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People already get the names wrong, so the USB group has doubled down on bad naming.
USB 3.0 was straightforward enough. A USB 3.0 connection ran at 5Gb/s, and slower connections were USB 2 or even USB 1.1. The new 5Gb/s data rate was branded "SuperSpeed USB," following USB 2's 480Mb/s "High Speed" and USB 1.1's 12Mb/s "Full Speed."
But then USB 3.1 came along and muddied the waters. Its big new feature was doubling the data rate to 10Gb/s. The logical thing would have been to identify existing 5Gb/s devices as "USB 3.0" and new 10Gb/s devices as "USB 3.1." But that's not what the USB-IF did. For reasons that remain hard to understand, the decision was made to retroactively rebrand USB 3.0: 5Gb/s 3.0 connections became "USB 3.1 Gen 1," with the 10Gb/s connections being "USB 3.1 Gen 2." The consumer branding is "SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps."
What this branding meant is that many manufacturers say that a device supports "USB 3.1" even if it's only a "USB 3.1 Gen 1" device running at 5Gb/s. Meanwhile, other manufacturers do the sensible thing: they use "USB 3.0" to denote 5Gb/s devices and reserve "USB 3.1" for 10Gb/s parts.
USB 3.2 doubles down on this confusion. 5Gb/s devices are now "USB 3.2 Gen 1." 10Gb/s devices become "USB 3.2 Gen 2." And 20Gb/s devices will be... "USB 3.2 Gen 2×2." Because they work by running two 10Gb/s connections along different pairs of wires simultaneously, and it's just obvious from arithmetic that you'd number the generations "1, 2, 2×2." Perhaps they're named for powers of two, starting with zero? The consumer branding is a more reasonable "SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:17PM (4 children)
I have a proposal.
In order to eliminate confusion and not cause any more damage to the USB branding, I propose that the next version be named USB 5G!
5G is the best! Just ask AT&T about its fictional 5G!
And this won't screw up the USB branding even more. Nope! Nosiree!
Everyone can tell it is better because it's named 5G!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @06:57PM (3 children)
But what about the backdoors, and the lack of lubrication?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 27 2019, @09:50PM (2 children)
You sir need to look more carefully at USB-C. It goes both ways!
The USB-C cable has two male ends. The devices (phone, laptop, desktop doc, wall wart charger, etc) all have female connectors.
Since both ends of the cable are male, you first of all don't have to worry about which end of the cable goes where.
There isn't this distinction between "host" and "device". You can plug two phones together. (Both phones have female connector, cable has two male connectors.)
Or you can plug two laptops together. Or plug a phone and laptop together. Or a phone and a charger. Furthermore, you CAN actually use a laptop charger with a phone, or a phone charger with a laptop. The devices negotiate with the charger how much juice they will get. If you use a phone charger on a laptop, you get a nice warning that it will not rapidly charge. Phone charger blocks are 15W and laptop charger blocks are 45W. I would think that all I really need are laptop charger blocks, but they are more expensive than a phone charger brick.
When you insert the male cable connector into the female device connector, you can insert it either way up. No more having to flip the cable over because you tried to insert it the wrong way.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @10:05PM (1 child)
Heh, you make it sound so simple, yet I tried it and it didn't work as described. I flipped it over and it didn't work. I swap the ends and it didn't work!
... I finally realized my female parts doesn't actually take the male parts... shame on you USB-C, you're supposed to be universal but you discriminate on the female parts..
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:17PM
Maybe next an aptly named USB D connector that only has male parts?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.