Oh my, lots of cheap cables don't support data. Buy a $15 set of wirlesss Earbuds and check them.
* Data (this one is fairly obvious) * Power (since the CC wire in the cable is missing, and a compliant USB-C power source will refuse to output power unless the CC wire is terminated on the other end which signals what type of device it is)
You'd need at _least_ the CC wire as well.
if you can't walk into the store and pick up a usb-c cable (because we've agreed that cable sold at the checkout counter isn't a real usb-c cable) then why does this standard matter?
Same thing with the sideloading, it's not enough that android lets you do it, apple's business model centered around the iphone as a secure endpoint has to be completely outlawed.
kinda seems the android idea just isn't resilient enough to stand on its own in the market without government intervention to literally outlaw competition with it. given how obtuse and anti-consumer the USB-IF body tends to be, this probably won't end well in the long run.
and this isn't even going into the e-waste problems resulting from the android software lifecycle or the lack of OEM support lifecycle for parts availability, etc - all of which are simply swept under the rug in the headlong rush to coronate a market winner by government fiat.
it's easy to see that with the lack of concern over e-waste, and the lack of concern over sideloading in other situations (like consoles) that this was never really about e-waste at all, it was just legislating a solution to the android vs iphone wars. And that's fundamentally disappointing - fanboy wars should not be the basis for governmental policy and regulation.
Standards and interop are good. If the "free market" refuses to align on that value I'm happy for another mechanism to force it to happen. Judging from this thread, I'm not alone in that.
Not everybody is libertarian here, many are pragmatic, and are not dogmatic when a regulation is good.
For example, we also don't lament how there are standards in power plugs, and we don't have to juggle with 20 competing power outlets from different companies in our own country for the benefit of the "free market", nor are naive enough to believe that the better one would just have "won". That's for "ideal over utility" libertarian types.
Or, like, you know...it's just a charging cable.
I remember Apple intentionally selling non-USB conforming cables for the keyboard on the early iMacs. There was a little notch in the USB cable which meant that it couldn't plug into a standard USB port. The urban legend at the time was that it also meant that they didn't have to include the USB logo on the cable, better matching Steve's aesthetic preferences.