But then you lose the flexibility of using one port in many different ways. What we need is some standard color coding or other clear visual indicator on cables to reflect their capabilities.

I've opined the same before. Just put standard-colored rings (with textures, if we want to be sight-flexible) on the cables, when they're shipped from the factory.

Standardize the colors through the IF, and bam, you can tell at a glance what a cable is capable of.

Like resistors, except I don't think cables are likely to shrink too much in the future.

You'll never get Apple to do that though. They didn't with USB-3, they didn't with mouse/keyboard, they won't put them on their cables. And since they're the premium brand, everyone else will have to follow them.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, those examples are all absolutely true. There's no chance of Apple complying with a spec which doesn't meet their sense of industrial design (which there's no way this would).

I will say, they're not alone. Look at Razer, for instance. Electric green is not exactly a part of the USB 3 standard.

In which case Apple is welcome to deal with their users being confused about cables. I see this as how the market is supposed to work.

If it's a cable property, then Apple can do whatever it wants with its cables. And everyone else can do what they want with theirs.

But if Apple can do it then so will all the cheap cable manufacturers and everyone else will be confused too.

Some manufacturers following an indicator spec is better than what we have now.

Which is a great solution if all you have are Apple cables, but colored rings fall off or get broken. It's like the US solution to healthcare: "don't be poor", it's not practical in real-world sense. People are going to buy (and make) whatever shit cable they want and regulations and standards don't mean a thing.

You could colour the plastic inside the connector. That would be invisible once plugged which would probably suit Apple etc.

I would have to go with the parent comment although I know what you're saying as it would reduce cost.

I think what we've learned throughout the years is that your color coding idea doesn't work out in practice due to an earlier comment stating that the USB-C market being bottom-feeder. There has to be an exact, rigid specification of USB-C cables that all of them should follow (i.e. USB4/TB4). Any more complicated than that like color coding results in giant scams by manufacturers, outright wrong, or impossible-to-find cables on an eCommerce search engine. I just don't want to deal with any of those anymore. It feels so much nicer right now to look up TB4 on AliExpress and be done with it, no more worrying or guessing.