This is the new Micro USB 3.0 standard connector. I am sure that there are many other problems in the world that are far more worthy of our attention, but let me tell you that as soon as you start using this turd, they will pale in comparison. This connector, if I can be so bold to use that term for something that is as ill-fitting as this tiny fiddly device, is the new standard that will be used to charge every Android (and probably Windows) phone. And it is a total piece of shit. Because I have two relatively new Western Digital portable hard drives that use this thing, I have had a preview of the coming non-attraction of this useless widget, and it is remarkably damn difficult to stick this tab in the proper slot. On more than one occasion, I have had to use a tiny screwdriver to unbend a small piece of metal in the female part of the connector that somehow got bent when I was jamming it in.
I now understand why Apple created their own new connector “standard” for the iPhone 5 and new iPads. That connector, called the “lighting”, is easy to insert and has no up or down — it works no matter which side of the connector is “up”. Was that so fucking hard? Apparently for the USB committee, it was. And did I mention that the object of scorn and ridicule pictured above is about 3 times the size of the Apple connector? Well, it is.
Consider this an open thread because I know nobody will care about this until they actually use one.
Wag
Actually, the apple connector does have an up and a down side. Side with the lightning logo goes towards the screen.
But yeah. It’s really easy. As thing s should be.
MattF
I have a drawerful of obsolete cables with funny (but not humorous) connectors. Including the infamous USB AA. And SCSI (‘It’s not working, and it’s the cable’s fault’). Why can’t we all just get along?
mistermix
@Wag: I thought it didn’t matter which side was up for the phone end of it, though?
Sly
Looks to me like they prioritized making the 3.0 port backwards compatible with 2.0 connectors, but took a wrong turn at Albuquerque
Botsplainer
That looks like something I’ll break the first time I insert it.
PaulW
What was wrong with the connectors they’re using right now? Mine works just fine for the NookColor and Smartphone.
PaulW
@Sly:
(snarl) Heisenberg…
NotMax
Ah, the wonders of digital innovation.
Parody radio ad on much the same topic – from the 1960s.
Still snicker at “nicknamed the Popocatepetl.”
dmsilev
@Wag: No, there’s some internal switching logic in I think the receptacle which means that you can plug the connector in in either orientation and it will work. The USB end of the cable which goes into the computer is polarized of course.
As far as the uUSB 3 thing goes, I’ve seen worse but not on consumer-level gear.
WereBear
I heard a lot of whining from people about the new Apple chargers not being backwards compatible. Well, here’s what that kind of thinking gets you, people!
Jamey
Brought to you by First-World-Problems: “We’re so much BIGGER than solutions!”
Bill E Pilgrim
@mistermix: Yes you’re right. The USB end in both cases has to go a certain way, but for the end that you’re complaining about on USB 3.0, the phone end, the equivalent on an iPhone cord has no up or down, it goes either way.
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
My boss has already damaged the cable that came with his portable 1TB hard drive. I helped him purchase another and he still had problems.
He wound up taking the drive apart because the cable wouldn’t work and he needed the data inside.
Howard Beale IV
That connector’s no different than what my Seagate external hard-drive uses for its USB 3.0 connection.
Bill E Pilgrim
Stupid moderation:
You do wish they’d think these things through. For some design engineers, clearly, the devil’s peni s was an idle plaything.
cleek
i’ll be happy if they just stick to one connector. with USB 2, i hate having to dig around to find the micro, mini, D-type, iPod-type or iPad-type cables.
Citizen_X
@NotMax: Oh, that’s golden. “Yesterday’s future is here today!”
jehrler
@Wag:
While technically there may be such, let me tell you that it is an absolute joy to just plug it in to my i5 whichever which ways and have it “just work™”
Can’t wait for the new 5S so my wife can enjoy the same benefit. I’m running out of red nail polish (i use that on all my cables (and some polarized plugs) to make it easier to figure out which side up is the right side).
mistermix
@WereBear: You’re right – I forgot to mention the singular virtue of this thing – it is backwards compatible with the USB 2.0 micro connector. In other words, you can connect your device with a USB 2.0 cable. Good luck figuring out which hole to stick it in!
Belafon
So, what’s really different between the way that one fits and a micro-2.0 connector?
Cassidy
Are we taking time out from worrying about black helicopters from the NSA, the sainthood of Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, and rants on how any involvement in Syria would be just like Iraq because shutup, for this? What is this place coming to?
Belafon
@mistermix: The bigger one?
Seanly
That looks like a terrible design. Why have 2 separated areas? That may be one of the worst designs ever in the history of mankind, ranking second only to the Homermobile.
jehrler
@mistermix:
Correct, doesn’t matter which way up with the lightning cable. And with monoprice offering authorized versions it is not as pricey as it used to be.
The other big advantage with the lightning cable is that it kinda clicks in *and stays in*. I can literally pick up my i5 by the cable and it will remain firmly attached and fully cable functional.
I have the same Micro USB 3 connector on a portable drive case and, while I get it plugged in the right way due to my prodigious use of red nail polish (see above), my issue is that it is *very* easy to dislodge. That leaves me with a slew of complaints about a removed USB device and a dead app.
Bill E Pilgrim
@jehrler: I find giving them a French manicure works even better. The tongue connects a little more firmly, as it were.
Tone in DC
I have two Toshiba USB 3.0 drives that utilize that connector. Had one of those drives for several months. No trouble out of it yet.
Now, that Sony Ericsson phone connector (proprietary piece of shit, just like the phone’s non-SDHC card), that was enough to cause apoplexy. I bought that phone in 2008, and had it for less than 18 months. Broke two or three of those damn connectors.
Baud
@mistermix:
That’s what she said.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Cassidy: Someone will find a way. Oh wait you just did. D’oh!
Belafon
@Cassidy: Actually, this post was a setup to see how long it would take for someone to make your comment. 20 comments. A little longer than I thought, actually.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Belafon: Next is how long until the Four Yorkshiremen sketch stage. Connector? Looxury!
SiubhanDuinne
I saw the thread title and was sure it was going to be a Betty Cracker post about Florida.
RP
@Baud: I’m mad at myself for laughing at this.
Sly
@Seanly:
The bigger area plugs into a port that’s compatible with the 2.0 connector.
Ivan X
Mac consultant here. There are competing needs to be addressed here, and to complain about one of them is to ignore the others of them.
– user-friendly connector
– fast transfer speeds
– backwards compability
Comparing USB 3 to Lightning is apples to oranges, because USB 3 is dramatically faster than USB 2, and Lightning has USB 2 speeds. So Lightning gets one out of three. If that’s the only thing that’s important to you, as it apparently is to mix, then USB 3 loses.
Obviously, they needed to get more lines in the cable to get the kinds of speeds USB 3 gets (10x versus USB 2), or they wouldn’t have done it this way. Since they needed more lines, they could have designed an entirely new connector, which then would have given you a bunch of drives that no longer work with any existing cables. Whereas by doing it this way, any USB 3 drive can be attached with a USB 2 cable without any difficulty. I think that’s a win. So I say USB 3 scores two out of three for the above: speed and backwards compatiblity.
As for it being the connector that’s going to go into phones and whatnot: I doubt it. There’s no need for a phone to communicate at USB 3 speeds. Therefore, the regular USB 2 micro USB connector will probably continue to be used on non-Apple phones for the indefinite future. And guess what? If they do put in the larger USB 3 connector, you don’t have to use it. You can just use the smaller USB 2 cable if that’s what makes you happy.
So I think this is a lot of complaining for no good reason. Faster and backwards compatible are both good things, and I haven’t yet had to deal with USB 3 much outside of hard drives, and I think it will probably remain that way. Lightning’s swell and everything, but I recall Mix saying at the time of its release that the world needed another connector like it needs another goddamn folk singer. So here, we didn’t get another goddamn folk singer, we got an *optionally* better one. Use your old cables if you like.
mistermix
@Tone in DC: I rotate the two hard drives for backups so I’m unplugging/plugging a lot. Did I mention that the cable is very short, yet fat and has a huge lump in it? Well it does.
cmorenc
Regarding the Apple Lightening connector: I was shopping for a portable Bose Sound Dock for our house at the beach, and had the choice between one compatible with the old 30-pin connector (used by iPhone 4 and all but the most recent iPods) and one with the 36-pin Lightning connector (used by iPhone 5 and the latest iPods). HERE’S THE PUZZLING QUESTION: Apple makes a Lightning-to-30 pin adapter which allows you to attach an iPhone5 or newer Lightning-connector iPod to a Sound Dock equipped with the old 30-pin connector, but NOT a 30-pin to Lightning adapter which would allow you to connect an older iPod or iPhone 4 to the version of the Sound Dock that has the Lightning connector. This seems back-asswards to me, since it is the iPhone or iPod which is feeding the signal to the SoundDock, and (with adapter) the 30-pin version of the SoundDock will play stuff off 36-pin (Lightning connector) equipped iPhones or iPods doing perfectly well without the signal from the extra 6 pins, yet there’s no adapter whereby the newer Lightning connector SoundDock can accept signals from any of the tons of older iPhones or iPods that are out there. This seems TOTALLY back-asswards.
The choice problem was important because I have an IPhone 5, but my daughter has an iPhone 4, and we both have older 30-pin versions of iPods, but my other daughter has a Lightning-connector version of iPod.
mistermix
@Ivan X:
Well, this cable is now being used in the Galaxy Note 3, Samsung’s latest Android phone. That’s a signal that it will be used in all the “flagship” phones in the future. As you correctly point out, that level of speed is probably unnecessary, but the “flagship” Android phone market is all about unnecessary features.
Jay C
@PaulW:
Two reasons, I think:
1. The new connectors work better than the old ones.
2. Introducing a new, and non-compatible connector system to their hardware lets Apple make more money by making users have to buy all-new connectors/adapters for their devices.
I’ll leave it up to you to determine what they thought was the higher priority…
cvstoner
Yes, and just wait for the USB 3.0-2.0 adapter that will let you use the USB3 device on a USB2 port because the original USB2 connector just wasn’t good enough.
joes527
@jehrler:
Sooooo… The macbook power cable that falls out when you look at it cross eyed because all that is holding it in is a bit of a magnet, that is a cool feature because you can kick the cable and not knock the macbook off the desk.
And the lightning cable which would yank your iShit off the desk and smash it on the floor if you happened to kick the cable, that is a cool feature because who wants a cable that falls out when you look at it cross eyed?
Apple cannot fail.
[written on my macbook]
Jay C
PS: Is anyone else having trouble with Balloon Juice loading properly? For some reason, the site seems to be hanging up loading the miscellaneous “stuff” when I log on, and it seems to be slowing down the cursor/input times as well….
Ivan X
@mistermix:
Didn’t know that, and I completely concur. Still, there should be no reason that you shouldn’t be able to charge/sync it with a USB 2 connector, if you hate the new chunky style. But I guess I won’t know for sure until I try it, and of course most people aren’t even going to know that and are going to use the new cable that it comes with.
FWIW I haven’t really found the USB 3 connector to be as much of a PITA as you have, but it sounds like you’re using it more than I am. I *love* the speed, though, when using it on a USB 3-capable machine.
Walker
@mistermix:
Of course it is. Because Samsung management has a policy that any new device must have the latest technology regardless of whether that technology makes sense.
Ah, the stories I have heard tell.
piratedan
@Jay C: you’re missing the new software connector that is now available through the BJ store, only 9.95…….
Botsplainer
@Walker:
Dramatic connector changes that are proprietary to new device makes and models are not the same as planned obsolescence because…..
Cassidy
@Bill E Pilgrim: @Belafon: Someone’s got to keep these shut-ins focused. Ya’ll are fucking slackin’. It’s gonna be hard enough as it is now that football is back on. Those couple months of social/ political activism have to take a back seat to watching young black men get their TBI for entertainment.
lamh36
Welp since this is also an open thread, just read this. Ok I freely admit to not fully paying attention during bush years, young and stupid I guess, but did I miss the interviews with Saadam Hussein before either Desert Storm conflicts?
Is this Assads “charm” offensive:
“@CBSNews: Watch Syria’s Assad compare Obama to George W. Bush, Sec. Kerry to Colin Powell – http://t.co/qVCPD652CK”
Assad On Using Chemical Weapons As Response To U.S. Intervention: ‘It Could Happen’
So the choice for American people is to listen to thid President, or Assad. So Assad gets to start his “charm” offensive and Obama will have to follow with his.
raven
@joes527: You so funny. . .
VOR
If memory serves the EU made the USB 2 micro connector the standard for all mobile phones sold in the EU, a sterling example of a governmental body doing a good thing by setting a standard.
But the Marketing department will find a way to screw things up. Back in 2006 I had a Motorola flip phone with a mini USB power plug. I went on a trip and forgot my power adapter. But I figured I could just hook up to my computer to charge. Nope, computer would not recognize it. So I checked Motorola’s website, no drivers posted. Called Motorola and was told I needed to buy a special cable specifically for their phone for $50. The support guys claimed they had a special high-performance cable and that standard cables just simply would not work. $50! Turns out a standard mini USB cable worked just fine. I bought a used copy of the Motorola tools CD with their Windows driver for something like $1 and vowed not to ever buy another Motorola phone.
Botsplainer
@Ivan X:
I guess I’m missing the point, but why does it so desperately need to be faster, and what difference do these picoseconds mean to most average users?
Felonius Monk
@Baud:
No, she did not. She said, “Not that one you idiot!”
raven
@Cassidy: Go Dawgs!!!!!
me
@cvstoner: Huh? You can always use a usb 3 device with a usb 2 port. No adapter needed.
Face
The article says you can use your old adaptor with the new smarties, so this isn’t the Huge New Accessory MoneyGrab that I assumed it was.
Bill E Pilgrim
Reminded of the old carpenter’s joke, a variation on the “Henry Kissinger and two other guys on a plane” series, the punch line of this one being that the carpenter says “Oh don’t worry, I’ve got my Skilsaw with me; if I fall out that damn cord will catch on something.”
Wait that was related somehow, but now I can’t remember why….
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Another reason why I’m on my last phone for the rest of my life. I hope.
joes527
@Botsplainer: No one will ever need more than 640K ….
That said, I’m trying to figure out why you would need it on a phone. I don’t use the cable I have now for anything more than charging.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Heh. I was thinking the same thing but restrained myself.
jehrler
@joes527:
It *will* release if given a tug unlike the original 30 pin dock connectors that had release tabs. It just requires positive force. Similarly, the magsafe power connector requires a tug. YMMV however.
Maybe my USB 3 micro is defective but that is my experience. The cable is thick and stiff and resistant to changes in orientation. This causes the connector to move and, on annoyingly frequent occasions, become disconnected. This effect can occur even moving the drive a couple inches to make room for my coffee.
With both the magsafe and the lightning you can pick up the cables and twirl them around (not the devices, but the cables ) and they still remain attached and functional.
Gex
@mistermix: That is my experience. I’ve paid no attention to up or down on the lightning. And I doubt that I’ve randomly gotten it right every single time I’ve plugged in my iPad Mini this year.
MomSense
I have some friends who own an inn and have a huge bucket o chargers and cables that people have left behind. It is an incredible thing to see. I was visiting when a woman came in who couldn’t remember at which hotel she forgot her charger. They presented her with the bucket and she dug around in there until she found two that worked. They could probably make a fortune on ebay selling spare chargers.
jehrler
@Ivan X:
Not clear that future implementations of lightning will not be USB 3. It has enough pins and Macs are now shipping with USB3. It may be that this year’s new phones/ipads will bring USB 3 over lightning.
joes527
@jehrler: That’s interesting. My experience with magsafe is that if the cable moves and causes the connector to shift in the socket, there is ~ 1 in 3 chance that the light goes out, and I have to fool with it to get it working again. If I change the orientation of the macbook > 90 deg. I have about the same chance of the cable disconnecting and dropping to the floor.
YMMV
jehrler
@joes527:
Seriously, I’d have a genius look at it. That is way too finicky.
Tone in DC
@mistermix:
Sounds like fun.
I invested in a longer cable (Micro Center has its uses), and that helped me a bit.
joes527
@jehrler: Dude. I’ve dealt with geniuses before. I’d rather deal with a call center in an unnamed third world country. At least with call centers you can pound your head against your desk as they run through their script.
kdaug
@PaulW:
I can empathize with how difficult it must be to get gasoline out of carpets, but how hard can it be to call off the Aryan Brotherhood? Can’t you just call and cancel your order?
Ivan X
@Botsplainer:
Outside of hard drives, I don’t think it does make much of a difference, which is why I see it as being a bit pointless on phones.
But let’s say you’ve filled up your internal drive — a common enough occurrence with huge photo libraries, movie downloads, etc — and you want to move some stuff to an external drive. Or you want to back up your whole computer to an external drive. The real world performance of USB 2 is about 1 GB/minute, so if you’ve got 300 GB of data you plan to move, that’s five full hours to copy it. USB 3 performs at least 10x as fast as USB 2. The drive itself is going to be much slower than that, but at least the interface itself isn’t the bottleneck, and you’ll be able to do the same copy in like half the time (or much faster if you’ve got a fancy external drive like an SSD or a RAID).
On a Mac, which lets you run the whole machine of an external drive without any issue at all, the internal drive could die outright, and you could just install the operating system on a USB 3 external drive and have it perform just about as well.
Even on a phone this can make a difference — if you’ve got some video files, say some 1 GB movies, that you want to sync over, it’s the difference between a few minutes, and a few seconds.
You can say “but I’m patient I don’t need it to be faster” but I’d say that as video gets better and better quality and we consume more and more media on our computers and devices, being able to have interfaces that lets you get stuff on and off of them quickly is a good thing.
Keith P.
Speaking of connectors, anyone else read about the Koch family buying Molex?
ThresherK
@Bill E Pilgrim: Thanks for giving away the punchline.
Seriously, though, thank you for this joke. I have a dad and a brother who are handymen types and I will drop this joke on them in the midst of some floor covered with sawdust or drywall soon.
Michael Finn
USB 3.0 does have quite advantage over USB 2.0 and the lightening adapter and that is power which is the real elephant in the room. It will supply up to 1AMP through one of the lorts on the motherboard. USB 2.0 was limited to about half that.
Lightening can so 2.5amp’s but you cannot use that on a motherboard.
AdamK
They need to invent some sort of quasi-organic cronenbergesque device that reaches out and grabs the other end all by itself. Because that would be cool and creepy.
kdaug
@Jay C: Flush your cache
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
damn difficult to stick this tab in the proper slot
What is this, Wonkette?
cleek
@Botsplainer:
USB 2 is good enough to handle multiple real-time audio inputs. that’s great if you want to record audio. but USB 2 is too slow to do that with video. you can get a low-res webcam through USB 2, but a high quality video stream just won’t fit. USB 3 will be a big help, there.
also networking/external drives – USB 3 is faster than the fastest consumer-grade Ethernet connection.
(and then USB 3.1 – just announced in July – will again double USB 3.0’s transfer rate)
kindness
Oh Nos! Apple love in a Front Page headline! We’re doomed I tell you, doomed. And it’s only Monday.
Keith G
@lamh36:
Oh come now. Drop the Poor Obama theme this instant.
The President has been making his case for two weeks now. (btw a case that I largely support)
cleek
@lamh36:
yes, you must have.
The Other Chuck
The fact that Apple has most likely patented the whole concept of directionless connectors could have something to do with why others don’t do it. Prior art be damned, Apple will always find a way to sue you.
Cacti
OT but if accurate, this could be what averts any military strike on Syria:
Russia calls on Syria to give up control of its chemical weapons arsenal.
chopper
@joes527:
this is silly. the reason the magnetic plug works on the laptop is that the amount of tension on the power cable necessary to separate the magnets is notably lower than that necessary to overcome the friction holding the computer on your desk, bed etc.
that sort of system doesn’t really work with a tiny phone. it takes literally no force at all to slide one of those fuckers. you’d have to make the magnets so bloody weak that it really would separate if you looked at it cross-eyed.
MomSense
@Cacti:
I hope so. Haaretz has been reporting on this. Russia and Iran are trying to broker the deal.
Ex Regis
@Jay C:
Nonsense. The older iDevices I have still use the old cables. The newer iDevices I have come with a free new cable. Both have USB on the other end. I have yet to buy a connector or cable. And I and my family have lots of iDevices.
I suppose if you have a third party gizmo with an old connector and you get a new iDevice, you’ll have to get a connector. But that scenario is hardly enough to induce a money-hungry voracious company like Apple to spend the millions to design, get approval, and manufacture a new cable/connector. Beside, there really isn’t room for an old connector on a new iPad mini, for example.
Man, some people!
Anoniminous
@Ivan X:
That argues for moving to fiber optic cable and analog storage medium. The first is relatively easy. The second, not so much.
@Keith P.:
Yes but at the moment I’m too busy working on the computer and system architecture to worry about how the hardware peeps are going to plug the thing together. Molex made and makes good stuff. I kinda/sorta doubt that will continue once Koch gets their grubby hands on it so we’ll have to do some QA/QC testing before settling on connectors.
A pain. Yet that’s the way things go.
ericblair
@MomSense:
From talking to some Russian acquaintances, the biggest thing Russia wants out of this (more than the arms customer or the Med port) is to be taken seriously as a global player again. Hopefully this works and we can stand down. I don’t think Russia has any particular attachment to Assad beyond material interests.
As far as cabling goes, everybody knows that cables only snag on something if you don’t want them to. Try fishing wire through your walls a couple of times.
Keith G
@MomSense: There is nothing wrong with letting folks know that wrongdoing is leading you to blow some shit up. Sometimes they find a way to stop the wrong behavior…sometimes.
beergoggles
Hmm, I’ve been using this connector to hook a couple drives up to my router at home to serve media and I have had zero problems. Maybe it’s just you?
JPL
@Cacti: Kerry made a similar statement but those on the right will quote Putin. He’s a real man.
drew42
@beergoggles: Yeah, probably just him.
mistermix plugs in devices with the “stabbing motion” technique John Travolta used to administer an adrenaline shot to Uma Thurman.
Xecky Gilchrist
I now understand why Apple created their own new connector “standard” for the iPhone 5 and new iPads.
Same as with all the other ones they’ve created – vendor lock-in.
Meyerman
@joes527: I was having that happen. Thought it was connection at magnet. It was actually the cable fraying inside the insulation where the cable enters the magsafe connector. The woven wire conductor is fragile, so accumulated flexing and twisting destroyed it. Your connector may be on its last legs.
Meyerman
@joes527: I was having that happen. Thought it was connection at magnet. It was actually the cable fraying inside the insulation where the cable enters the magsafe connector. The woven wire conductor is fragile, so accumulated flexing and twisting destroyed it. Your connector may be on its last legs.
Botsplainer
@Ex Regis:
One thing I’ve noticed is that my iDevice cables don’t seem real durable. The insulation seems to like cracking up close to either connection end.
YMMV, of course.
Rick Taylor
The lightning connector on my ipad mini clicks in and stays in with no problem I don’t have to think about it. The usb connection on my droid is fiddly; I have to look to see which way to turn it, and it keeps falling out if I move the device.
Keith G
@JPL: Oh Jeeesus…..It’s a more significant statement if the Russians publically make it since they have a some influence in Syria, so of course it gets prominent coverage.
JPL
@Keith G: That’s true and if they stand behind that statement, then it’s more likely that a resolution can come from the U.N. Since the crackdown on gays, Putin’s stature has risen among the
fringe right.
Seanly
So the USB 3.0 with this horrible dual pin is meant to allow me to use my old micro-USB cables on the new hardware. But I also saw that the dual pin allows 900 milliamps while the micros only allow 500 which implies that my device might not be able to even draw enough power from older cords.
Is it just backwards compatible with micro so that it doesn’t piss off the EU?
On the rare occassions when I use a USB cord, data transfer rates aren’t a big hassle.
This new connector fits the stereotype of the terrible stuff you get from committee designed crap.
Mark my words, the USB 4.0 will be back to a single prong.
J.
I’m sure I speak for many other B-J commenters when I write, a photo and rant of the Micro USB 3.0 standard connector was not one of the dozens of things that sprang to mind when I saw “The Devil’s Penis” on my feed. And now I have horrible images of Dick Cheney. Thanks for nothing, Mistermix.
Origuy
My Panasonic Lumix camera, for no reason that I can see, has a non-standard USB slot that requires a cable that only Panasonic makes. It’s wider than a mini-USB, thin in the middle, and has two wider round ends. Half the time when I want to get pictures off the camera it’s easier to pull the SD card out than to find the cable.
scav
Ah, I don’t know that issuing (and snapping up) monthly centerfolds from Geezer Q is the way to attain gravitas on the international stage, even when they’re co-sponsored by the Boy Scouts, the Make-a-Wish Foundation and His Holiness Patriarch Job of Moscow and all Rus’.
Ivan X
@Seanly:
IIRC, and I’m not definitively declaring that I do, is that a USB 2 “B” (computer-side) port or power supply is *required* to provide at least 500 mA, but it certainly can provide more if it chooses (and the chargers for most fancy smartphones provide at least 1000 mA; an iPad’s charger provides 2100 mA). So device manufacturers can expect at least 500 mA to power their devices regardless of what they’re connected to.
What the new spec says is that USB 3 is required to provide higher levels of current, so it may be that some USB 3 devices would expect that and therefore it would be up to you to make sure that if you’re using a USB 2 cable, it’s providing least 1000 mA.
This is just dumb. If you have to move hundreds of gigabytes of data, which some people do, you can save hours of time with USB 3. It’s like saying “I’m fine without a DVR.” Good for you, but that doesn’t change DVR’s superiority to live TV.
Ex Regis
@Botsplainer:
Yes, I’ve had cable troubles. I use duct tape. However, it costs pretty much the same to replace either an old cable or a new one.
I actually have so many iDevices that I share cables occasionally; relegating the iffy ones to the least used devices also works.
Jockey Full of Malbec
I dunno– I kinda like it. One of my main complaints about USB connectors is that they aren’t shaped or keyed, so you have only a 50/50 chance of picking the right direction when trying to insert a cable.
That said, Chinese manufacturers arent exactly known for their high-precision tolerances.
I’d stay away from cheap cables…
raven
The apple keyboard extension cable is a usb with this stupid little tab that prevents you from using it with other devices. . .unless you are a fisherperson and have a nice needle nose pliers to flatten the sucker!
Loneoak
Just out of curiosity from a non-engineer, is there any reason why the cable dongle needs to be redisgned in order to have new hardware on both ends? Could you build a cable with better throughput and retain the same bits on the ends and keep it backwards compatible for much longer?
kindness
@chopper: My Macbook Pro cable works great. I especially like the magnet that holds it in there really hard.
You shouldn’t be kicking your cables or notebook.
Xantar
@Ivan X:
When have you ever moved gigabytes of data on your phone?
Jay C
@Botsplainer:
Not just you: we have a snakes-nest of all sorts of Apple cables, and “fraying at the [either] connector end” is the most common cause of cable demise: still, the magsafe ones for our MacBooks are a significant improvement over the old plug-in power cables: when those suckers got bent up and went, they would often take the whole internal power connector with them….
@Origuy:
Look closer….
Bruuuuce
Actually, the cable shown is a USB 3.0/2.0 cable. The wider part is USB 3.0; the narrower part is USB 2.0. There are ALSO pure USB 3.0 cables, not to mention the USB 2.0 cables we’re all used to, that can work.with whatever the 3.0/2.0 cable plugs into. I expect that in time, as USB 3.0 becomes standard, we’ll see fewer hybrid cables and more of the simple USB 3.0 version, with the wider micro-sized terminator.
Bruuuuce
@Xantar:
I gather you’re not the sort of person who watches video on your phone, especially large chunks of, or complete seasons of, TV at a time.
raven
@Origuy: And mine has this shitty plastic door for the sd card and battery that breaks off very easily at the metal hinge. And, the replacement windshield wipers for my 66 chevy truck don’t work worth a shit!
Lady Bug
@ericblair:
Exactly, it’s also a win-win deal for Russia. As you said, Russia doesn’t seem personally attached to Assad, but it’s more about keeping their influence in the region, the military contacts and keeping their name as a global player.
They convince Assad to give up the chemical weapons. (Just as an aside, if Putin really does believe the rebels are responsible for the chemical weapons attack, wouldn’t he wantAssad to give up the chemical weapons in order to make it more difficult for elements of the rebels that are Al-Queda linked to get their hands on the weapons and use them indiscriminately?) They come across as big power players, peacekeepers, their international prestige goes up and they can stake a legitimate claim in a future Syria, and perhaps even brokering a peace deal.
me
@Xantar: As he said WRT usb3 on phones, it’s less about transfer rates and more about charging current. No standard USB2 port on a computer will provide more than 500mA, only non-standard wall plugs do. USB3 does up to 5A.
Cacti
@JPL:
I observed the same phenomenon from our friends on the left at DU(mb). There was a thread about Russia leaning on Syria to surrender its chemical weapons and it was full of positive comments.
There was another where SoS Kerry indicated that Syria could avert military strikes by surrendering its chemical weapons, and he was called a terrorist, and Assad was compared to a rape victim.
smh
raven
Washington (CNN) — [Breaking news alert at 12:04 p.m.]
Syria “welcomes” Russia’s proposal for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to put its chemical weapons under international control, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told reporters in Moscow on Monday.
Cacti
@Lady Bug:
And of course, nothing has to go boom, and it’s a far more reliable way of removing chemical weapons from the theatre of war.
Lady Bug
@Cacti:
Facepalm. But if Assad really does give up his chemical weapons in exchange for no military attack, than I’d be more than willing to deal with the “Obama is weak and ineffective!” talk from the right, or the “Obama is the worst war criminal!” talk from the left, not to mention the “has Obama squandered U.S. prestige?” talk from the media, because they’re going to say than anyways.
I already mentioned up thread about how such a deal is win for Russia, furthermore, from a really cynical point of view from the point of view of the Assad regime:, if Assad voluntarily gives up his chemical weapons in exchange for no military attack he still keeps his conventional weapons, including conventional weapons that would of most likely be destroyed in a U.S. military strike.
(Yes, if I were Russia my argument to the Assad regime right now would be that: give up your CW, and you still have all of the conventional weapons at your disposal).
chopper
@kindness:
really? it thought you were supposed to do that shit.
? Martin
A few other points to it as well:
1) It’s much smaller than USB. The USB port is now the limiting factor on making MacBook Air’s thinner. Apple is pushing everything into smaller ports everywhere.
2) It doesn’t have fixed pin assignments. There’s a fixed power and ground, and then two data lanes (3 pins each). But it’s not symmetrical. There’s a chip in the cable that reroutes everything depending on how you plug it in. Basically, Apple can reprogram the cable to suit their needs without need for inventing new connectors.
3) The USB above can draw 900 milliamps, which they’re touting as a feature over the 500 milliamps of the previous standard. iDevices can charge at up to 2100 milliamps, which is why they charge so much faster than other USB devices. In fact, Apple overrides the USB standard on their own hardware so that they can push 2.1 amps through a standard USB cable. If you plug your iPhone into your Mac, the two devices negotiate over the power draw – and if they both agree to 2.1A, then the circuitry in each device switches and moves more power. That’s unique to Apple and the fact that the USB standards body, after this many years of watching iPads charge didn’t move to a higher rated connector is just baffling.
burnspbesq
So you’re a klutz. Why is that anyone else’s problem?
The more interesting issue is whether USB 3.0 represents the end of the line for USB. Thunderbolt is all that and then some. Once again, Apple got there first and the rest of the world is playing catch-up.
Keith G
@Lady Bug:
And if by some miracle this mutual face saving device works, Obama wins….big.
He talked, was willing to walk, and showed toughness in the face of doubts form even many of the obottish persuasion here. Bonus point for it being the right general policy
Gian
@? Martin:
My not used by apple as rock motherboard has “fast charge” USB port or ports which provide extra current. Now the documentation says its for apple devices.
But it’s clearly not a Mac motherboard.
Xantar
@Bruuuuce:
Sorry. My post should have said “HUNDREDS of gigabytes.”
Bruuuuce
@Xantar: Ah. Yes. That’s a horse of a very different rainbow. But even tens of gigabytes take noticeable time to transfer at USB 2.0 speeds; USB 3.0 is a significant improvement on that.
Mr_Gravity
@MomSense: If Russia and Iran were to step in and broker a peaceful solution the thundering sound of jaws dropping in DC would be audible from the moon.
Mr_Gravity
@Jockey Full of Malbec: Intuition and math say your chances of orienting the cable are 50/50. When you are on your knees reaching under your desk in the dark you’re gonna have to try it both ways about a half a dozen times before it ever goes in right.
I’ve tested this.
cvstoner
@me: I was just looking at the connector pictured in the post. Doesn’t look like it would fit in a regular USB slot :-)
beergoggles
@drew42: lol. I always try to plug delicate stuff in with the pins pointing towards me and not pushing out. The stabbing motion destroys plugs because if it takes that much force to insert something into something else, they’re doing it wrong… much like with a penis, but at least with a penis you can use more lube and less force.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Apple has been shrinking their phone connectors to enable cramming more stuff into a thinner phone. So it’s not always about selling new adapters, etc.
EDN has a good article on the advantages of USB3 for phones:
e.g.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
rreay
@Bruuuuce:
There are only 2 USB 3.0 connectors. This one that can accept a USB 2.0 micro-B connector and one that’s larger and can accept a USB 2.0 full size B connector. There is no such thing as only the 3.0 side.
@Bruuuuce:
If it wasn’t the point then it’s mine that phones can’t accept data at a rate that saturates USB 2.0. USB 3.0 is still overkill.
DJ
@Wag: Not iPhone5
rreay
@Bruuuuce: @me:
The spec for USB 3 ports is 900mA or 1.5A in charging mode, which I haven’t seen a machine support yet. Your right no standard 2.0 port will provide more then 500 mA and yet Apple machines can supply 1.1 A for Apple peripherals.
Ivan X
@Xantar:
USB 3.0 is not just for phones, which is a point I made many, many times in my previous comments in this thread. I also stated that It’s overkill in most cases for most phone users, though will be of benefit to a few power users. However, it’s of potential benefit to many computer users. I was rejecting the comment of “well USB 2 is good enough for me, so harrumph” when USB 3 does, in fact, dramatically speed the transfer of data between computers and external hard drives. Maybe you don’t have that need, but one can’t say USB 3 is sucky and stupid just because you don’t have a specific application for it you, yourself, personally. (Then again, declaration of one individual’s feelings as universal, indisputable truths is a longstanding internet tradition, which we are all aware of.)
different-church-lady
And yet somehow Apple stuff is just for idiot hipsters who only care about appearances.
Or so we’re constantly told.
RareSanity
@burnspbesq:
Goodness this statement full of ignorance…
Apple doesn’t want competitors using the Lightning interface. If they did, then Apple could no longer tout it as an advantage it has over said competitors. Furthermore, even if Apple wanted other manufacturers to use Lightning, those manufacturers would never agree to the licensing fee/royalty structure that Apple would require (the 3rd party accessory developers complain quite a bit about this as well). On top of those fees, it would also require the other manufacturers to add another component to PCBs of their devices…only made by Intel…that actually manages the Lightning port, including the agnostic orientation of connector when plugged in.
In summary…Apple does not want competitors using its’ new interface. Even if they did, those competitors would never pay Apple the amount of money to license the interface…or, the additional cost of having to buy the required hardware component, that is only available from a single manufacturer. The only way Lightning could ever become a “standard” is if Apple offered the technology on a FRAND basis, and we know the disdain that Apple carries for FRAND patents. There’s no way they offer Lightning on a FRAND basis, while they are in court right now, basically arguing that FRAND patents are barely worth pennies in licensing/royalty fees.
Therefore, USB is not going anywhere, and will be around forever. It is standardized across almost every device, made in any country on earth…it is cheap and available from a plethora of suppliers, and it is highly functional for its’ purposes, regardless of what the marketing department in Cupertino says.
The USB specification had been in development for a long time before the announcement of the Lightning interface…and, as with anything maintained by a huge standards body, can not change direction on a dime. Either a future revision of the USB3 specification, or the release of the USB4 specification, will address the shortcomings uncovered in the initial USB3 devices and connectors.
Contrary to popular belief, international standards are good, even if they may move a bit slower than proprietary solutions…and there are even times where the slow plodding of standards bodies, eventually not only catches up, but surpasses proprietary solutions.
Just ask the wireless providers that signed up for CDMA 10-15 years ago instead of GSM, and are tired of Qualcomm getting a pound of flesh for every mobile device or cell tower they operate.
Verizon and Sprint absolutely can not wait for Voice over LTE to become a reality so they can tell Qualcomm to kiss off.
J R in WV
I have one, so far I haven’t had any trouble using it. But I do only use it for doing irregular backups to an external 1TB harddrive, so I’m probably not representative of people who will be trying to get it to work every day, or even multiple times a day.
Good luck! I ran all over Tucson looking for one of these, and there was exactly one store that carried them! If you don’t need it today, and can order it online, no big deal. But if you gotta have it NOW, be careful with that little prick!
Also too, it isn’t cheap either!
DavidTC
@Gian:
My not used by apple as rock motherboard has “fast charge” USB port or ports which provide extra current. Now the documentation says its for apple devices.
But it’s clearly not a Mac motherboard.
I have that too, and it’s not really the ports. It’s the fact that for some completely damn stupid reason, USB2 doesn’t have any standard way to negotiate more amperage, so basically you need a ‘driver’ for each device on the computer to tell the device at the other end ‘Yeah, you can draw that much amps’. (Along with a motherboard that supports that much power.)
Some phone makers provide that driver. Apple does not provide it for PCs, but the Rock people have hacked a USB driver that will tell iDevices to go ahead anyway.
The capacity already exists in every motherboard, and every phone, to fast charge. It’s just that phone does not know if it’s safe to actually do it, and no one bothers to set up a standard to get permission.
It really is so impossibly stupid it’s not funny. USB is a _protocol_. It can transmit negotiate information over it, hell, it already negotiates which of the three (1.5, 12, or 480) USB speeds you want!
Why can’t devices say ‘Hey, I want X amps’ and the USB port either says ‘Sure, go ahead!’ or ‘Sorry, can’t do that much!’. Why can’t that be a damn standard instead of random devices having random ways to ask that? Along with some minimal amp requirement for very dumb devices that do not actually speak USB and just use the power to charge. (Although they would soon include at least that part of the protocol if it’s easy.)
But now we’ve apparently got USB3, which touts the fact they’ve got a _new_ minimal amperage…which solves exactly no problems.
Jesus Christ, engineers are complete morons.
Ivan
@DavidTC:
Chances are, if you jump into the conclusion that ” is a complete moron” when you don’t have a complete understanding of the situation, you will be wrong.
USB does, in fact, have a standard way to request more power (Google for “USB_CONFIG_BUS_POWER”, for example, or “USB charging port”), and devices *can*, in fact, say “I want X amps” (it’s one of 100mA, 500mA, or 1.8A) and ports can refuse (If you’ve ever seen a Mac say “a device requested too much power so it was disabled”, that’s what’s happened). You could have smarter negotiation (“Mooooom, can I have 873mA?”, “Only after you finish your dinner”), but getting fancier isn’t cheap: it requires more smarts on the device, and establishing a minimal amperage and minimal negotiation (this is what I want, and if you allow me to connect you’ve implicitly given it to me) allows minimal, dumb devices (e.g. flash drives) to just assume they will have that much amperage once the connection is established.
If you ever wondered why Apple’s lightning adapters are unusually pricy ($19! for a micro-USB to lightning!), smarts like these are (partly) why.
RareSanity
@DavidTC:
You’ll probably never read this, but I’m going to have to defend my engineering brethren…
The reason why the minimum current supply is important is because it defines the floor that a USB device manufacturer can expect regardless of the computer it’s connected too…or more importantly, the operating system that is running on the computer.
Its’ intention is not to limit the “high tier” motherboards, its’ there to set a floor for the “cheap as hell” motherboards, that will only ever provide the minimum required of anything.
The specification for USB 2 was initially released in 2000. At that time, no one could fathom the types of power demands today’s devices have. The power supply was only going to be used for providing the necessary current for keyboards and mice, not providing “play-n-charge” capability to high capacity lithum batteries in devices with multi-core processors and 10″ high pixel density LCD screens.
You’re basically asking one computer to power another computer. That’s why the new minimum of 900mA was established…granted, I don’t see why they couldn’t have made it an even 1A, but that’s design by committee for you.
It is an enormous task to try and successfully fashion a standard to meet the exact needs of such a large and disparate group of interests…and maintain backwards compatibility for legacy devices. You will still be able to plug in a USB1.1 device into a USB3 port, and it will still work. That is no trivial accomplishment.
Give these guys a break, this is not a small undertaking…and yes, every now and then there will be some inconvenience like the one mistermixx and others here are complaining about. But once you step back and realize how all of the conveniences outweigh them by orders of magnitude, you realize that all of this is the epitome of a First World “problem”.
iLarynx
@Wag:
Not sure what you’re looking at but I have a USB to Lightning connecter right here and there’s no logo at all on the Lightning end. You can plug it in either way, it doesn’t matter. This appears a relatively trivial issue at first, but you can make the connection blind every time with Lightning. Not so with USB or other connections. Very handy and like most innovations, makes you wonder why it wasn’t done years earlier.
For more technical details and schematics, see this article on Apple’s patent filing for the Lightning connector: http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/05/09/apples-lightning-connector-finally-detailed-in-patent-filing
iLarynx
iLarynx
Obviously, the clunky USB3 connecter is less of an issue for a hard drive that will be connected to a desktop when bought, then forgotten about until the drive fails or the computer is upgraded. It’s a different matter for a phone that can go through multiple connections and disconnections each day.