USB-C Sucks & It May Not Be Getting Any Better Soon

USB-C was supposed to be our savior, yet it has made the charging landscape more complicated, confusing, and fragmented than ever. I walk through the reasons why in this video. I don't even get into the problems with the dangerous un-certified cables widely available!

Chapters ➡
0:00 Intro
1:23 My problems with USB-C
1:58 What is USB-C?
3:40 Can't forget Thunderbolt...
4:09 Sponsor Break: Jamf
5:56 Data rates
6:47 Charging speeds
9:50 A brand-new USB PD spec?!
11:07 Summarizing USB-C issues
14:13 The future looks problematic

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[AdrianStoll]

Just to clarify, wouldn’t the simplest solution be to ONLY use Thunderbolt4 cables (provided they are genuine) to ensure it has max data/max charging capacity by design?

[bobdonaldson]

They should have standard to print cable specs and standards on the cable itself like electrical conductors and cables

[patd]

You realize that Apple was one of the leading developers behind the creation of usb-c right?

[DejaunWright]

I find USB C so much more effective than lightning... And for the record, lightning has a lot of limitations compared to most USB C cables 2:15

[fjaajf]

Yes, confusing. But this is because of the ever evolving technology and cost. Of course it would really be nice if one cable does everything but good luck getting cables cheaply at that point because every manufacturer of cables needs to pay for the tech and rights to use Thunderbolt 4, Power Delivery, Quick Charge, Apple’s Quick Charge, Samsung’s Super Fast charging, and all the other stuff. But I would still prefer manufacturers stick to USB-C but maybe the USB association starts mandating visual markings and label for future cables. (And ffs get the USB naming more logical).

About Lightning cable, NO, I wouldn’t even give any credit to Apple trying to make money by making an inferior proprietary plug.
How many times I’ve encountered the “Do you have an iPhone cable?” question. LOL

[muhammad_zaman]

Then he discovers the dark abyss of HDMI 🤣🤣
The entire point *UNIVERSAL* port is to carry one cable to rule em all
why you have this many cables?
just get one or two high spec thunderbolt cable and use em for everything
companies will keep making low specs cables that come free with products for cost cutting
you are never forced to use them
lightning is the biggest e-waste this planet has ever seen, can't stress enough the fact how terribly they are made
even sub $100 phones provide longer lasting cables than apple

[shApYT]

The stupid rationalizations of apple's reluctance to completely switch to type C aside, this would have been a good video.

[miguelagueda]

It gets even worse that cables. Lewis Rossmann talked about this recently. Some companies implemented usb-c for charging ( with plain 5v) but didn't bother to include the couple necessary resistors to tell the charger it's okay to send 5v. Thus, with this devices, you could use a classic charger with a usb-a to c cable just fine, but not most usb-c chargers. They don't even include the charger with the device in question, so you might try out the ones you have available at home and think that something is actually broken or force you to carry a simple 5v charger just for these devices

[bibasik]

I agree that USB-C sucks. Instead of having a bunch of cables with different connectors that do different things, we now have a bunch of cables with identical connectors that do different things. Sure, you can buy a USB-C cable that does everything, but those are extremely expensive, so most people won't have one of those.

However, Lightning is bad, too. It uses USB 2.0 for data transfer, which was already outdated when Lightning launched. While the phone side of the connector is more durable than USB-C, the cable side is MUCH worse. Lightning cables frequently get charred pins one one side, so they only work if you plug them in one way. Last but not least, Lightning is a proprietary standard that is only used on iPhones. Modern iPads and Macs already use USB-C, not to mention Android and Windows devices.

[mavfan]

Doesn’t suck as bad as a proprietary Lightning connector.

[MurTadaAlThawab]

Still, it is better than lighting and micro USB

[xko]

No one was lied to. USB-C is a 24-pin USB connector system with a rotationally symmetrical connector. The designation C refers ONLY to the connector's physical form factor and should NOT be confused with the connector's capabilities. USB C is not a transfer/charging standard, it is a connector standard. If you want a specific transfer or charging speed you need to look for the relevant standard, eg usb 3.2 Gen 1/2, thunderbolt 3/4, 60w/100w PD. USB C doesn't tell you it's capability, it only tells you the connector type!

[EvanHKatz]

Hi Andrew.

Thank you for yet another amazingly clear and compelling video!

But I still will take USB-C over Lightning any day of the week, so that I can carry *one* charger instead of multiple chargers. It is ridiculous and absolutely insane that Apple has roughly half their products on one standard, Lightning, and the other half of their products on USB-C. They can’t play both sides, and should adopt USB-C immediately and move on.

Also, regarding the insanity of the different USB specifications, it is not just mere inconvenience. Recently, my wife and I moved, and during the move one of my backup drives broke. It wouldn’t work properly, and tech support at the company could not figure out how to fix it. So I brought the drive to the UPS store to return it, and thank God later realize what happened before the drive shipped out.

There was nothing at all wrong with the drive, but after the move I had plugged the drive back into the iMac Thunderbolt port with an incompatible cable. The drive was an ultra-fast Thunderbolt drive, and I didn’t realize that I was using an older and incompatible cable. In other words, I spent more than an hour on the phone with tech support, and almost shipped back to the manufacture a perfect working drive, all because of USB cable confusion.

But, all in all, I still will take USB-C overlay Lightening any day. Thanks again for a great video. Much appreciated.

Best regards,
Evan

[TheAlexisBrownChannel]

It’s a great thing that you made this video. Because I agree, there needs to be more direction with USB-C cables for consumers. I’ve noticed this issue from my own experience. I love the type- C format, but this is a problem. Hopefully companies will realize this issue and resolve this problem.

[vp]

Nice try, but no. Lightning definitely worse than USB C.

[atorbtech]

I dnt think there is any issue with the USB Type C. The only issue is with the naming scheme. There should be some standard/simple way to just name the type C so that users can easily identify the peak data and power delivery of a particular cable.

[adammachin]

5 amp cables are supposed to be labelled 5A under the PD spec, from an end user perspective, using the wrong cable just results in lower negotiated speeds/power. Of course the concern could become fake cables that negotiated power levels they’re not designed for.

[PerpetualPreponderer]

We use several different electrical appliances at home & at work. Just because the plugs at the end of every one of those wires look the same, do we assume the power cables are the same & start using them interchangeably & wreck all our appliances?

This is just FUD, IMO. Most people can tell there's a difference when a certain device like a laptop comes with a thick cable as opposed to a thin one that would come with a pair of bluetooth earphones, for example. And for those who can't, a simple 2 minute explanation will suffice.

The promise of USB from the beginning was to be just that, universal. Now with USB-C, finally we can realistically see a time coming where you just need to have ONE set of charger & cable, which will be determined by the highest wattage device you have. And it will work across every single other USB-C device.

That is WAAAY better than Apple's proprietary lightning MFi nonsense. If Apple could have their way, they'd ship their chargers to have proprietary heads to plug into wall sockets too.

[agsup]

I feel like the main issues taken with USB-C in this video are easily fixable. Not to mention that if you don't cheap out on cables, they're labeled pretty well. Almost all of my charging needs are taken care of with Anker cables that have the wattage written on them (65W for my black cables and 100W for my silver ones), and I know that both of those carry data over USB 2.0 because they don't need much more. They're my charging cables. If I want to do fast data transfer then I'll just grab a Thunderbolt cable. Simple solution, but I get that it requires knowing what cables you bought and why. Plus other cables behave weird. But I think the benefit of USB-C is that if you buy the right stuff (very important step), then it'll be the universal connector that it was promised to be. It's just like how USB-A was: don't expect two cables that look similar to have the same specs.

[TheKingmario]

I am an ex samsung user (nothing wrong with the phones themself, i just wanted to test something new and more solid), previous december i bought an iPhone 13 pro max and officially passed to the apple ecosystem. The first thing that i learned to love is the lightning cable: by far the most well tought charging cable i ever seen.

Lightning has no middle pin inside the device that can be damaged by repeated usage of the port, or easily damaged by a fall. Not to mention to its good locking system that litteraly “notify” you with a click when you successfully inserted the cable.

Usb-c may have the upper hand in therms of recharge capabilities, but the solidity of the design is questionable at best. With usb-c im more concerned to damage the middle pin with the contacts inside the device more than damaging the cable itself. As a matter of fact: i never removed the usb-c connector from my apple charger since i recharged for the first time my phone, the risk of having it worn or damaged is haunting. My old samsung once fell with the charger in it, the fall slightly bent the device port’s pin, that was a close call.


The only reason why usb-c is becoming the approved global standard is because is more common, but overall construction proprieties are waaay inferior to apple’s lightning cable. They are not gonna stop e-waste by using that as a standard, because afterall: old devices will still exist, same we can say for the demand of older platform chargers. This is just a stupid decision that will bone us in the long run trust me.