[kbolino]

I don't mind that the Macbooks only have USB-C ports. Unlike many PCs, where the USB-C ports can't be used for charging, or can't be used for high-speed data transfer, or can't be used for external displays, or can't be used by certain software that only speaks USB 2.0, etc., the Macbooks let any USB-C port do anything. It's a forward-thinking decision, even if it was primarily made for aesthetic reasons.

What I do mind is that there's only 3 of them.

[ndiddy]

The transition era was certainly annoying, but now that it's over I think the Mac experience is objectively worse. My PC laptop has 2 USB-C ports that can be used for charging, display, 40 Gbps transfer, etc., just like my Macbook Air. The difference is that the PC also has 2 USB-A ports and an HDMI port. This means that I'm able to plug in a flash drive or connect an external display without having to remember to bring a dongle with me.

[kbolino]

I largely agree that PCs have caught up feature-wise, but because they took longer to get there, I still have a couple crappy USB-C ports on PCs that are otherwise fine.

The problem with the 2 USB-C ports on modern PC laptops is that one of them pretty much has to be reserved for the charger, whereas the MBP has a MagSafe port that you can charge with instead. So it really only feels like you have one USB-C port and the other ports are just there as a consolation. That might work out to roughly equal, but I don't think it leaves the Mac off worse. I don't hate the dongles so much though.

It wouldn't have hurt to have some USB-A and HDMI on the MBP--the Minis can pull it off, so clearly the hardware is capable--but more (Thunderbolt) USB-C would still be the best option IMO. USB-A (definitely) and HDMI (probably) will eventually be relics someday, even if they are here for a little while longer.

[stetrain]

The current Macbook Pro design also includes an HDMI port.

[philistine]

Can those USB-C ports charge your battery if it is completely empty?

[ndiddy]

Yes, they're the only charging ports on the laptop.

[antod]

Didn't they have some issues when you tried charging from the left side ports? Eg overheating and throttling etc.

[PlunderBunny]

There are some models of MacBook Pro where one side has more 'thermal headroom' than the other side. I have one of those models, and I can't remember which side it is.

[Nextgrid]

USB-C connectors are much less reliable than their predecessors due to their design though. I have several connectors that failed, either they no longer grip the cable securely or they just lose contact randomly.

I'm sure it's handy for mobile devices where size and versatility trumps everything, but on laptop/desktop machines where longer-term usage is expected I would prefer something more reliable.

[kbolino]

Are you comparing USB-C to its direct predecessors, things like (micro-)USB-A/B, (mini-)HDMI, and (mini-)DP, or to more distant ancestors like PS/2 and D-sub/VGA/DVI?

[Nextgrid]

Comparing to USB-A specifically.

C is absolutely better than the micro/mini variants, but not the full-size ports.

[kbolino]

Interesting. I can see how USB-A has better friction/grip in the port (when made properly anyway), but I can't say it has better longevity; I've broken plenty of USB-A connectors and even ports. I am also glad to be rid of the "which way is up" dance, and I don't think anyone has shed any tears for the loss of USB-B.

[Nextgrid]

USB-A has much larger pins, meaning it will continue to work even if slightly damaged. USB-C has much higher pin density so the slightest misalignment (due to damage or just bad manufacturing tolerances) causes dropouts.

I'm just salty because I will have to replace either the ports on my Macbook or my USB-C wireless headphone receiver (both are a pricey endeavor, not to mention the downtime of having the laptop shipped for repair) just for the same issue to most likely reoccur a year down the line since it wasn't a result of any kind of misuse (both devices are exclusively used in an office environment and otherwise in brand new condition).

[numpad0]

I forgot where I read it, but there's apparently a Jobs policy of "one standard and two proprietary ports" or something, so to allow data to be ingested easily and freely shared inside Apple ecosystem, but not exported back out to the outside world with same ease.

Which is like, a great way to subsidize junk USB hubs...? But for sure they love following through with policies.

[kalleboo]

That is complete BS, Macs have never had any proprietary data ports on them. Serial, SCSI, Ethernet, USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, USB-C have all been standards.

[astrange]

Well there was a proprietary Ethernet port for a while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Attachment_Unit_Interfac...

[numpad0]

Apple serial port used proprietary Apple connectors.

Apple SCSI ports used nonstandard Apple connectors.

Apple Ethernet port was just Ethernet, except Macs preferred AppleTalk for networking, which was a purported competitor to Ethernet.

Apple USB port was just USB, except they were among the firsts, so it was kind of ex-proprietary.

Apple FireWire was just IEEE1394, except(combine Ethernet and USB)

Apple Thunderbolt was(combine all above)

Apple USB-C is(combine all above)

[kbolino]

What I see here is an evolution away from proprietary connectors (but I definitely agree that they strongly favored such connectors in the past). By the time of mini-DP and Thunderbolt, Apple and Intel were working jointly and the technology came to both PCs and Macs. By the time of USB-C, it was basically the entire electronics industry working together with Apple, and the end result has come to just about every kind of electronic device made by nearly every vendor. It doesn't get any less proprietary than that.

The bizarre part of the USB-C story is not Apple's involvement or early adoption of it, but rather that the mobile hardware side of Apple refused to support it. That they clung to the Lightning connector until the EU forced them to drop it, while their computer division had long since and enthusiastically adopted USB-C, is much more damning.

[kalleboo]

I still don't see your point.

Your argument was they had a rule of "one standard and two proprietary ports" as a means to "allow data to be ingested easily and freely shared inside Apple ecosystem, but not exported back out to the outside world with same ease".

For serial they used mini-DIN to save space on the back of the machine instead of a random mix of DB-25 and DE-9 on the PC side. My family and everyone I knew used a dime-a-dozen cable to use a typical PC modem, data was shared feely. There was no "one standard" port at this time to get data "ingested", serial went both ways.

Even on PCs, to do anything serial you needed hardware and driver support anyway, that was the blocker, not the shape of the port. If Apple adopted DB-26 for serial, how would that let data share more freely?

For SCSI, the DB-25 Apple used was not proprietary. And even in the System 6 days they had Apple File Exchange to access FAT-formatted disks to write data out for PC users.

For Ethernet, Apple started building in Ethernet as standard before PC makers. They sold a laptop with Ethernet built-in in 1994, this was unheard of on PC laptops.

As for AppleTalk, they pushed LocalTalk at a time before PCs had any built-in networking whatsoever, a PC network card cost a hundred bux and were only used by corporations whereas in the home if you had a Mac you could make a network with a printer cable between two machines, Apple got it for cheap by spending an extra 10 bucks on RS-422 for their serial ports, why wouldn't you advertise that?

If you're talking about AppleTalk the network protocol rather than LocalTalk the physical protocol, Apple bundled TCP/IP with MacOS before Windows did ("Trumpet WinSock" was third party software), back when Microsoft thought they could stop people from adopting the internet since "The Microsoft Network" was so going to be so much better.

Arguing that adopting the Apple making PowerPC machines adopting the Intel-defined USB which was already on PCs for years before was a means to keep people from moving data out from the "internet Mac" (which was advertised as letting you share information with the world with "there is no step 3") is just... it makes no sense.

iOS on the other hand... Completely different thing.

[buescher]

And technically (the best way, right?) there's a whole thing to suss out between AppleTalk, 422, and LocalTalk, hahahahahah, but it's effectively as proprietary as PS/2 ports were, until they weren't. And ADB was 100% proprietary iirc, but I'm not going to look it up for you.

[kalleboo]

TBF, Apple did publish public standards for LocalTalk and AppleTalk and there was third-party hardware that implemented it (including stuff like switches that Apple never implemented themselves)

ADB was definitely proprietary, but arguably it wasn't a data port, nobody used ADB to output data.

[wslh]

Without trying to be pedantic, not all USB-C ports on Apple computers support Thunderbolt.

[kbolino]

I haven't encountered this, but I've also only used the Apple Silicon devices. This might explain why there are so few ports, though: Thunderbolt is basically PCIe and has AFAIK direct lanes to the CPU; more full-featured ports = more PCIe lanes = much more complexity/expense.

[wslh]

The difference is in the desktop systems. That's where there are USB-C ports without Thunderbolt (e.g. Mac Mini).

[kbolino]

Damn, you're right. I have an M1 Mac Mini and both ports are Thunderbolt. I recall, and Wikipedia corroborates, that the M2 Mac Mini could come with either two or four ports, but all were Thunderbolt. Now though, the M4 ones, besides getting an awful facelift, also seem to have sacrificed one Thunderbolt port (and both USB-A ports?!) to "gain" two non-Thunderbolt USB-C ports. What a terrible trade IMO.

[FireBeyond]

Wuh?

On all but the top tier MBPs, USB C ports on Macs have different specs for data transfer (often the ones on the right of the machine will have half the transfer speed).

[kbolino]

As far as I can tell, every single Apple Silicon MBP has all ports at full speed. The early Apple Silicon Mac Minis (M1, M2) also had this arrangement. However, as noted elsewhere, this has changed (they now have 3 Thunderbolt ports and 2 non-Thunderbolt USB-C ports).

The Intel MBPs had more variance, but they only had the 2+2 configurations in 2016 and 2017. The 2018 and 2019 generations had all full-speed ports.

[wingworks]

I only have 2 USB-C ports, and most of the time I have nothing plugged in (but power). Sometimes ethernet USB-C when moving large files.

[johnisgood]

> Unlike many PCs, where the USB-C ports can't be used for charging, or can't be used for high-speed data transfer

I call bullshit on this. Ever since I am alive, I could always use the USB ports on my motherboard and PC case for charging and data transfer.

[kbolino]

I have a laptop with USB-C ports which cannot charge from them at all. Instead, it has a DC barrel connector, and that is the only accepted charging source.

That same laptop, and a desktop PC I have, do not support USB-PD over USB-C, so only 5V/500mA trickle charging is supported. This isn't the charging direction I was thinking of originally, but since this seems to be the direction you're thinking of, it's worth mentioning.

Also, neither of these ports are Thunderbolt. I'm pretty sure they are USB 3.0 at least, which doesn't have terrible speed to be fair, but still is somewhat limiting at least as far as the laptop is concerned since it means there's no way to get PCIe speeds.

Granted, this is ~2019 era hardware, but nevertheless the USB-C ports are not nearly as useful as they could be.

[johnisgood]

I read it as "USC-B ports can't be used for charging" (this is exactly what was said), but if I plug my phone into these ports, my phone will charge, and there can be data transfer as well.

[kbolino]

Yes, and that's not what I meant. I'm sorry for the confusion, but I have clarified already. I meant charging the host from the peripheral, which could be a wall charger, a battery pack, a monitor, etc. I was thinking of laptops when I wrote the original comment.

I also elaborated that, even when we consider the other direction, i.e. host-to-peripheral charging, many USB-C ports on PCs only provide baseline USB power levels (aka "slow charging"). The implication (that I now make explicit) is that such poor charging performance would not justify removing all other ports from the computer. I didn't mention this originally, because I didn't think of it then, but now that you have brought it up, I would add it to my argument.

The crux of that argument was: USB-C as the only port type is acceptable as long as those USB-C ports are full featured. That means (again, to be explicit) that they support Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, and bidirectional USB-PD (aka "fast charging"), though obviously one of those directions is not applicable to hosts that have no battery (e.g. desktops).

In other words, if the USB-C ports are no better than USB-A ports, then they are not good enough to take the place of other, dedicated port types.