The world of USB cables can be extremely confusing for consumers. On one hand, there are many cables that are designed to handle high power outputs, such as 18 watts, 60 watts, 100 watts, or even 240 watts of power. However, it's often unclear what these cables are actually capable of in terms of data transfer speeds.

For example, a cable that can deliver 100 watts of power may not be able to handle high-speed data transfers like 4K or 5K video output on a monitor. This is because the cable's power delivery capabilities do not necessarily translate to its ability to handle fast data transfer speeds. As a result, consumers are often left wondering what their cables can and cannot do.

One of the main problems with USB cables is that there is no standardization when it comes to their specifications. Cable manufacturers often use different logos or markings to indicate what kind of power delivery and data transfer capabilities a cable has, but these markings are not always clear or consistent.

For example, Apple's Thunderbolt cables can be confusing, as they do not explicitly state whether they are Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4. Similarly, some cables may have no logos at all, making it impossible to determine what kind of data transfer speeds they support. Even Apple's own USB cables that come with Macs, which are intended for charging only, will not handle high-speed data transfers.

In fact, even big brands like Mophie and LG do not provide clear information about their cables' specifications, leaving consumers in the dark. The lack of standardization and transparency makes it difficult for consumers to make informed decisions when purchasing new cables.

However, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. In 2019, the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) made an effort to improve things by introducing new logos that would indicate a cable's power delivery and data transfer capabilities. These logos are designed to provide consumers with some insight into what their cables can do, but they are not always used consistently or prominently.

One possible solution to the problem is for Apple to switch to USB-C on future iPhones, ditching Lightning altogether. This would provide consumers with a single, standardized port that could handle both power delivery and data transfer speeds. However, it's unclear whether this will happen anytime soon.

In conclusion, the world of USB cables is confusing and often opaque, making it difficult for consumers to make informed decisions when purchasing new cables. While there have been efforts to improve things, such as the introduction of new logos, more needs to be done to provide transparency and standardization in the industry.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou were lied to i was lied to we were all lied to at least that's what it feels like usbc was supposed to be this harbinger for change that would come in and save us from the chaonic fragmented and confusing charging system that we'd found ourselves in now years later usbc may have done more bad than good and personally i don't blame apple for being slow or cautious as they consider whether to bring usbc to the iphone welcome everybody to apple insider it is andrew here and if you can't tell i'm pretty fed up with usbc at the moment it's a infuriatingly confusing standard and it seems to be only getting worse with each bit of news and new cable that's brought to market in this video i'm gonna walk you through some of the current challenges with usbc and where we're looking to with the future of this data video and charging standard here's my problem with usbc just in a nutshell nothing's consistent or transparent you can pick up any cable and not know if this supports video if this supports charging if it supports data and if it supports those how much how much data can it transfer how fast can this support a 4k display a 5k display or a 6k display can this support usb c pd charging and if so how fast you can't tell almost any of this from looking at most cables let's first start with just what is usbc because that's usually the term that is thrown around a lot and i am sorry for those that are very techy out there that this is a little rudimentary please feel free to jump to the next chapter in this video but for anyone who doesn't know the kind of bare bones and basics of usbc i feel like it's important to talk about it for just a minute basically when you're looking at a usbc cable it's not just a usbc cable it's usually you know two different parts there's the video data charging amount like the stuff that's actually transferred over the cable then there's the connector on the end so essentially what you have is some sort of usb or thunderbolt cable and then a type c connector on the end then you'll have matching type c devices whether it is the charging ports on any charger that you have around uh or it could be the uh the mac that you're plugging it into so those are all like type c but they can all handle varying degrees of data video and power for a wide swath of devices ideally usb-c would be perfect because you'd have this singular cable with the same reversible connector on either end you could turn the cable in either way it wouldn't matter it would power everything from your nintendo switch to your playstation to your iphone to your ipad to your headphones your mac peripherals your displays uh everything would just be all on usbc it would be fantastic of course we don't live in such an idealized society and things are much murkier than that not to try to make a confusing topic already more confusing because you have to separate what is transfer of the cable from the connector on the end that means you also have things like thunderbolt cables thunderbolt 3 and thunderbolt 4 both use the type c connector so while in this video i say usb-c a whole lot most of the same stuff can apply to thunderbolt cables as well they're kind of in the mix just using that same connector there on the end if i could just interrupt myself for one moment i have to thank our sponsor for this video jamf jamf is the de facto standard in apple mobile device management and it's trusted by more than 62 000 businesses schools and hospitals apple's exceptional hardware is only half of the equation how you secure manage and to empower your users with that technology is the other half and jamf makes that happen jamf has the ability to scale to any business whether you've got just a handful of iphones or ipads or tens of thousands of iphones ipads macs or apple tvs jamf can be your solution jamf is ready to scale to any size business whether you've got a handful of ipads or you have tens of thousands of iphones ipads macs and apple tvs jamf can be the solution recently it introduced app installers which is an automated way for it teams to update third-party mac apps when a new version is released jamp automatically sources packages and deploys the new versions ensuring users have the latest features and security patches on a personal note i've actually had the opportunity to sit down with several organizations that have rolled out jamf mdm solutions in their businesses and they have always spoken extremely highly of jam software and credited with making all of their goals a reality you can get started today and start your free trial by following the link that is down in the description or by heading to jamf.com thank you again very much to jamf for sponsoring this video so how much data can a usb cable carry well it depends a usbc cable can handle anywhere from 240 mbps all the way up to 40 gpps that's right you can go from just a few megs to gigs of data on the cable that you're using a usbc cable could support usb 2.0 speeds which is 480 mbps could support usb 3 speeds at 5 gbps usb 3.1 gen 2 which ups it to 10 gbps usb 3.2 which is 20 gbps or usb 4 which is 40 gbps if we're looking at thunderbolt cables those also can be 40 gbps that brings us to how much power a cable can provide because of course you know with these magical cables they're going to charge your devices as well as transfer data between your devices and if we look at how much power a cable can draw it is equally as opaque first a cable could or could not support usb-c power delivery so power delivery is just a higher amount of power so i think it's around 18 watts i believe so it could support you know 5 watts 10 watts the slower amount of charging power or it could support usb pd power delivery and this can go all the way up to 240 watts of power it's a massive difference from 18 watts on usb c pd or alt up to 240 watts on usb c pd all just under the umbrella of power delivery the power delivery stuff really bothers me because a lot of people don't know that a cable can do different amounts of power i mean look at this this is a zen door super tank pro i believe this is a 100 watt battery pack like it has input and output of 100 watts of power using usb power delivery if you have a battery that's this large you want really fast charging speeds so if you pair this battery with another 100 watt charger so find 100 watt charger apple's got 140 watt one uh you green here 100 watts but pick a 100 watt charger you can power this up at 100 watts of power chargers all nicely have them labeled you know literally right there on the side 100 watts right there on the side of this charger but the cables not so much not so much this cable here no idea how much power uh it supports no idea how much power this one supports uh i think this one i i for sure know this is apple's most recent thunderbolt cable and it will support up to 100 watts of power but most of these cables here i do not know this short one here uh from nomad again this i know is one of their more recent 100 watts of power cables but i had to specifically choose it out because if you are not choosing a cable that can handle at least 100 watts of power you can have a 100 watt charger and a battery that can handle 100 watts of input but you're not going to get nearly that amount of power when using it it's frustrating and so much so that i actually carry around quite frequently a power meter this guy right here from satecki is their power meter and it'll handle various versions of usbc pd and tell you how much power your devices are using i use it in reviewing charges and stuff just to see what the inputs will be but it also gives me an idea on what cables i'm using and if the cable is providing enough power to what i'm trying to charge it's kind of ridiculous that this is the point that we're at there's a new version of usbc so usb c 2.1 as well as usb pd 3.1 so the usb spec and the power delivery spec new versions of each of these that will support that up to 240 watts of power apple was actually one of the first to support this new version of usb c pd with their 140 watt gan charger that came out with the 16 inch macbook pros this guy can fast charge the mac using usbc pd is it using a standard usb cable no because the usb ports on a 60 inch macbook pro only support standard the usb pd up to 100 watts of power and if you want to use 140 watts of power you need to have a port that goes with and you have to use apple's magsafe cable which is usbc pd compliant using the revised usb 3pd 3.1 spec that can handle that 140 watts of power have i lost you yet because this is confusing just trying to make it consumable for all of you out there before trying to find the bright spot and looking at the future let's try to summarize the main issues with cables of today any usb-c cable can support any myriad and combination of data video and charging abilities any cable could support video output or it could not if it supports video output it could be 4k or it could be 6k if we're looking at power it could support usb c pd or it could not if it supports usb-c pd it could support the old version of the spec or the new version of the spec it could handle 18 watts of power 60 watts of power 100 watts of power or 240 watts of power and you just don't know all of this just combines to be extremely confusing i see a lot of cables that are designed for charging and they can't really handle data or video output something will be like oh yeah this is a 100 watt cable that you can use to charge your stuff really fast and you'd think that because it's such a high performance cable 100 watts of power you'd be able to transfer files or display video on a 4k 5k 6k monitor and yet you try to and it sucks or doesn't work at all and that's because it'll support that 100 watts of power but it'll support usb 2.0 speeds of 400 and 480 megabits per second it's just wrong it's confusing it doesn't make any sense and there's very little uh visibility into these things this is a nomad cable there's nothing marking it of what spec they're using what speed it's using anything like that you have to know from when you purchase this cable or what's on the box of this cable or label in some weird way and like these are you know big brands that are doing this stuff that is just confusing looking here this is apple's thunderbolt cable is this thunderbolt 3 or thunderbolt 4 it doesn't say it just has a thunderbolt logo doesn't say anything further beyond that cal digit it just says cal digit is this thunderbolt or usb i assume there's no thunderbolt logo so i assume this is usb but i don't know what version of usbc some cables this one here there's no logos on the end at all i don't even know who makes this cable but fortunately there is some very light text on the side that says it is a super high speed usb revision 3.1 so at least i know the data components of this cable whatever it is wherever this one came from even apple's own the uh usb cables that come with your mac when they don't use magsafe those cables are intended for charging and they'll handle your charging speed but they won't do any data they're standard usb 2.0 data speeds it's a mess there's just no mophie is a big one lg is a big one none of these have any visibility into what they support data power anything you have to know when you buy them and that's just wrong now are things going to get better right now it doesn't look like it and i know that's woeful and negative and i don't want to be like that but it seems the small ray of hope is that the usb implementation or implementers forum they they understand there's a problem they recently tried to make things better in 2019 they came out with a whole bunch of new logos where they would combine things like the the power delivery as well as the data and you'd have a an array a grid of logos that would try to determine what this cable would support and in an ideal world it would just be printed on the cable somewhere and you would know i mean it'd be ugly but you'd know and it seems like very few use those logos they'll put it on the websites or on the cables when you're ordering them but there's no way to check these things there's no way to test these things really not easily without buying additional hardware and it's it's terrible for the consumer so a lot of people been saying that apple needs to move the iphone to usbc and ditch lightning at this point i don't blame them with lightning you had two options you could get a usb a version of lightning and it supported uh you know those charging speeds and if you got a usbc version it would guaranteed support usb c pd with at least 18 watts of power there to your iphone and that was it you didn't ever have to worry about anything else it was simple and magical as for bumping up against that limit on lightning apple does need to make that crucial decision if they move to usbc new version of lightning whatever it'll be but the current state of usbc is bad it's a mess and it doesn't seem like it's going to get any better anytime soon let me know what you guys think of this usbc mess down below in the comments or on twitter at andrew underscore osu and if you'd like to learn more of the differences between usb and thunderbolt i have a link to a great article up on apple insider otherwise stay tuned i'll catch you guys in the next video youyou were lied to i was lied to we were all lied to at least that's what it feels like usbc was supposed to be this harbinger for change that would come in and save us from the chaonic fragmented and confusing charging system that we'd found ourselves in now years later usbc may have done more bad than good and personally i don't blame apple for being slow or cautious as they consider whether to bring usbc to the iphone welcome everybody to apple insider it is andrew here and if you can't tell i'm pretty fed up with usbc at the moment it's a infuriatingly confusing standard and it seems to be only getting worse with each bit of news and new cable that's brought to market in this video i'm gonna walk you through some of the current challenges with usbc and where we're looking to with the future of this data video and charging standard here's my problem with usbc just in a nutshell nothing's consistent or transparent you can pick up any cable and not know if this supports video if this supports charging if it supports data and if it supports those how much how much data can it transfer how fast can this support a 4k display a 5k display or a 6k display can this support usb c pd charging and if so how fast you can't tell almost any of this from looking at most cables let's first start with just what is usbc because that's usually the term that is thrown around a lot and i am sorry for those that are very techy out there that this is a little rudimentary please feel free to jump to the next chapter in this video but for anyone who doesn't know the kind of bare bones and basics of usbc i feel like it's important to talk about it for just a minute basically when you're looking at a usbc cable it's not just a usbc cable it's usually you know two different parts there's the video data charging amount like the stuff that's actually transferred over the cable then there's the connector on the end so essentially what you have is some sort of usb or thunderbolt cable and then a type c connector on the end then you'll have matching type c devices whether it is the charging ports on any charger that you have around uh or it could be the uh the mac that you're plugging it into so those are all like type c but they can all handle varying degrees of data video and power for a wide swath of devices ideally usb-c would be perfect because you'd have this singular cable with the same reversible connector on either end you could turn the cable in either way it wouldn't matter it would power everything from your nintendo switch to your playstation to your iphone to your ipad to your headphones your mac peripherals your displays uh everything would just be all on usbc it would be fantastic of course we don't live in such an idealized society and things are much murkier than that not to try to make a confusing topic already more confusing because you have to separate what is transfer of the cable from the connector on the end that means you also have things like thunderbolt cables thunderbolt 3 and thunderbolt 4 both use the type c connector so while in this video i say usb-c a whole lot most of the same stuff can apply to thunderbolt cables as well they're kind of in the mix just using that same connector there on the end if i could just interrupt myself for one moment i have to thank our sponsor for this video jamf jamf is the de facto standard in apple mobile device management and it's trusted by more than 62 000 businesses schools and hospitals apple's exceptional hardware is only half of the equation how you secure manage and to empower your users with that technology is the other half and jamf makes that happen jamf has the ability to scale to any business whether you've got just a handful of iphones or ipads or tens of thousands of iphones ipads macs or apple tvs jamf can be your solution jamf is ready to scale to any size business whether you've got a handful of ipads or you have tens of thousands of iphones ipads macs and apple tvs jamf can be the solution recently it introduced app installers which is an automated way for it teams to update third-party mac apps when a new version is released jamp automatically sources packages and deploys the new versions ensuring users have the latest features and security patches on a personal note i've actually had the opportunity to sit down with several organizations that have rolled out jamf mdm solutions in their businesses and they have always spoken extremely highly of jam software and credited with making all of their goals a reality you can get started today and start your free trial by following the link that is down in the description or by heading to jamf.com thank you again very much to jamf for sponsoring this video so how much data can a usb cable carry well it depends a usbc cable can handle anywhere from 240 mbps all the way up to 40 gpps that's right you can go from just a few megs to gigs of data on the cable that you're using a usbc cable could support usb 2.0 speeds which is 480 mbps could support usb 3 speeds at 5 gbps usb 3.1 gen 2 which ups it to 10 gbps usb 3.2 which is 20 gbps or usb 4 which is 40 gbps if we're looking at thunderbolt cables those also can be 40 gbps that brings us to how much power a cable can provide because of course you know with these magical cables they're going to charge your devices as well as transfer data between your devices and if we look at how much power a cable can draw it is equally as opaque first a cable could or could not support usb-c power delivery so power delivery is just a higher amount of power so i think it's around 18 watts i believe so it could support you know 5 watts 10 watts the slower amount of charging power or it could support usb pd power delivery and this can go all the way up to 240 watts of power it's a massive difference from 18 watts on usb c pd or alt up to 240 watts on usb c pd all just under the umbrella of power delivery the power delivery stuff really bothers me because a lot of people don't know that a cable can do different amounts of power i mean look at this this is a zen door super tank pro i believe this is a 100 watt battery pack like it has input and output of 100 watts of power using usb power delivery if you have a battery that's this large you want really fast charging speeds so if you pair this battery with another 100 watt charger so find 100 watt charger apple's got 140 watt one uh you green here 100 watts but pick a 100 watt charger you can power this up at 100 watts of power chargers all nicely have them labeled you know literally right there on the side 100 watts right there on the side of this charger but the cables not so much not so much this cable here no idea how much power uh it supports no idea how much power this one supports uh i think this one i i for sure know this is apple's most recent thunderbolt cable and it will support up to 100 watts of power but most of these cables here i do not know this short one here uh from nomad again this i know is one of their more recent 100 watts of power cables but i had to specifically choose it out because if you are not choosing a cable that can handle at least 100 watts of power you can have a 100 watt charger and a battery that can handle 100 watts of input but you're not going to get nearly that amount of power when using it it's frustrating and so much so that i actually carry around quite frequently a power meter this guy right here from satecki is their power meter and it'll handle various versions of usbc pd and tell you how much power your devices are using i use it in reviewing charges and stuff just to see what the inputs will be but it also gives me an idea on what cables i'm using and if the cable is providing enough power to what i'm trying to charge it's kind of ridiculous that this is the point that we're at there's a new version of usbc so usb c 2.1 as well as usb pd 3.1 so the usb spec and the power delivery spec new versions of each of these that will support that up to 240 watts of power apple was actually one of the first to support this new version of usb c pd with their 140 watt gan charger that came out with the 16 inch macbook pros this guy can fast charge the mac using usbc pd is it using a standard usb cable no because the usb ports on a 60 inch macbook pro only support standard the usb pd up to 100 watts of power and if you want to use 140 watts of power you need to have a port that goes with and you have to use apple's magsafe cable which is usbc pd compliant using the revised usb 3pd 3.1 spec that can handle that 140 watts of power have i lost you yet because this is confusing just trying to make it consumable for all of you out there before trying to find the bright spot and looking at the future let's try to summarize the main issues with cables of today any usb-c cable can support any myriad and combination of data video and charging abilities any cable could support video output or it could not if it supports video output it could be 4k or it could be 6k if we're looking at power it could support usb c pd or it could not if it supports usb-c pd it could support the old version of the spec or the new version of the spec it could handle 18 watts of power 60 watts of power 100 watts of power or 240 watts of power and you just don't know all of this just combines to be extremely confusing i see a lot of cables that are designed for charging and they can't really handle data or video output something will be like oh yeah this is a 100 watt cable that you can use to charge your stuff really fast and you'd think that because it's such a high performance cable 100 watts of power you'd be able to transfer files or display video on a 4k 5k 6k monitor and yet you try to and it sucks or doesn't work at all and that's because it'll support that 100 watts of power but it'll support usb 2.0 speeds of 400 and 480 megabits per second it's just wrong it's confusing it doesn't make any sense and there's very little uh visibility into these things this is a nomad cable there's nothing marking it of what spec they're using what speed it's using anything like that you have to know from when you purchase this cable or what's on the box of this cable or label in some weird way and like these are you know big brands that are doing this stuff that is just confusing looking here this is apple's thunderbolt cable is this thunderbolt 3 or thunderbolt 4 it doesn't say it just has a thunderbolt logo doesn't say anything further beyond that cal digit it just says cal digit is this thunderbolt or usb i assume there's no thunderbolt logo so i assume this is usb but i don't know what version of usbc some cables this one here there's no logos on the end at all i don't even know who makes this cable but fortunately there is some very light text on the side that says it is a super high speed usb revision 3.1 so at least i know the data components of this cable whatever it is wherever this one came from even apple's own the uh usb cables that come with your mac when they don't use magsafe those cables are intended for charging and they'll handle your charging speed but they won't do any data they're standard usb 2.0 data speeds it's a mess there's just no mophie is a big one lg is a big one none of these have any visibility into what they support data power anything you have to know when you buy them and that's just wrong now are things going to get better right now it doesn't look like it and i know that's woeful and negative and i don't want to be like that but it seems the small ray of hope is that the usb implementation or implementers forum they they understand there's a problem they recently tried to make things better in 2019 they came out with a whole bunch of new logos where they would combine things like the the power delivery as well as the data and you'd have a an array a grid of logos that would try to determine what this cable would support and in an ideal world it would just be printed on the cable somewhere and you would know i mean it'd be ugly but you'd know and it seems like very few use those logos they'll put it on the websites or on the cables when you're ordering them but there's no way to check these things there's no way to test these things really not easily without buying additional hardware and it's it's terrible for the consumer so a lot of people been saying that apple needs to move the iphone to usbc and ditch lightning at this point i don't blame them with lightning you had two options you could get a usb a version of lightning and it supported uh you know those charging speeds and if you got a usbc version it would guaranteed support usb c pd with at least 18 watts of power there to your iphone and that was it you didn't ever have to worry about anything else it was simple and magical as for bumping up against that limit on lightning apple does need to make that crucial decision if they move to usbc new version of lightning whatever it'll be but the current state of usbc is bad it's a mess and it doesn't seem like it's going to get any better anytime soon let me know what you guys think of this usbc mess down below in the comments or on twitter at andrew underscore osu and if you'd like to learn more of the differences between usb and thunderbolt i have a link to a great article up on apple insider otherwise stay tuned i'll catch you guys in the next video you\n"