USB-C was a missed opportunity and it’s too late to fix the mess

I’ve been writing about USB-C for what seems like forever (seriously, it’s been seven or eight years!). From a unifying, one-size-fits-all specification to the grim reality of compatibility issues and opaque feature support, USB-C has its plaudits and detractors. Me? I sit firmly in the middle — aware of the problems yet still hoping, however foolishly, that the trusty port will one day live up to its promise. Unfortunately, as time passes, USB-C’s window of opportunity is closing, and fast.

To understand exactly what’s “wrong” with USB-C, just look around your living room. Can you remember which of your power packs charges which of your gadgets quickly or slowly? Laptops and PCs are no better. Back when we had DisplayPort, HDMI, and barrel sockets, you knew where you stood — but now, deciphering which of today’s three or four USB-C ports does what requires serious manual-reading. And who has time for that?

Playing “Guess Who?” with a socket that claims to do everything but seldom does is just a microcosm of USB-C’s biggest problem — the swirling mess of the specification itself. Big points to anyone who can tell me how many different charging standards are still kicking around in the smartphone world, or how many different data speeds exist across Apple’s Mac lineup. Honestly? I’ve given up trying to keep track.

USB-C’s biggest problem isn’t even that it’s unclear what each port does; it’s that matching two products that supposedly use the same interface has become an absolute nightmare — and it’s only gotten worse over the past decade. Unfortunately, much like my USB-C cable drawer, I’ve lost hope of ever untangling this mess.

It’s taken nearly a decade, but efforts to improve gadget charging have emerged. Perhaps the biggest recent win is that USB Power Delivery (USB PD) support is now mandatory for 15W USB-C gadgets and above, thanks to an EU directive. While this doesn’t guarantee fast charging on every device, it ensures common protocol support for all “fast” charging gadgets. The really good news? Modern chargers will supply at least some power to all modern smartphones, as we’ve seen from many newer models out of China.

Speaking of China, it hasn’t been idle either. A collective effort to unify its cluttered fast-charging portfolio has produced the Universal Fast Charging Specification (UFCS). Though UFCS is a separate standard to Power Delivery, it’s designed to be compatible with USB PD 3.0, offering similar voltage levels and power capabilities.

Unfortunately, UFCS isn’t backwards compatible with existing standards like SuperVOOC or HyperCharge, so widespread adoption will take time. Still, it shows that even China’s biggest players are concerned about interoperability and e-waste. The OnePlus 13, OPPO Find X8 Pro, and HUAWEI Mate 70 series are recent smartphones supporting UFCS alongside their proprietary standards.

Certainly, the gradual adoption of USB Power Delivery as the primary method for fast-charging phones, laptops, and other gadgets has been a positive step for consumers. However, even ignoring proprietary standards, the USB Implementers Forum hasn’t helped consumers navigate what should be a simple plug-and-play scenario.

The introduction of USB Power Delivery Programmable Power Supply (PPS) added flexibility for the fine voltage control required to fast-charge modern batteries. However, USB PD PPS took years to reach the plug market, and it’s still not apparent to most consumers that you need a PPS-compatible USB PD plug to fast-charge the Galaxy S25 series above 18W, for example. Regular PD is still the standard, but it’s going out of fashion for smartphones and even laptops.

Worse, the PPS specification now has even more sub-specifications, which are as confusing as the proprietary protocols. Google’s Pixel 9 Pro XL is a prime example: it will only hit 37W power levels with a specific 20V PPS plug — the “old” 9V PPS ones won’t cut it, leaving you stuck at 27W. Good luck finding that small but critical detail on many plug spec sheets, if you even bother to look. All these years later, we’re still buying OEM-branded chargers as a hedge against compatibility — what a joke.

Charging speeds dominate smartphone conversations, but USB-C encompasses far more: data transfer speeds, audio, display support, and PCI-E extensions. You name it, USB-C can probably do it, depending on the specific port configuration. Outside of charging, data is the one area where the spec continues to confuse consumers the most.

Since its inception, USB-C hasn’t mandated a specific data-transfer protocol. It can be backed by USB 2.0, USB 3.2, or even Thunderbolt controllers, meaning speeds range from a measly 0.48 Gbit/s up to a speedy 20 Gbit/s. Consumers and experts alike have found it anything but straightforward to figure out what each USB-C port can do.

USB4 was introduced in 2019 specifically to clear up some confusion. The spec was based on (but not directly compatible with) Thunderbolt 3, bundling DisplayPort 2.0 support, a baseline 20 Gbit/s data speed, and backward compatibility with older standards.

While this didn’t directly address legacy standards still used over USB-C, the idea was that if your product was USB4-compliant, you’d know what to expect. USB4 was meant to bring order, but instead splintered into a soup of Gen 2×1, 3×2, and Gen 4 variations — each with wildly different speeds from 10 Gbps to 120 Gbps. Confused? You’re not alone. Many DisplayPort, power, and PCI features also remain optional.

If all that wasn’t confusing enough, you’ll have to buy a top-of-the-line USB-C cable to ensure the advanced features work correctly. Despite pages of official labeling guidelines, cheap and counterfeit cables have only made the affordability-versus-quality gamble worse. So much for simplicity.

A reluctant latecomer to USB-C, Apple finally adopted the port with the 2024 iPhone 15 series following the European Commission’s ruling. While Apple usually tightly controls and optimizes user experience, being dragged kicking and screaming away from Lightning resulted in a half-assed approach at best.

There’s no better example than the iPhone 16’s data speeds. The budget models still use sluggish USB 2.0 ports — rare outside the cheapest Android phones. Meanwhile, the Pro models are 20x faster but still don’t match the 40 Gbps Thunderbolt capabilities of the iPad Pro. Recent iPhone Pro models charge a bit faster than basic models, but Apple has never clarified when this is the case, and hasn’t adopted USB PD PPS to boost speeds further.

The only reason the Pros have faster data speeds is to enable the transfer of ProRes video. Otherwise, Apple has done the bare minimum with USB-C to pass muster; it seems more focused on MagSafe as the future standard for its mobile products.

By now, these problems are well-documented, and I’m sure you’ve experienced some of these frustrations yourself. USB-C is over ten years old and has done little more than give us a reversible connector to use on all our gadgets. That’s a small success, but hardly the plug-and-play future we were promised.

Worse, the genie is out of the bottle. With everything from headphones, laptops, and VR headsets now mandated to use USB-C, the port is everywhere. But with that ubiquity comes a sprawling mess of standards and support that cannot be undone. There’s simply no way to rewind and set things on a simpler path, even if major players like Apple or Google suddenly wanted to.

That fragmentation doesn’t just frustrate, it undermines one of the fundamental USB-C promises: reducing e-waste. One of USB-C’s biggest selling points has been the reduction of clutter and superior reusability across devices. Instead, users are still hoarding multiple cables, chargers, and dongles to cover all possible bases. While the connector is universal in shape, it doesn’t always lead to fewer accessories in circulation. If, by some miracle, USB-C gets its act together eventually, what do we do with all of today’s accessories? Just bin them?

USB-C had a unique opportunity to tame the Wild West of data and power cables, unifying them into something simpler. While a fixed specification would have stifled innovation, tighter control with gradual, cohesive upgrades across sibling specifications every few years, preferably with mandatory support levels, would have prevented many of today’s issues.

Instead, USB-C has become a black box of 101 different capabilities, old and new. It might make a small dent in the e-waste problem, but it could have been so much more. What a spectacular failure.