v1.3.0-beta.2 is up

[darrylmorley]

@jimmyorz @aguilaair @cannotcollide @Caruso8677 @Mostxlnt @aldobalducci @themadturk7

Second beta of the 1.3.0 line is ready. Thanks in advance for taking a look.

Download: https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable/releases/tag/v1.3.0-beta.2 (grab WhatCable.zip). Your normal Pro key works, nothing changes about licensing.

What's new since beta.1

This build is mostly about cable certification detection:

• More certified cables now show the "USB-IF certified" line. A batch of genuinely certified cables (Anker, Belkin, Plugable, ZAGG and others) were silently missing it because the build never asked the registry about them. Fixed.
• "Certified but unlisted" is now its own case. A cable that advertises a certification ID that USB-IF doesn't publish used to look identical to a cable with no ID at all. There's now a neutral line for it: "Carries a USB-IF certification ID (0x...) that isn't in the public registry". It's a fact about the ID, not a verdict on the cable. Apple's own cables land here.
• Raw certification ID (XID) is now in the --json output.
• Some internal tidy-up with no user-facing change.

What to look at

• If you have a certified cable that wasn't showing the "USB-IF certified" line before, check that it does now.
• If a cable shows the new "isn't in the public registry" line, that's expected, not a fault. Just confirm it reads sensibly.
• Everything from the beta.1 checklist still applies: the certified-cable line, desktop front-port attribution, and the charging lines.

Anything that looks off, reply here and I'll spin it into its own beta-labelled issue so the fix stays findable. Even a plain "looks fine on my [Mac]" is genuinely useful, it tells me the build is healthy on hardware I don't have.

Thanks all.

[jimmyorz]

Looks fine on my mac mini M4😉

[darrylmorley]

Thanks @jimmyorz!

[themadturk7]

Looks fine on my MBA M3. Interestingly, though, when I have my Apple 35W plugged into the Mac with the Apple MagSafe power cable, it reports 35W (which I expect), but when I plug a USB cable into the machine from the same charger, it only reports 34W (20V @1.70A, instead of 20V @1.74A). This isn’t a big deal, as I actually never charge with a USB cable. The result is probably due to the cable itself, which has been around the block a few times, and I never tried this with the release version of WhatCable. Report with USB cable:  Report with Apple MagSafe cable: 

…

On Jul 25, 2026, at 7:05 AM, Darryl Morley ***@***.***> wrote: Thanks @jimmyorz <https://github.com/jimmyorz>! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#478?email_source=notifications&email_token=BVZARAFJ6Z3JQVFHI6YAGJD5GS5BJA5CNFSNUABIM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2ENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQXTCNZXG44TOMJYUZZGKYLTN5XKO3LFNZ2GS33OUVSXMZLOOSWGM33PORSXEX3DNRUWG2Y#discussioncomment-17779718>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BVZARAFWCQ6NDNBJDNWPRTD5GS5BJAVCNFSNUABJKJSXA33TNF2G64TZHMYTEMRWGI4DMOJRGA5UI2LTMN2XG43JN5XDWMJQGQ4TIOJTGGQXMAQ>. Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://github.com/notifications/mobile/ios/BVZARAD2GEIIQLWDJ4CEP535GS5BJA5CNFSNUABIM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2ENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQXTCNZXG44TOMJYUZZGKYLTN5XKO3LFNZ2GS33OUVSXMZLOOSVGM33PORSXEX3JN5ZQ> and Android <https://github.com/notifications/mobile/android/BVZARACKKNYL2FWKSW2TZ3L5GS5BJA5CNFSNUABIM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2ENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQXTCNZXG44TOMJYUZZGKYLTN5XKO3LFNZ2GS33OUVSXMZLOOSXGM33PORSXEX3BNZSHE33JMQ>. Download it today! You are receiving this because you were mentioned.

[darrylmorley]

Hi, thanks for testing.

That difference is real and it isn't the cable. Over USB-C, WhatCable shows the power contract the Mac and charger actually negotiated: 20V at 1.70A, so 34W. Over MagSafe there's no such contract to report, so the number comes from what the adapter says it is: 35W.

So one is measured, the other is a label. Apple's 35W adapters commonly offer a 1.7A PDO over USB-C, which lands at 34W. Not a fault, just two different sources of truth sitting next to each other.

[aguilaair]

Okay so I have my iPad Pro connected and when I unplug and replug the dropped counter increases, but it specifically says i was not touching the cable. that is incorrect given that i was the one manually unplugging.

tat's the only new thing that i saw that might be wrong

p.s. one would expect a cable from apple to be in the registry, which is weird

[darrylmorley]

Fixed in beta.3, which is up now.

You were right that it asserted something it couldn't know. The banner reads "Repeated connection events" and the detail says "Anything being unplugged or moved counts, and so does a damaged plug, debris in the port, or a marginal cable." It makes no claim about what you were or weren't doing, because it genuinely can't tell.

It also waits for four events now rather than two. A port logs roughly two per connection, so one ordinary unplug and replug was tripping it on its own, which is exactly what you did.

On the Apple cable: the issue isn't that it's missing from the registry, it's that Apple cables mostly don't claim a certification ID at all. Seven of the eight Apple Thunderbolt cables in my corpus report none, and the USB-IF data WhatCable ships has 1103 IDs with no Apple listing among them. Nothing to look up, so the app stays quiet. Longer version in my reply to @cannotcollide in this thread.

Thanks for the report, and sorry it took a while to come back to you.

[cannotcollide]

I'm connected to my setup via an Apple Active 3m Thunderbolt 4 Pro Cable, but I'm not getting the 'Carries a USB-IF certification ID that isn't in the public registry' bullet point.

On the other hand, the cable I tested on the first beta, the CableMatters TBT5 one, now gives that bullet point, so that's good!

[darrylmorley]

Not a bug, and your cable told me something useful.

That line only appears when a cable actually claims a certification ID. Yours claims none, so there's nothing to look up and the app stays quiet. Normal for Apple: of the eight Apple Thunderbolt cables in my probe corpus, seven report no ID at all, and the bundled USB-IF data has 1103 certification IDs with not one Apple listing among them. So "no ID" and "an ID nobody published" are genuinely different states, and only the second gets a bullet. Not obvious when you're looking at a cable that's clearly legitimate, I'll grant you.

The useful part is what the app called it. Your cable is Apple PID 0x7203, which sat in the database under "Apple Thunderbolt cable variant, seen with CalDigit devices (test-kit corpus)". That was a note to myself about where I'd first seen the fingerprint, not a claim about who made it, and it had no business being shown as the cable's name. You're the first person to actually identify it.

It now reads "Apple Thunderbolt 4 Pro Cable (3 m)", and the build refuses that kind of text in the name column from here on. Both ship in the next release. Thanks for the report.

[aldobalducci]

Hi
im not seeing usb-if certification for either the official usb-c to MagSafe cable or the apple thunderbolt 4 cable, am I missing something?

it would also be a great feature if I could resize the window so I can see more data in the one screen without scrolling.
thanks!!!

[darrylmorley]

Hi, both answers below.

Certification. Not a bug. That line only shows when a cable actually claims a certification ID, and Apple's mostly don't claim one. Of the eight Apple Thunderbolt cables in my probe corpus, seven report no ID at all, and the USB-IF data WhatCable ships has 1103 certification IDs with no Apple listing among them. Nothing to look up, so the app stays quiet. Longer version in my reply to @cannotcollide just above.

Window size. There is a resizable window already, it just isn't the popover. Open Settings and turn off "Show in menu bar", and WhatCable runs as a normal Dock app in a proper window you can drag as large as you like. Same content, no scrolling.

The popover itself is a fixed width by design, which is the bit you're actually running into. Noted, and worth thinking about.