It isn't. It really isn't. I spent two weeks buying various inexpensive, possibly knock-off, and expensive name-brand cables from monoprice, amazon, and best buy to attempt to connect from a new dock that I bought for my macbook to various peripherals.
I suppose my argument is more with Thunderbolt3 and USB consortium(s)? for allowing thunderbolt3 to use the same physical interface as USB-C, but... while the physical plug is the same:
1. the cables can support various power draw limits
2. A thunderbolt3 cable is not the same as a USB-C cable. You can't buy a two meter USB-C to USB-C cable and run 40 gbit thunderbolt across it to connect a macbook (say) to the doc, and get dual displays, networking, and power. Even though it fits in both ports.
3. A USB-C to Displayport cable won't necessarily work with your stuff.
4. A USB-C cable connected to a monitor might not actually do anything.
5. The USB-C cable that came with my mac will charge stuff, but won't pass data over it. So when I plug it in to the dock, what should happen? Should the computer charge, at least?
And a litany of other things that make me angry just typing this out.
That I have cables with little lighting bolt icons that I'd never paid attention to, and small "3's" on them says, I think, that they are "Norman cables." There's no way I can explain that to my mom, who learned "if the plug fits, it should work."
You -kind of- even have this with RJ45 network cables. There's cat5, cat5e, and cat6. They all look the same, and yet depending on which one I use, I get 100 mbit, 1 gbit, or 10 gbit link speeds.
putting everything on the same connector seemed like such a great idea at the time, but now we just have a bunch of cables that you have no idea what they can/can't do
It isn't. It really isn't. I spent two weeks buying various inexpensive, possibly knock-off, and expensive name-brand cables from monoprice, amazon, and best buy to attempt to connect from a new dock that I bought for my macbook to various peripherals.
I suppose my argument is more with Thunderbolt3 and USB consortium(s)? for allowing thunderbolt3 to use the same physical interface as USB-C, but... while the physical plug is the same:
1. the cables can support various power draw limits
2. A thunderbolt3 cable is not the same as a USB-C cable. You can't buy a two meter USB-C to USB-C cable and run 40 gbit thunderbolt across it to connect a macbook (say) to the doc, and get dual displays, networking, and power. Even though it fits in both ports.
3. A USB-C to Displayport cable won't necessarily work with your stuff.
4. A USB-C cable connected to a monitor might not actually do anything.
5. The USB-C cable that came with my mac will charge stuff, but won't pass data over it. So when I plug it in to the dock, what should happen? Should the computer charge, at least?
And a litany of other things that make me angry just typing this out.
That I have cables with little lighting bolt icons that I'd never paid attention to, and small "3's" on them says, I think, that they are "Norman cables." There's no way I can explain that to my mom, who learned "if the plug fits, it should work."
You -kind of- even have this with RJ45 network cables. There's cat5, cat5e, and cat6. They all look the same, and yet depending on which one I use, I get 100 mbit, 1 gbit, or 10 gbit link speeds.