{"id":7043448,"date":"2026-08-22T00:50:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T00:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/apple-2\/whatcable-reports-on-usb-c-cable-power-and-speed\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T00:50:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T00:50:27","slug":"whatcable-reports-on-usb-c-cable-power-and-speed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7043448","title":{"rendered":"WhatCable Reports on USB-C Cable Power and Speed"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Most of us probably have a collection of random USB-C cables that have arrived over the years with various devices and peripherals or were purchased quickly as needed. Apart from the difference between smooth and braided cables and the colors\u2014most of mine are either white or black\u2014they\u2019re nearly impossible to tell apart. Someone who is more obsessive than I might have labeled them when they arrived, but I suspect most people just toss them in a drawer, box, or bag. I\u2019ll show you mine if you show me yours (yes, I still keep some things in 3.5-inch floppy boxes).<\/p>\n

\"Shelves<\/a><\/p>\n

But not all USB-C cables are created equal. Even beyond the difference between Thunderbolt and USB, USB-C cables can support a wide variety of power and bandwidth specs. For instance, Apple is notorious for shipping \u201ccharge-only\u201d cables that support data only at slow USB 2.0 speeds of 480 Mbps. And there\u2019s no way to know what the random cable that shipped alongside some device can do.<\/p>\n

Hardware testers exist\u2014some of my Apple Consultants Network friends carry this Treedix USB Cable Tester<\/a>\u2014but for most people, they\u2019re overkill. Instead, download the WhatCable<\/a> app, which gives you a vast amount of information about your cables for free. A paid WhatCable Pro<\/a> tier ($13.99\/\u00a39.99) lets you name cables and shows what each port, cable, and device combination can do and has negotiated.<\/p>\n

Using WhatCable is trivially easy\u2014you just launch the app and scroll through its reports on each cable\/device that\u2019s attached via USB-C. It shows you the port in use, the cable type in bold (Thunderbolt \/ USB4 in this case), a brief description of what the cable can do, and boxed summaries of the cable\u2019s capabilities for charging, throughput, and display quality. After that, it lists all the details it can discern about the cable and what it knows about the connected devices (an Apple Studio Display in this case). If you\u2019re a glutton for technical punishment (\u201cplease sir, more specs!\u201d), click the Show Technical Details switch at the bottom.<\/p>\n

\"WhatCable<\/a><\/p>\n

Those Apple \u201ccharge-only\u201d cables? They look a lot different in WhatCable, as you can see from this one connecting my iPhone 17 to my Mac. You really don\u2019t want to use one of these cables to connect an external SSD.<\/p>\n

\"WhatCable<\/a><\/p>\n

In this case, it doesn\u2019t matter what cable I use because the iPhone 17 itself is limited to 480 Mbps. That became obvious when I switched to my go-to OWC Thunderbolt 4 cable. Even though WhatCable correctly identifies it as a Thunderbolt cable capable of 40 Gbps, the app notes that only USB 2.0 is active because of the iPhone 17\u2019s limitations.<\/p>\n

\"WhatCable<\/a><\/p>\n

It was also illustrative to plug in an Anker USB-C hub with several USB-A ports and then attach an old OWC hard drive that turned out to be limited to USB 2.0\u2019s 480 Mbps and a SanDisk flash drive that supported USB 3.0\u2019s 5 Gbps. I wouldn\u2019t have guessed the hard drive was that slow just from looking at it.<\/p>\n

\"WhatCable<\/a><\/p>\n

I could keep working my way through the rat\u2019s nest of USB-C cables in that bag, but you get the idea. WhatCable also includes macOS widgets so you can see what\u2019s connected at a glance and can trigger notifications when cables connect or disconnect. You can choose between a normal windowed app or a menu bar popover, and Terminal wonks can even run it at the command line<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As long as you\u2019re running a Mac with Apple silicon running macOS 14 Sonoma or later (Intel-based Macs are out of luck), I encourage you to download WhatCable 1.4 today and take a spin through its documentation<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0more details. If you regularly work with many USB-C cables, consider WhatCable Pro for its additional identification and diagnostic capabilities.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of us probably have a collection of random USB-C cables that have arrived over the years with various devices and peripherals or were purchased quickly as needed. Apart from the difference between smooth and braided cables and the colors\u2014most of mine are either white or black\u2014they\u2019re nearly impossible to tell apart. Someone who is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7043449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11768],"tags":[2612,1783,14974,2197,12663,34998,19606,179561],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7043448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-2","tag-cable","tag-power","tag-reports","tag-speed","tag-thunderbolt","tag-usb-c","tag-usbc","tag-whatcable"],"yoast_head":"\nWhatCable Reports on USB-C Cable Power and Speed - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7043448\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WhatCable Reports on USB-C Cable Power and Speed - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most of us probably have a collection of random USB-C cables that have arrived over the years with various devices and peripherals or were purchased quickly as needed. 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