[tbagman]

> If you can plug it in, it will work

Unfortunately, this hasn't been my experience. As an example, I have a display-port-based Apple cinema display, and I bought this adapter to try to connect it to a new macbook pro 15":

  http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter

The physical size of the connectors are compatible, of course; you can plug the monitor into the thunderbolt-2-side of the adapter, and you can plug the thunderbolt-3-side of the adapter into the laptop. But, since the adapter isn't display-port compatible, no joy.

If I remember correctly (and I might not), the apple store page for this adapter didn't originally carry a warning about this, but instead had text that made it easy to misunderstand whether this would work. The text on the page has changed.

As a weaker example, I have an LG 27UD88 Monitor. The USB-C connection from it works, but only carries 60W of charging "oomph," and the 15" macbook pro needs 85W of charging. So, even though the menubar icon on the mac signals that charging is happening, the battery is actually depleting over time. (Yeah, this one is more caveat emptor than the other, but still.)

[jsjohnst]

The confusion is that most people don't understand how USB, TB2/3, and DP work (not saying they should either!).

TB3 is an "alternate mode" signaling over USB-C. As such, every TB3 port is a USB-C port, but not every USB-C port is a TB3 port. Same goes for DisplayPort over TB2. Every TB2 "native" port allows DP, but not every DP port does TB2. TB3 doesn't however carry DP signaling as before though because a cable is either TB3 over USB-C, or DP over USB-C, not both. TB3 and DP both use the "same" alternate-mode signaling. This was my only complaint with the 12" rMB, having only one port, you couldn't plug in a hub, then hub to monitor, because the hub wouldn't kick in the alternate mode signaling required. This required the monitor to always be first device. Now with the rMBP having multiple ports, not a problem anymore.

As mentioned before, USB-C also has an alternate mode for DisplayPort. That's how your LG 27UD88 (fantastic monitor btw!) gets the monitor signal. Buying a TB3 to TB2 adapter is the wrong way to adddress hooking up a DP monitor, despite it being a semi-logical conclusion for even most tech geeks. The right combo is to get a USB-C to DP adapter.

I don't know what the USB-IF folks were thinking, but clearly we need some of whatever they were smoking as this is going to be a mess for years to come i bet.

As to your last point about 60W vs 85W USB-PD, technically you are very correct, but in real life not exactly. The distinction comes to play with how hard you are working the machine. If CPU/GPU are maxed, you'll drain a little battery, but under normal load you'll see a very very slow charge. Same thing happened before with Magsafe2 when you used a 65W power cord on a 15" MBP (that normally used an 85W adapter).

[phil21]

> As a weaker example, I have an LG 27UD88 Monitor. The USB-C connection from it works, but only carries 60W of charging "oomph," and the 15" macbook pro needs 85W of charging. So, even though the menubar icon on the mac signals that charging is happening, the battery is actually depleting over time

It actually loses battery being charged @ 60W? I can't imagine the MBP 15" is actually pulling that much current over the long term... If this is the case, that means it's simply not using the power delivery whatsoever which seems utterly insane.

I've plugged in my 15W phone charger to my 15" MBP, and I was fairly certain at the time my battery was going down less than it was previously. This could of course been placebo.

Ugh, what a silly rollout if so. Plus Apple shipping USB-C 2.0 cables with their chargers in an effort to save... $1? On a $3,000 laptop? Just ridiculous.

Not having a viable USB-C -> HDMI adapter at launch has to be the biggest oversight/wtf for me though. I don't know many users of MBP's that don't do presentations/toss some code up on a projector/etc. from time to time. This is now genuinely hard to impossible. I have to carry 2 HDMI adapters in my bag, as some TVs work with one, some the other. And some not at all.

I'm all for the move to USB-C - but it's like they put zero thought into the transition. You can't cripple a generation of hardware like this.

I know most of these problems will be solved both in software and in third party support - but man this product feels like some manager pulled 4 different groups together and said "you guys have had 3 damn years, release what you have now" and they tried badly at integrating it all together in a couple weeks.

Then you get into actual day to day usability issues like the touchbar lacking the completely in-your-face-obvious feature of haptic feedback making it almost useless... Like how was that not the first thing the first UIx tester who used the escape key said? Just amazes me.

[manarth]

  > Not having a viable USB-C -> HDMI adapter
  > Many users of MBP's…toss some code up on a projector

Your projectors support HDMI?! I wish!

Joking aside, my "presentation" adapter is Thunderbolt(2) -> VGA, because VGA is the only thing I can be fairly certain that almost every projector will support.

That said, I've ended up with a bunch of adapters, as a fallback in case that doesn't work. I'm definitely not expecting to plug into a projector with USB-C any time soon!

[Tempest1981]

> It actually loses battery being charged @ 60W?

I've seen this, very rarely, when getting power via a 27" Thunderbolt Display, and keeping multiple cores busy.

[blowski]

I had a similar experience. Two identical looking cables but one was mini display port, the other Thunderbolt. An old Mac Pro could be used as an external display with one cable but not the other.

[manarth]

Seen that, with conference speakers stressing out minutes before their talk, about why the laptop > projector adapter isn't working.

It's the worst-case scenario: adapters/connectors that appear identical, but behave differently.