> I still don't have anything that's USB-C aside from adapters for work laptop

The USB-C thing is culturally a bit curious. It's been three or four years since reviewers of laptops and the like started complaining if they didn't have USB-C ports - but there still seems to be very little need for them. The few devices I've acquired that have a USB-C socket on the device have all come with a cable having a USB3 type A plug on the other end, never a C to C cable.

(I see the article mentions this, but I found it striking because to facilitate home working I've just bought two new devices with USB-C at the device end, and both came with cables to an A socket)

I don't get why they didn't do a transitional design for a few years. Replace the Thunderbolt ports with USB-C but leave the rest the same. It takes me probably damn near a decade to cycle even half my peripherals to a new interface, and I bet that's closer to the norm than people going out and replacing 100% of their stuff with USB-C and Bluetooth within a year, so going to using a port that I had not even actually seen yet in the wild when they switched cold-turkey was a baffling decision.

Hell, to this day the only actual USB-C devices I've seen in person are Apple peripherals and monitors catering to Macbook users, which almost all include other ports anyway. I'd add Android phones but those mostly have USB-A connectors on the other end of the cable (like the iPhones that were shipping for a while after the USB-C Macbooks came out—there's another giant WTF). USB-C market for flash drives seems to suck (form factor's worse, price is higher).

[EDIT] oh and when the new port is intended to replace all other ports the half-life on "legacy" devices for me probably goes from ~10 years to ~20. Seriously. WTF Apple.

What kills me is that Apple are still so random about ports themselves.

They could have replaced the USB-A to Lighting cable and charger they ship with iPhones for USB-C to Lightning years ago.

(Personally I’d like to see Lightning replaced too but that’s a different story).

Going USB-C on their phones and tablets while also swapping the Thunderbolt ports and maybe the power ports on their computers for USB-C, then leaving it that way for three years or so before removing the other ports, seems like it would have been a much better lead-in if they really had to do it. At least then we'd have been able to slowly accumulate USB-C dongles without feeling bitter about it, since they'd work on i-devices too so feel like they're providing some kind of benefit or future-proofness. As it is it's 2020 and I still feel like I'm wasting money buying either USB-C or Lightning dongles—the former because I don't need them for anything but very new Macbooks, and the latter because surely they're going to switch those to USB-C eventually (surely... right?) so those thunderbolt cables and adapters will become junk long before they should.

[EDIT] go figure, my wife just today bought a new iphone, wants to put some music from her 2019 Macbook Air onto it, needs to plug it in at least once in order to do that (have to plug in first to enable wifi sync), and can't because the phone shipped with a fucking USB-A cable and the single lightning-to-usb cable we have in our house is missing. This is going down right now. So much for not needing USB-A ports on a laptop in 2020 even if you're fully in the Apple ecosystem. She's so annoyed I wouldn't be surprised if she returns the phone. I mean granted the phone isn't the latest model but it came out way after they made the all-USB-C switch on their laptops.

What is concerning that is that other laptop makers are following Apple like lemmings. My current favorite laptop is the Dell Precision 55xx series, the business version of the XPS 15. The newest models of this line, the 15" 5550 and the 17" 5750, are USB-C only. Couldn't they have kept just one USB-A port? I have dozens of peripherals, and I literally have nothing that uses USB-C.

One of the main reasons that I left the Apple laptops after using 3-4 of them over 10 years was because of the removal of the USB-A ports. Adding new USB-C, great. But removing all of the older ones? A big middle finger to the users. Then there's the removal of the ESC key, the butterfly keyboard debacle, the touchbar that removes the function keys, etc. Sorry Apple, you are going off in a direction that I cannot follow.

USB-C is garbage from so many perspectives.

User friendliness is a problem. There's no easy way to tell what protocols a USB-C device actually supports, whether it's USB 2, USB 3, DisplayPort, etc.

USB-C hubs are not possible like you could do with USB 2 or 3, so you're always limited to the number of USB-C ports on your machine. The only possible hubs are those that give out USB-A ports, which is fine now because most peripherals are still USB-A, but will become a problem when peripherals start using USB-C themselves.

USB4 will in theory fix most of this by setting minimum required capability at 20 Gbit/s with DisplayPort Alt Mode, and laying out support for hubs from the start. It still has a painful number of 'optional' alt modes depending on device type, though.

Just because USB4 becomes a thing doesn't mean people will support it. 20Gbit/s and the DisplayPort Alt Mode means people definitely will choose to go with USB3 or USB2 USB Type-C.

Remember, all USB Type-A ports aren't USB3. Likewise, all USB Type-C ports won't become USB4.

> USB-C hubs are not possible like you could do with USB 2 or 3

TIL. Why is this not possible?

You'd probably find a more authoritative source and better documentation by searching, but here's my understanding of it:

USB-C can be used with alternate modes like DisplayPort or Thunderbolt, where the wires are no longer transmitting USB data but are used as a dumb pipe for the underlying protocol.

If you get a hub it can choose to either operate in the following conditions (depending on its type and capabilities):

* Upstream port is in USB mode, it can provide USB 2 and 3 to downstream ports, however the downstream device can no longer use DisplayPort or Thunderbolt.

* Upstream port is divided into USB 3 lanes and DisplayPort lanes. The DisplayPort side can be mapped to a single downstream port, but there is less USB 3 bandwidth available to share across the remaining ports. Still no luck if a downstream device wants to use Thunderbolt.

* Upstream port is Thunderbolt. Since TB is essentially PCI Express the hub could pass through some TB lanes to a single downstream port while having its own USB 3 controller to provide the USB side of things. Still no luck for DisplayPort downstream devices.

This doesn't even address the issue that not all devices can do Thunderbolt (my 12-inch Macbook can't) and it becomes very hard to find a hub that will actually work and do what you want. It took quite a bit of research for me to understand the specs so I could find a solution to do both 4K 60Hz video and USB (2 only, not enough bandwidth for 3) on my MacBook with a single USB-C port.

I won't even get into the bullshit naming conventions they use that they decided to apply retroactively. WTF is USB 3.1 Gen 1? Is the next one gonna be called USB 10 X Pro Max?

But I don't need or care about all that, what I need is a hub just like we had all those years that gives usb3 connectivity in a c form factor to 5 devices or more. If I need more there are plenty docking stations available.

edit: I also looked for a usb A hub with usb-c upstream, still no luck and stuck with a hub+power adapter and dinky otg a-to-c.

As far as I know the spec doesn't allow it for some reason. I guess one reason could be the power side (which I haven't mentioned and I am not familiar with it)?

Let's assume the hub requests 19V from the upstream port. Unless it has built-in, variable, per-port voltage regulation, it will not be able to respond to power requests from the downstream devices if they differ from what is coming from the upstream port.

This isn't a problem when providing USB-A ports because you either request 5V from upstream and pass it through or request a higher voltage and have a single 5V regulator and pass its output to the downstream ports.

See, you could technically design something that does that. Per-port up to 100W charging it definitely possible. Basically you have a USB PD controller on every port with dynamic voltage control.

This is all possible, it's just a HUGE pain in the ass (and costs a lot) to design that way. The problem is you essentially end up with potentially a giant, VERY expensive USB hub. And no one wants to spend $400 on a USB hub.

Which is why USB-C is bad, nobody asked for a protocol where the benefits are marginal but the downside (one of many) is that a proper hub that replicates the behavior of previous generations now costs more, and since nobody would pay that much, economies of scale don't apply and thus it doesn't exist at all or is available as very niche specialized units (kinda like opto-isolated USB hubs which go for $200.

You could also theoretically use 10Gbit Ethernet to transfer data from your phone but we don't go around putting SFP slots on phones because we don't want every single cable or charger to cost $100 and be more complex (thus more prone to failure) than needed.

The thing is, you're not replacing it with something identical. If you want to replicate the behavior of a previous generation USB2 hub, I don't think it would even be that expensive. You just need a USB port controller on each port and negotiate 5V, 1.5A on each of them in addition to the standard USB hub. It would be a bit more expensive, but not terribly so. USB3 may be similar but require some extra switches...

The ask for the 'really expensive' $400 one has vastly more options and capabilities than the traditional USB hub. It's basically a Thunderbolt hub with even more complexity, so it's not unreasonable to think those would be damn expensive.

I'm honestly not sure why no one has made a standard USB2.0 Type-C hub. There's really nothing stopping you from doing it. I guess maybe because it could be confusing for a consumer? I agree, that's a huge issue with Type-C right now. It's very unclear by looking at the port (or the cable) what it's actually capable of. If you're lucky there will be a tiny symbol indicating some subset of functionality, but often times there isn't.

Oh that's interesting. That might be an extra reason why devices are still preferentially coming with USB3 type A plugs on the other end - it's actually more flexible that way? I am in fact plugging both of my new USB-C devices into a USB3 hub, and had no idea I wouldn't have been able to do the same with USB-C cables and hub.

(I assume you can still have a USB3 hub with type A sockets on it, plugged in to a USB-C port? - edit: oh, just noticed a sibling comment says this doesn't seem to exist either. Now that is very odd.)

Usb 3 hubs with a USB-C upstream certainly exist, all the docks out there are functionally that, and there are also dedicated hubs as well.

Here’s the one i use:

Anker USB C Hub, Aluminum USB C Adapter with 4 USB 3.0 Ports, for MacBook Pro 2018/2017, ChromeBook, XPS, Galaxy S9/S8, and More https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DFYQXY7

USB-C. Universal Serial Bus, without the universal part.

It's definitely possible, it's just a bit expensive. There's nothing in the USB-C spec that disallows you from doing this. Also if you're trying to do the thing where you have charging input but data output on one port, it gets complicated.

That said, I see no reason why you couldn't design a basic USB-C USB2 or USB3 hub. Hell, it could have 5 ports with no defined 'input' port (just 5 USB C jacks), and you could have that work properly with some pain.

If it has a captive USB-C cable and 4 USB-C outputs, that would be even easier to program. Again, it's just expensive. You need a lot of active circuitry to make it work.

It's me, I'm that guy. I absolutely wanted a Thunderbolt port on my laptop and paid for it, and how often have I used it? Never.

Yeah, all my audio equipment (keyboards, controllers, interface) is USB A and I don't see producers switching en masse (and even if they do, do I really want to throw away my favorite keytar?). The only exception is Roli block but Roli is kinda meh - fun to play every once in a while but not something I'd like to use every day to lay bass track or piano chords. I've disabled a ton of various background stuff like Siri but this setup is still flakey. If I were trying to make money on my music I'd be really pissed now.

I think all my musical equipment has a USB-B port on them, work over USB 2.0, and I've got like a dozen USB-A/USB-B cables around. Those plug into every other computing device in my house except new Macbooks (and iPads, but, Lightning to USB-A adapter, so, still USB-A, and notably I can't share that adapter with a Macbook because Apple's approach to this has been a bizarre mix of foot-dragging and waffling on the iDevice side while running way ahead of the pack on the other). My enthusiasm level for buying new cables or adapters only for fairly new Macbooks when any other new computing device I buy would still have USB-A ports, and then have them maybe not work anyway because USB-C compatibility and cable/adapter quality is a shit-show, is exactly zero.

And I'm not made of money and I have other hobbies that require cash so I buy used musical equipment so I can get low-end pro gear a generation or two old for at or under new prices for amateur/crappy gear. There's little chance I'll buy any USB-C native musical equipment of any kind before 2030 or so. Who's cycling out all their gear—musical or otherwise—so fast that dropping USB-A and HDMI entirely in 2016, on a "pro" laptop, made any damn sense?

You do know that all you have to do is buy a USB-B to USB-C cable and you can connect your existing equipment to your Macbook, right? I mean it sucks that the new Macbooks have so few USB-C ports, but there's nothing preventing you from plugging in all of the older USB-A/B/micro/etc equipment directly into it as long as you buy the correct $5 cable with a USB-C connector on the other end. No dongles necessary.