USB Charging - Gizmo to Improve Compatability Between Chargers & Devices

[edpalmer42]

I've recently gotten caught up in the issues regarding USB Charging.  There are multiple incompatible protocols.  Thanks Apple for screwing everything up - again!  Basically, the voltages or resistance between the data leads tells the device what the charger is capable of.  If the device doesn't see what it's expecting, it falls back to drawing a maximum of 500 ma even if the charger can put out 2A.

Has anyone seen a little gizmo that either manually or automatically adapts between the different protocols?  It looks iike all you need is a three position slide switch and a few resistors!  Of course, I can build it myself, but it won't be as small and sleek as one I could buy.  I've looked around, but it's a needle in a haystack.

Sounds like a perfect 99 cent item out of China!

Ed

[edpalmer42]

Yes!

I knew there had to be something like that out there, but I couldn't find it.

Thanks very much!

Ed

[tooki]

I've recently gotten caught up in the issues regarding USB Charging.  There are multiple incompatible protocols.  Thanks Apple for screwing everything up - again!  Basically, the voltages or resistance between the data leads tells the device what the charger is capable of.  If the device doesn't see what it's expecting, it falls back to drawing a maximum of 500 ma even if the charger can put out 2A.

Has anyone seen a little gizmo that either manually or automatically adapts between the different protocols?  It looks iike all you need is a three position slide switch and a few resistors!  Of course, I can build it myself, but it won't be as small and sleek as one I could buy.  I've looked around, but it's a needle in a haystack.

Sounds like a perfect 99 cent item out of China!

Ed

You mean, "Curse you, Apple, for not adhering to an industry standard that hadn't been invented yet!"?

[tooki]

USB-C (which Apple helped develop, BTW) didn't exist when Apple adopted Lightning. (And micro-USB didn't do everything Apple wanted in an interface.) And if Apple changed from Lightning now, then they'd be accused of switching port standards like underwear. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple switches the iOS devices to USB-C (or some future version) some day, though.

If Apple had wanted proprietary wireless, they wouldn't have adopted and pushed 802.11 beginning in 1999.

Apple has never offered data recovery, including from devices with soldered-only storage, like the iOS devices. Why do you think Apple has fairly robust backup software built in to the OS, which works really, really well? The percentage of users willing to pay for data recovery is almost vanishingly small; it's only companies with irreplaceable data who can afford it most of the time. So between that and backups and cloud storage, I don't think data recovery deserves to be a primary consideration in product design; it's better for the system as a whole to have the data backed up some way or another.

[timb]

I've recently gotten caught up in the issues regarding USB Charging.  There are multiple incompatible protocols.  Thanks Apple for screwing everything up - again!  Basically, the voltages or resistance between the data leads tells the device what the charger is capable of.  If the device doesn't see what it's expecting, it falls back to drawing a maximum of 500 ma even if the charger can put out 2A.

Has anyone seen a little gizmo that either manually or automatically adapts between the different protocols?  It looks iike all you need is a three position slide switch and a few resistors!  Of course, I can build it myself, but it won't be as small and sleek as one I could buy.  I've looked around, but it's a needle in a haystack.

Sounds like a perfect 99 cent item out of China!

Ed

You mean, "Curse you, Apple, for not adhering to an industry standard that hadn't been invented yet!"?

The point is, Apple should adopt industrial standard and give up their own standard. They did well on the adoption of Thunderbolt and USB Type C on their computer business, but on their mobile industry, they decided to be a jerk and milk their customer for the evil DRM enabled fucking charging cable and fucking any peripherals.

You name it, they can DRM not only apps, but USB cable, Bluetooth, and now headphone. Should we be grateful that they still allows us to use BLE without DRM? Maybe in the future they will also apply MFi to WiFi, who knows. Maybe in the next decade airports will only provide free WiFi to Android users because iPhones can't use free WiFi. Every data connection will be charged Apple tax.

As a side note, the hardware DRM shit is also on their computers now. Their new MBP's SSD is now based on a proprietary edge card interface that has no adapters for it. Which is to say, in a few years when current gen of macs are starting to die, you have to pay Apple $1000 to fix a 3 years old mac just to salvage the data. They are kind enough to include a mezzanine connector on mobo to access to SSD, I guess they will offer a "cheaper" service to salvage data only, but that wouldn't be "cheap" in a PC user's eye -- because that cost is effectively zero if they use standard PC interface (m2, aka. NGFF).

Damn you're so incorrect about so many things I don't even know where to start...

In addition to what tooki mentioned, I'll just add that Apple has used proprietary SSDs on their MacBook Airs since the start and it hasn't been some massive data recovery nightmare. In fact, there are third parties that sell replacement SSDs for these machines.

Do you want to know the real secret to data recovery? Backups. Between Time Machine/CarbonCopyCloner and high speed USB3/USB-C/Thunderbolt external drive enclosures (along with a Time Capsule), there's absolutely no excuse for not having both a full historical backup with all your files *and* a weekly bootable backup of your system. That's not even including DropBox or iCloud for your important files and Git for work stuff.

So, there's really no excuse. If you lose something important it's pretty much your own damn fault. It's twenty-fucking-seventeen, get with the program. It's not like backup is hard, especially on a Mac!

[cdev]

Still, I think Blueskull is right about Apple's motivators.

[edpalmer42]

Oh geez, now I've started it!  Where's the emoji for 'Duck & Cover'?

Or maybe this one applies?       

The thing that so confounds me about Apple is that they were the company that came out with the '1984' commercial and now they're the company that wants to control everything you plug in, see, or hear on their (not your!) devices.

Ed

[tooki]

Still, I think Blueskull is right about Apple's motivators.

No, if there's one thing he's wrong about, it's Apple's motivations. Essentially all Apple critics don't understand Apple's motivations, and that's why they're always perplexed by Apple's success and ascribe it to absolutely the wrong things. They don't understand Apple and they don't understand Apple customers, and the fact that Apple continues to not only not fail, but thrive, angers them because they keep getting proven wrong.

[seanspotatobusiness]

I read that it's better for longevity of the battery if it's charged more slowly (I think so that it can dissipate the heat). Of course there are many situations where you might want to charge it faster anyway but I think it's worth knowing for times when it make no difference (e.g. overnight).

[tooki]

I read that it's better for longevity of the battery if it's charged more slowly (I think so that it can dissipate the heat). Of course there are many situations where you might want to charge it faster anyway but I think it's worth knowing for times when it make no difference (e.g. overnight).

I don't think heat is the only reason, but for sure it is true that a slow charge is easier on the cells than a fast one.

I kinda wish that devices would give us the choice (on a high-wattage charger) of a slow or fast charge, as well as the option to hold the battery at an ideal storage charge (40%) rather than full. (Think laptops, so many of which are rarely used away from a desk. Their batteries would last much longer if held at 40% charge level, with the obvious option to fill to 100% when needed.)

[RGB255_0_0]

I recall IBM/Lenovo laptops, some Dell laptops and some Samsung laptops allowed limiting the SoC to 80%. It's not standard though. I'm not sure people understood what it does for the battery and any information given would be in one ear and out the other when you do tell end users.

I can turn fast charge off on my Galaxy S8, and considering its battery isn't easily replaceable I've been pretty easy on it when charging.

[David Hess]

You mean, "Curse you, Apple, for not adhering to an industry standard that hadn't been invented yet!"?

Even after there was an industry standard, Apple adopted further custom standards.  I do not really blame them though because when the USB-C standard for charging came out, the first advertisements I saw were for charge controllers that provide DRM protected chargers.  The USB-C charging standard built incompatibility in.

What I do blame Apple for is atrocious quality of their own USB chargers and adapters.  Go read the reviews on their web store from their own customers.

[tooki]

What custom standards has Apple invented after USB-C? Lightning came before that. Thunderbolt is an industry standard.

While there's plenty of validity in criticizing Apple's USB cords, their USB chargers are beyond reproach. They are absolute model citizens in charger design.

[timb]

You mean, "Curse you, Apple, for not adhering to an industry standard that hadn't been invented yet!"?

Even after there was an industry standard, Apple adopted further custom standards.  I do not really blame them though because when the USB-C standard for charging came out, the first advertisements I saw were for charge controllers that provide DRM protected chargers.  The USB-C charging standard built incompatibility in.

What I do blame Apple for is atrocious quality of their own USB chargers and adapters.  Go read the reviews on their web store from their own customers.

None of this makes sense... Apple hasn't pushed any 'custom standards' since USB-C. (In fact, Apple helped design and push USB-C; you're welcome!) Apple takes a lot of shit for being some tightly closed walled garden, but it just isn't true.

Look at all the Open Sores projects they've made major contributions to (or outright created)! Here's two huge ones: WebKit and Clang/LLVM.

Look at all the industry standards they've helped to either design, push or popularize: USB 1.1, 802.11b WiFi, FireWire, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, USB-C. That's just off the top of my head, there are many more.

In each of those cases, Apple could have come up with their own protocol or proprietary software, but they didn't. Instead, they adopted a new, cutting edge standard or software project and designed it into their products, helping to popularize it. In a lot cases they even joined the design committee of the standard to help shape it!

As for the quality of their chargers, I'm not sure what you're talking about. They've always been very high quality. I've owned every iPhone from the original to the 5S and never had a single issue with any of the chargers. In fact, the only problem I can think of is when they first came out with the tiny 1"X1" cube chargers (with the iPhone 3G if I remember correctly). They ended up doing a preemptive recall on the US version, as there was a chance the prongs could break off in the wall if something fell on the charger while it was plugged in. They redesigned the charger so the prongs are firmly anchored to the case.

In 10 years of using iPhone chargers (and supporting an office of 50 iPhone users for 3 years, plus a dozen friends and family), I've never seen one go bad. USB cables, yes, but not USB chargers. The same applies for the MacBook power bricks; the cables tend to fray near the MagSafe connector after a few years of hard use, but luckily you can buy replacement cables.