I do not really have a body for this. I was not aware that this is a thing and still feel like this is bs, but maybe there is an actual explanation for HDMI Forum’s decision that I am missing.
I do not really have a body for this. I was not aware that this is a thing and still feel like this is bs, but maybe there is an actual explanation for HDMI Forum’s decision that I am missing.
Yes, I absolutely want different cables with different connectors.
Being able to physically plug two USB-C devices together is not a benefit if the devices can’t actually talk to each other properly on the cable. I’d much rather have three different connectors, each of them guaranteeing protocol compatibility, than USB-C for which any given device-cable-device combination, the behavior is nearly impossible to predict.
You know what the problem with USB-C is? In 2010 or so, you could have a fistful of unique USB cables, A-B, A-MiniB, A-MicroB, 3A-3B, 3A-Micro3B, A-Lightning, they’re all different, but you can look at the cable and tell exactly what it does. Most of them are identical in capabilities but have physically different plugs, and the two USB 3 cables are also identical in capabilities but with different client side plugs. ALL of them will plug in and work in the same host-side port.
With USB-C, I can have a fistful of visually similar cables, with drastically different capabilities, and I have no way of telling them apart. The USB consortium has been inconsistent with their branding, it has been applied even more inconsistently or even fraudulently by manufacturers, and there’s no way to inspect the cable’s features without trying it to see if it works.
The problem is that getting a new standard is gonna just mean more of the same shit with like a good ten years of swapping because USB is so widely used. USB ain’t perfect, I dislike a lot of things about it, but starting from scratch isn’t gonna improve things.
If it was the sort of magical scenario where everyone swapped overnight, hell yeah.