“Shopping for USB-C accessories for your new MacBook?” Jordan Kahn reports for 9to5Mac. “Beware that the USB-C landscape as far as accessories and compatibility with your Mac is an absolute mess.”
“Apple might be complying with the final specs for USB-C, but they weren’t finalized until after the original 2015 MacBook, Apple’s first product with a USB-C port,” Kahn reports. “That’s why Apple issued an update to its MacBooks and its own USB-C accessories for the 2016 MacBook (not to mention a recall for faulty cables), but it’s also why the current crop of accessories available are hit and miss when it comes to compatibility across the board. ”
“It would be fine if all of those USB-C accessories you purchased for your 2015 MacBook were firmware upgradeable and received updates like Apple’s own products, but many of them are not. So if you have accessories purchased for the 2015 MacBook, there is a good possibility they won’t work with your 2016 MacBook or any other new USB-C device,” Kahn reports. “P.S. USB-C is mess on Android and other devices too.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: USB-C growing pains. This too shall pass.
More proof that the “bag of hurt” excuse for not providing Blu-ray support was BS.
USB-C was obviously not ready for prime time but Apple went with it anyway.
I don’t think Steve was bs’ing about that at all. The licensing requirements for blu Ray at the time were very restrictive, for example you couldn’t build region unlocked drives until 2012? I believe. Plus they were very unreliable and slow, and only stored 25-50 GB of data. Very quickly flash prices dropped significantly, external hard drives doubled and tripled in size for the same money, and digital downloads became more popular. And Steve could always see the writing on the wall before most everyone else, and I think his comments were directed at that.
Ultimately Blu-Ray may be the last physical optical media format, and I think he saw it as a lot of work for something that doesn’t have super long shelf life. USB-C on the other hand is the future of connectivity, the “one port to rule them all”, and Apple has had a long history of jumping on emerging connectivity standards that they see as the future well before everyone else. So I don’t think they’re even remotely the same thing.
Now should apple have released an external SuperDrive that has Blu-Ray support? I think so. That way it would be an optional accessory.
“Now should apple have released an external SuperDrive that has Blu-Ray support? I think so. That way it would be an optional accessory.”
This.
Apple could have easily allowed an accessory, how apple handled blu ray was wrong, I understand Steves reasons… But the handling was wrong.
I agree with that assessment. I understand the why of not building it in, but an accessory would’ve made a lot of sense at the time. I don’t know if it does now or not, there’s more than enough digital HD available that’s much higher quality than it was before. The stuff my camera records is phenomenal with XAVC codec.
But I agree that it was mishandled.
There were, and still are, plenty of 3rd party Blu-Ray drives. It was an optional accessory from day 1.
The bag of hurt would’ve applied had Apple offered a single 1st party accessory. Once they opened the door a little, the full bag of hurt comes in.
I still have an old portable external Blu-Ray drive. I thought I was going to take it with me on vacations so we could watch movies. I barely used it because it was such a better experience watching downloaded movies on my iPad.
Every once in a while I pull it out to rip Blu-Rays of rare titles that aren’t in the iTunes Store, but overall, it never came close to getting the use I thought it would.
Not one of them had any support from Apple, none of them work worth a shit.
They have mentioned that any help from Apple on their end would have helped them get it to run much better. Every step of the way Apple pretty much changed the os that would make the software unplayable.
Data support, works fine. Playback is crap. (At least it always has been, have not tried to play a blu ray in a long time through the various software options.)
No, I’ve had the Asus Slim Portable Blu-Ray drive for years now and it works flawlessly for playback, ripping and burning.
“Not one of them had any support from Apple”
It depends what you mean by support. Obviously, to avoid the bag of hurt, that meant Apple didn’t incorporate any native Blu-Ray decoding or software of any kind. If they had, they might have just as well gone ahead and offered the devices. Instead, they avoided the licensing hell altogether, while still easily allowing 3rd parties to deliver for the few of us that wanted/needed it. Apple did however offer software for producing Blu-Ray compatible video, and combined with 3rd party support of hardware and software, this wasn’t an issue at all.
“Every step of the way Apple pretty much changed the os that would make the software unplayable. “
I have no idea what you’re talking about here. I’ve upgraded to every version of OS X, and never had it break compatibility with my drive or the software.
Like I said, I’m still using that Blu-Ray drive for ripping Blu-Rays, and it works just fine.
Personally, I skipped right over Blu-Ray and went straight to streaming and downloading for High Definition video.
Not all HD is created equal. Color compression, black levels, and audio on streaming media is all vastly inferior to what BluRay “true HD” and the next generation UHD offers.
It’s a personal choice whether quality matters, but anyone I know who claims to be a videophile have never preferred streaming. Especially since RedBox rentals are as cheap or cheaper than the subscription stuff for most normal people.
While that’s true, as you mention, the quality difference is lost on many people (mom still can’t remember there’s a difference between DVD and Blu-Ray), as well as being lost on many displays.
I think it’s great for people who can appreciate the difference and have the equipment to support Blu-Ray as it is clearly superior in video quality, but from Apple’s perspective there wasn’t much in it for them to support Blu-Ray.
True that many people in the world sacrifice quality or just don’t care.
and how silly of me to think that Apple represented premium quality anymore. The media Apple distributes and the hardware that Apple sells to play audio and display video is, across the board, at or below industry averages. Thanks for nothing Cook.
“The media Apple distributes and the hardware that Apple sells to play audio and display video is, across the board, at or below industry averages.”
That’s not true at all. For the media, there are trade-offs. Apple could introduce extremely high bit rate video that would blow away Blu-Ray. Of course it would be off limits to almost everyone due to bandwidth issues. Likewise not only would downloading take most people forever, but it would consume the bulk of space on their devices for one movie.
It’s a balancing act, and one that Apple does very well.
The reality is that if you want the best quality for a video experience (in terms of resolution, frame rate, dynamic range, and compression artifacts), no streaming solution today is the answer, nor is watching it on a notebook, phone or tablet. The reality is that disc based media has the edge today on video quality (as previously defined by those terms), and if you want that, buy disc media and the best TV and sound system on the market.
However, that’s not necessarily the best experience as the picture will look like this on a tablet while viewing on an airplane ->
Likewise, you won’t have instant access on-demand for anything, which for some people isn’t an issue, but physical delivery of media isn’t a business Apple wants to get into, nor should it.
Get your story straight. Every other company has a4K streaming box but Apple. You say “that’s not true at all”, then you essentially admit that Apple, just like cable TV, distributes 1080 or 720 horizontal resolution video with crappy audio and compressed colors in order to make streaming more palatable.
You are absolutely correct that dinky portable devices that Apple concentrates in building today are horrible for high-quality media. But in catering to kids with tablets, Apple is losing its mojo offering premium products with cutting edge technology. That is a mistake. There are many streaming technologies which offer 4K resolutions, none of which Apple has implemented on any device. Netflix and Youtube and others now do. Roku 4 streams 4K video without a problem, you just need to order the right level of internet service. And UHD BluRay is here, and you are right, it beats any streaming service in sheer quality. My point is that Apple is completely missing in all of this, and what that means is that aside from an old Mac mini that serves up old home videos, Apple will continue to be locked out of our media room. We cannot recommend any Apple gear for videophiles. If you can buy any ultra-high definition video through Apple or play it to its full native resolution on any home video product then do tell us how. There was a day when Apple actually competed, but like everything else Apple seems to have lost interest. Apple TV and the video capabilities of all recent Macs and iOS devices is a complete embarrassment.
“Every other company has a4K streaming box but Apple. You say “that’s not true at all”,”
I didn’t say that it wasn’t true that other companies aren’t offering 4K streaming boxes.
I said, this wasn’t true:
“The media Apple distributes and the hardware that Apple sells to play audio and display video is, across the board, at or below industry averages.”
And it’s not.
You’re equating a lousy implementation of 4K on a subset of streaming boxes on the market and a subset of content as “the industry average” of quality.
Going for the specs has never been what Apple has been about. It’s always been about premium quality as defined by the user experience.
The fact that others are experimenting with 4K streaming today isn’t at all relative to the user experience with Apple. As specs and standards are finalized, and hardware integration is made to those specs, I’d fully expect Apple to support 4K, but likewise, I’d also fully expect them not to dive in until the timing is right based on the quality of the user experience. This is the way Apple has always been.
“There was a day when Apple actually competed, “
Apple has never competed in the way you’re talking about.
Europe required it. Period.
Hey, how come I can’t plug in my SCSI & FW devices?
Sheesh.
A responsible company would provide backward compatibility options.
In the case of BluRay, Apple announced support and then never followed through. Just like audio — Apple took the effort to develop ALAC and then decided that it didn’t want to distribute any premium audio files, so iTunes AAC and now Apple Music DRM files are what you get. All vastly inferior to other lossless audio vendors. Apple has forgotten what it means to be a premium company — it now wraps rose gold over inferior soldered hardware pumping out DRM-laden media and calls it progress.
I have a 2015 macbook powered by a google usb charger and a number of 3rd party accessories I have yet to have an issue it would be nice if the writers of these stories actually used the damn product
I’m genuinely curious… why do you (and others similar) not use periods? It’s the most fundamental punctuation of all. Combined with a capital to start the next sentence, periods make everything much easier to read – even on something this short.
E.g.
I have a 2015 macbook powered by a google usb charger and a number of 3rd party accessories. I have yet to have an issue. It would be nice if the writers of these stories actually used the damn product.
Bleeding Edge
And yes, this is ADDED EXPENSE beyond the purchase of your MacBook, putting a dent into TCO, total cost of ownership, messing up the ROI, return on investment.
I’m hoping USB-C becomes the standard for computers. But this transition meanwhile reminds me of previous new Apple port technology rollouts. *sigh*
Best not to drink the USB-C Kool aid yet.
Here’s hoping that the 2016 line of Mac updates pushes USB-C in the same way the original iMac first propelled USB into prime time.
The possible implications of this connector can’t be understated. I think wirthin a decade we’ll see them pop up in places we haven’t imagined today.
USB-C on all your iOS gadgets, for example.
I have a 2016 MacBook and a lot of different USB-C accessories. I have yet to discover any issues. Other than 4K video, the author doesn’t really provide any specifics. I wonder if it’s a case of going to Amazon, sorting by price and ignoring user-ratings and brand.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/usb-type-c-cable-cheap-destroys-laptop-benson-leung-a6855741.html
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/4/10916264/usb-c-russian-roulette-power-cords