I chose that over the 2016-design (which was brand-new at the time) for primarily 2 reasons:
- didn't like the new keyboard
and
- the 2015 had a full complement of legacy ports, specifically USB-a.
Since I bought it, I've yet to encounter a USB-c port in my day-to-day usage. Admittedly, I still use it -mostly- with stuff I already had.
USB-c may (or may not be) on the way to becoming "a new standard" as some here proclaim. That remains to be seen.
USB-a IS "a standard" that is long-established and will remain one for at least 5 years to come, perhaps longer. Ten years from now, USB-a will still be a good seller for many folks (by then, mostly on the PC side).
USB-a 3.1 Gen 2 now supports 10gb/sec transfers. Not too shabby.
Although I have no sales figures to support this prognostication, I would reckon that at least 75% of ALL USB devices currently sold still have USB-a connections.
Apple is the outlier here. At least for the time being.
"Exactly, Apple may be too quick at times, but its going on 2 years now, and people are still wanting Apple to include the legacy port on the laptop"
I'm just over the 1-year mark in ownership of a 2015-design MBPro 13". I chose that over the 2016-design (which was brand-new at the time) for primarily 2 reasons:
- didn't like the new keyboard
and
- the 2015 had a full complement of legacy ports, specifically USB-a.
Since I bought it, I've yet to encounter a USB-c port in my day-to-day usage. Admittedly, I still use it -mostly- with stuff I already had.
USB-c may (or may not be) on the way to becoming "a new standard" as some here proclaim. That remains to be seen.
USB-a IS "a standard" that is long-established and will remain one for at least 5 years to come, perhaps longer. Ten years from now, USB-a will still be a good seller for many folks (by then, mostly on the PC side).
USB-a 3.1 Gen 2 now supports 10gb/sec transfers. Not too shabby.
Although I have no sales figures to support this prognostication, I would reckon that at least 75% of ALL USB devices currently sold still have USB-a connections.
Apple is the outlier here. At least for the time being.
You're talking about the shape of the port... not the protocol that runs through it.
USB-A ports and USB-C ports are neither fast nor slow. It all depends on what you are plugging into them.
Try comparing a USB-A 3.0 cable with a USB-C 2.0 cable and see which one is faster.
Again... it has nothing to do with the port itself.
When did I say anything about the port itself? You can’t just take something someone says and twist it to fit your agenda lol.. you’d be good in politics
Oh, and for completeness 3.1 comes in two versions - 3.1gen1 (5Gbps) which is, for practical purposes, just 3.0 re-named, and 3.1gen2 (not to be confused with 3.2) which is the new, improved 10Gbps version... all of which support good old USB-A connectors.
USB 3.2, on the other hand, means running two lanes of USB3 5Gbps or 10Gbps data over a USB-C cable (which currently, surprisingly, only uses one lane for USB3) to get up to 20Gbps of bandwidth. As such, its the only one on your list that actually needs USB-C cables, but it was only announced last summer and is not supported by any currently available computers, hub/docks or peripherals (but you'll be able to keep your cables, which is nice).
Reliable information from usb.org press release here here: http://www.usb.org/press/USB_3.2_PR_USB-IF_Final.pdf
Or, amuse yourself by reading "Trusted Reviews" demonstrating USB-C's potential for confusion by getting USB3.2 completely wrong here: http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/usb-3-2-care-3173569
...well, yes, $5, $10, $15, $20 here and there does add up if you're going to re-cable all of your USB-A devices with USB-C cables, not to mention the $priceless when someone at a meeting hands you a flash drive and you don't have your adapter with you...
Well, we can start with all the USB-C evangelists who think that it is faster than USB-A. Then there's Trusted Reviews getting USB 3.2 completely wrong (see above).
But maybe you really don't think that it will be confusing to multiple types of superficially identical cables with quite different functions (charge cables that support full current charging but can only carry USB 2 data, cables that support USB3.1 and DisplayPort but won't enable 100W charging and won't carry Thunderbolt, passive Thunderbolt cables that also do USB 3.1 and DP (but not all of which support 100W) and active Thunderbolt cables which do TB3 but only USB2.0 and can run Thunderbolt displays (that use DisplayPort-over-Thunderbolt) but not DisplayPort displays (that use USB-C DisplayPort alt mode). ...and I'm not making this up: all of those permutations are available from Apple (including the LG 4k display which uses USB-C DP alt mode, and the LG 5k display which uses Thunderbolt). Believe me - once those cables start to get jumbled up, there will be confusion.
CPU chipsets can be configured in a multitude of ways based on the manufacturer's requirement, so its not really fair to take the existing configuration - which was predicated on 2 Alpine Ridge TB3 controllers - and ask "how would we kludge a USB 3.1 port into this". What a lot of us are suggesting is that 2xTB3/USB-C + 2xUSB-A would have been a better interim design, with all-TB3 still a couple of years ahead of its time. (Also, I may be wrong but I believe that Alpine Ridge can be configured for 1xTB3/USB-C + 1xUSB A 3.1).
Or, the other possibility would have been for Apple to have released the radically re-designed, thinner, crispier, USB-C only MBPs as-is while also upgrading the 2015 rMBP design to the latest CPU and display panel. Which is exactly what they did with the classic MBP in 2012 when they released the then-radical rMBP.
...because then the store couldn't try and sell you a $70 Monster hand-rolled, dolphin-friendly, solid unobtanium HDMI cable that delivered straighter '1's and rounder, fatter '0's to your TV. That is fairly well known. Its not a good reason.
Meanwhile, whenever I've bought computer displays from HP or Dell they've come with some cables, and many USB-C hard drives etc. come with both USB-C-to-C and USB-C-to-A cables or adapters in the box (as did dual USB/Firewire devices back in the day). Apple could have retained a lot of good will by chucking one or two of those proverbial $5 USB-C-to-A dongles (which would cost Apple a lot less than $5) in the box with their $2000+ computer. Or, at least having an Apple-designed-and-tested multiport dock with USB-A, SD and MiniDP in the Store for a subsidised price from day one.