USB-C ports aren't allowed to provide power until after configuration, but a lot of USB-C chargers provide 5V regardless. This is wrong, but it does mean you can use a dumb C-to-micro cable which doesn't include the necessary electronics. (A pull-down resistor at least.)
And of course there's no way to tell by the looks of the cable.
The guy in the shop plugged it in to a USB-A port via a cheap A-to-C cable, and the mouse immediately came to life. Of course. I felt like an idiot.
I didn't get a faulty unit. Whoever designed the mouse was treating the USB-C plug like a newer micro-usb port. The mouse just expected 5V over the port. They clearly didn't bother testing it with a proper USB-C charger.
I returned it anyway and got a mouse that wasn't broken.
Absolutely baffling, but it only happened to me for brands where I should've figured.
As a hardware engineer among other things, that was one of the first things I learned about interfacing with USB C. How do so many consumer devices keep getting this wrong in the year of our lord 2026?
I understand the technical reasons behind it, but in this case - the actual expectation is to be able to use usb-c to charge other gadgets.
Neither side is wrong per se, though it's quite annoying that Apple didn't implement PPS. Then again, if you're buying Apple, you should probably expect these kinds of shenannigans and be ready to need to buy dedicated peripherals.
At work, our quick test for if a device implements USB PD correctly is to plug it into an Apple power supply (optionally with a PD protocol sniffer in line). If it doesn't work (either no/intermittent VBUS or the wrong VBUS), it's always been the case that the device is doing something wrong.
It can be annoying but strictly speaking their fault.
Apple, somewhat famously, build their power adapters incredibly well.
If they’re not charging something my default assumption will be: that thing doesn’t support PD.
I've been much happier since switching to Anker chargers, works much better with my Lenovo and drastically more portable than the Apple ones. It's better able to fit certain situations where the Apple brick won't fit into sockets that are close to the ground / desk, at least not without a bulky extension cable.
A bit of snark, but don't forget the Apple charger recall:
https://support.apple.com/ac-wallplug-adapter
(That said, I do think Apple's chargers were designed far better than most, and I loved that they put so much design thought into the world travel kit. Anker doesn't have the interchangeable heads, but it turns out their chargers are multi-region and a simple adapter head does the job just as well, in a smaller form factor than the Apple bricks. I still somewhat miss Magsafe as well, Magsafe 1 was excellent.)