By Jim Calloway

Imagine you show up for a deposition or trial to find they have changed their display setup connection to something new, and you are not sure you have the correct connector. Or you are in a day-long pretrial prep “war room,” and you discover the phone charging cable that looked like the correct one when you packed before your flight isn’t correct.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) cables are ubiquitous, and we all use them. The USB-IF governing body, the official governing body that approves names, has been more interested in precision than consumer understanding. What other reason would there be for using USB 3.0, 3.1 or 3.2 all for connections that look the same? (The larger numbers mean faster data transfer.) You may have been blaming slow data transfer rates on your phone when it is really your out-of-date USB cable.

Two posts from Android Authority explain the differences between these confusing USB connectors and help you decide whether one of yours needs to be upgraded. I suggest you first read “Understanding different types of USB cables.” That post links to “USB 3.0 vs 3.1 vs 3.2: What’s the difference?” This is a question many of us have asked.