I find apple's treatment of monitors kind of weird.
PC graphics cards just have a plentiful supply of video outputs, say a mix of HDMI and DP.
But apple has always used dongles, many of which are basically small computers that can basically convert one video signal to another on-the-fly.
(I don't know if USB-C to DP is an electrical conversion or has logic)
But the complexity involved is probably a steaming heap of corner cases for the driver. And apple has probably tested and prioritized bugs for their hardware, but 3rd party monitors are probably hit or miss.
USB-C to DP is an electrical conversion. The monitor has to negotiate an alternate mode with the USB controller (then the high-speed data pairs in the USB-C cable are used for Displayport signalling and not USB).
(There are such things as USB monitors which actually take pixel data over the USB protocol, but I don't think they ever caught on.)
> There are such things as USB monitors which actually take pixel data over the USB protocol
DisplayLink. It caught on for a while at least, especially in the case of some dock products that would output to a more conventional display interface but were USB DisplayLink adapters themselves. You’ll see tons of forum and Reddit posts about suboptimal CPU load and performance related to it.
The current laptops have a HDMI port. DP over USB-C doesn't require active conversion. I think you're slightly jumping at shadows here.
(Apple's _really_ problematic video dongle was the thankfully largely dead lightning to HDMI one, for phones; this was essentially an external USB video card.)
Active or not, it’s still a dongle (but a dongle or a cable for an external monitor is less of a rage concern and they have added back HDMI as mentioned). However, seriously give me just one fucking USB-A port on a “pro” device. There’s enough people in that segment that use flash sticks and need to interface to all kinds of various hardware (MIDI controllers, pro audio equipment (not every use is a rack)), all kinds of random special purpose hardware, etc. It’s a pro device it should cater to a wider range.
#/media/File:Apple_Macbook_Pro_14%22_2021_-_Ports_on_the_left_side.png){kind=link}
PC graphics cards just have a plentiful supply of video outputs, say a mix of HDMI and DP.
But apple has always used dongles, many of which are basically small computers that can basically convert one video signal to another on-the-fly.
(I don't know if USB-C to DP is an electrical conversion or has logic)
But the complexity involved is probably a steaming heap of corner cases for the driver. And apple has probably tested and prioritized bugs for their hardware, but 3rd party monitors are probably hit or miss.