frank777

melgross said:

We hope. The problem is that there are a lot of makers of cables out there, and over the years, a number that were rated at certain levels turned out to not meet the standards. People don’t know what they’re getting. So I expect, as always, to see cables labeled as to a particular capacity, either in power transmission, or in data speed, to not meet the specs, with the customer not knowing it.

Isn't there now a big problem with malware (from both bad actors and government spooks) being embedded in smart cables?

As with Android v iPhone, the masses will buy the cheapest cables with the massive security holes/quality issues, and the discerning customer will pay a bit more for a better experience. Other than sticking to trusted brands, I'm not sure what else could be done here.

Counterfeiters are very sophisticated nowadays, so protecting the retail channel from all rogue cables is going to be hard to do.

Yeah, they're absolutely going to need to colour-code the cables.

Mike Wuerthele said:

frank777 said:

Thanks for the update, but the article seems a tad more confusing than it needs to be.

Essentially the question I have is this: Does this mean that USB 4 is just Thunderbolt 3 with USB backward compatibility thrown in?

It doesn't sound like any new capabilities have been added, so implementing USB 4 should be a breeze for Apple, right?

Why then, would implementation be "be a long time away" for vendors? For someone like Apple, whose new Mac Pro has a confusing mix of USB-A, USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports, would it not be a priority to make the 'switch over' as fast as possible?

1: It is not. It is close, but not identical.

2: Because the chipsets for USB4 aren't due until 2020. There were Thunderbolt 3 chipsets available in 2016 for the MacBook Pro refresh that year, as the spec was finalized in 2015. USB4 chipsets don't exist today.

Got it. Now my hopes shift to the iMac now being updated in Winter/Spring instead of November.  

Yikes. USB-IF to continue confusing name scheme with USB4 Gen 3x2

The engineers need to be physically thrown out of the marketing meetings.

Thanks for the update, but the article seems a tad more confusing than it needs to be.

Essentially the question I have is this: Does this mean that USB 4 is just Thunderbolt 3 with USB backward compatibility thrown in?

It doesn't sound like any new capabilities have been added, so implementing USB 4 should be a breeze for Apple, right?

Why then, would implementation be "be a long time away" for vendors? For someone like Apple, whose new Mac Pro has a confusing mix of USB-A, USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports, would it not be a priority to make the 'switch over' as fast as possible?