This is definitely a step in the right direction (ref: reversible) but it still looks quite fiddly. Like micro-USB. A tight tiny connection within which the plug has to be perfectly face-on to get it in.

That's one area where Apple's Lightning design doesn't get enough credit. The socket on Lightning is larger than the thing you're plugging into it, so if you're slightly misaligned no problem, and you can definitely plug it in without looking.

Micro-USB has an on-going issue with the plugs breaking when people fiddle about trying to get them into an almost identically sized socket. Seems like that is something the 3.1/USB-C standard could have attempted to solve.

Having the socket act like a funnel to guide the connector in just makes rational sense. You still get a good solid connection at the end but it is a LOT easier to plug A into B without looking.

>Micro-USB has an on-going issue with the plugs breaking

i believe this was actually one of the design goals of Micro-USB, and the reason it replaced mini-usb. People treat their devices terribly, and the end of a cable sticking out of a device gets a lot of force put on it. Mini-USB was designed to be tough enough to handle this, and was a pretty robust connector, however the devices that OEMs were integrating Mini-USB ports into weren't necessarily built to a high standard. So people torque their cables and break things inside their devices. Better to break a $6 cable than a $100+ device.

Apple can get away with a strong connector on lightning cables because they can make sure that the internal connector is correspondingly well-built. The USB forum doesn't have that control.

Reversible, at last! But why not make it a shallow, magnetic end piece similar to Apple's newest laptop power connectors? You just push the end of the cable close to the socket and it pops into place. Rock it up or down to detach it. That's the way it ought to work -- non-intrusive, break-resistant, and dead simple. Easier for sight-impaired people (or all the rest of us who are suffering near vision damage from too much device usage!)

I can imagine trying to keep a magnetic connector in place while using the device in the bed (with all the connector nudging and cable stretching that entails) annoying.

It's actually really nice not just for plugging it in but because it pops out instead of stressing or breaking your cable / device.

With the number of non-compliant usb devices on the market, I would guess that the inconsistent compatibility of the magnetic plug/receptacle would cause a good deal of frustration.

Those work great for power cables but not necessarily for USB. If your phone or something gets disconnected in the middle of a data transfer you might end up with disk corruption

Yeah, I guess you're right, but too bad it can't be figured out somehow. I hate USB; always have to examine the tip to make sure I'm plugging it in right.

I think Apple patented that and their lawyers enforce it brutally.

Does having a PCI-E tunnel mean we might see high-resolution USB 3.1 docks that aren't stuck with proprietary, encrypted, DisplayLink protocols, and thus, open source support?

Because I'd sure love that.

But before that, does having a PCI-E tunnel mean that you have to turn off the USB protocol? Or can you use both at the same time? How many pins are necessary to transmit a basic (no power, just data) PCI-E 1x? And 4x, which would be the minimum viable for gaming? I'm interested to know more about this PCI-E tunnel thing.

I foresee a market of USB 3.1 external laptop graphics cards.

This is amazing! It's good to see USB technology keeping step with storage speeds. Imagine putting a SSD in a 3.1 enclosure.

Also, no more external power required for external 3.5" HDD! It can provide 12V.