Ahahah Phil Schiller says what a corporate man says. I think Apple is loosing its tempo and the computer business it's getting less important to them as for 4 years now. There is no improovment in performances and the costant denial of a real GPU in the pro machine is an unbearable statment, i bought one of the few 15 inch pro with an nvidia gpu and now i think i was lucky. I won't upgrade to mac as for now and maybe in the future: fancy machines are ok but still with this price point they have to scream in performance. There are beautiful reviews in you tube and they all agree, something is wrong with apple strategy. They don't get that, when you loose the pro you start to loose the market, apple is begginning its decline from now. This kind of innovations are not so intresting, this strip oled touch bar is such a stupid tool compared to others already existing. We will see a rise of the hackintosh market which is pretty intresting by now. All other competitors does a better job, apple is forcing us to change. How can you build a machine that costs 3.000 dollars and not be able to put the best in it. (Kaby lake. Nvidia. 64gb ram the camera and peripherals) no way.
Ahahah Phil Schiller says what a corporate man says. I think Apple is loosing its tempo and the computer business it's getting less important to them as for 4 years now. There is no improovment in performances and the costant denial of a real GPU in the pro machine is an unbearable statment, i bought one of the few 15 inch pro with an nvidia gpu and now i think i was lucky. I won't upgrade to mac as for now and maybe in the future: fancy machines are ok but still with this price point they have to scream in performance. There are beautiful reviews in you tube and they all agree, something is wrong with apple strategy. They don't get th
Okay, thanks, byeeeee!!! *waves from the train platform*
Schiller's arguements for keeping IOS and Mac-OS separate are weak: "There's iPhone and iPad which are single pieces of glass, they're direct-manipulation, multi-touch and tend towards full-screen applications," "notebooks and that's about indirect manipulation and cursors and menus"
Everyone of those examples are objections, minor objections that are relatively easy to overcome. And, they will be -- in time.
Schiller bases his argument on notebooks not being a good platform for touch screen -- and he is right. However, screen touch is merely another way of interacting which can also be done through a large trackpad (such as is on today's MacBook Pros) or with a mouse (although the mouse cannot enable multi-touch.
Sorry Phil, it's a matter of time before you are proven wrong.
Conversely, Apple has financial reasons for keeping watches, phones, tablets, notebooks and desktops separate. Combining any of those lines will cut product lines and revenue. But, in time, the only thing that will separate those products will be screen size. That is something that not even Steve Jobs could out innovate. The rest will slowly be become combined, merged products regardless of what Phil wants or believes.
Added: For clarification: I am not talking about merging physical software or hardware so much as I am merging that functionality. The details may change, but the functionality of those platforms will, eventually be merged. Apple's inclusion of the touch bar is a good example -- but it is only a start. A chink in the armor.
The next couple of years are going to be interesting for Apple. Their drive for thin products is getting ridiculous.
The Touchbar strikes me as something like the S7 Edge. Not convinced it is a groundbreaking new UI that I would use, unless I decide to like Emojis..... Your mileage may vary.
Not to mention a user couldn't connect their 1 month old iPhone 7 (+) to this laptop without a dongle. Not to mention SD cards, USBs, HDMIs....... I totally understood DVI, VGA, Cd drive, and MAYBE Ethernet but no HDMI? Every projector I have seen in the last 4 years uses HDMI; you know, what "professionals" do with laptops. The included port is why I bought the mid-2012 retina.
Apple needs to get their interface connections in order. It is sloppier than I have ever seen it with poor consistency. If they are going to cold turkey USB-C on their products, the iPhone 7S/8 better go that way as well.
Of course, Apple apologist will find some reason that Apple is prefect.
Yup, the usual:
I can't see a use for the Touchbar, so it must be useless. It can't connect to a one month old iPhone because none of Apple's customers would ever think of just connecting it wirelessly (if they ever need to connect an iPhone at all). Apple's customers will need every single dongle every created because WIRELESS DOES NOT EXIST! It doesn't have every single socket dating back to the candle holder on Babbage's Difference Engine, so surely no one will buy it. Remember WIRELESS IS SOMETHING YOU IMAGINE DUE TO YOUR DRUG HABIT. IT DOES NOT EXIST! The only reason this thing will sell like hot cakes is because apologists think Apple is perfect.
Nice job; I think you covered everything.
"Of course, Apple apologists* will find some reason that Apple is prefect" - That one is for you.
Not sure how one calls USB 3.0, HDMI outdated......... Everything in my house, including my iPhone cables use it. Sure, lets phase it out but why not include one port for 3-5 more years? Then USB-C might be more mainstream. Nor did I say it needed every port ever. But again, I should expect logic from the "Apple can do no wrong crowd." Wireless is still a subprime experience. Air Play is a joke compared to HDMI in my experience.
I have two dongles for my mid-2012 Pro, I would need 5 or so for this new one.
OR you buy ONE dongle which does SD card, USB 3, LAN and HDMI. Then you only have one dongle.
So you think that having to buy and carry around a $300 brick sized dongle to restore functionality that the previous gen model had is ok? What is the point of making the laptop so thin if you need to carry around such a dongle to make the laptop usable? Furthermore, these are the most expensive laptops Apple has released in a long time. The added cost of dongles is an extra burden. These are *not* pro machines. Pros need things like hdmi for presentations, optical audio for music, SD card readers for photography and competitive graphics with CUDA support for scientific applications. These are at best prosumer machines and represent a continuation of the trend away from pro markets at Apple. I can understand removing ports if better alternatives are available and it makes the experience better but this just crippling the machine for the sake of some designers preference. The number of different port formats Apple has used for video makes me seriously contemplate that the dongle business is very important to Apple. As an Apple user and supporter through the darkest days and continuing to this day, I'm disappointed.
you completely failed at reasoning. using a $300 dock is not required to restore any functionality. i've never used any of the shit you're talking about for my work -- hdmi, optical audio (wtf?), or SD, which is a consumer format and not even compact flash which is what all my pro cameras use.
not everybody needs all your legacy shit all the time. i'd bet most people don't need them most of the time. many people don't need them any of the time. thus it makes the most reason for those needing the legacy use cases to use adapters when needed.
it ain't rocket science.
By definition, every buyer of these MBPs will be hit by dongle dependency to some degree. Most of the time. All of the time. It doesn't matter. Was it necessary to eliminate all these ports in ONE go. Nope. That's why many people have these gripes. You may be the exception to the rule. Either way, it wasn't necessary but as someone at Apple is obsessed with thinness, this was the result and Apple lost the sale to me as a result. I voted no with my wallet.
I thought the dongle in the box would do it; it won't.
Why not?
Not really sure why pulled a dislike for asking a question, but anyway…
The dongle supplied with the iPhone isn't so you can plug your lightning headset into a 3.5mm jack; it's so other headphones can plug into your iPhone, so it plugs into a lightning socket, which these new laptops don't have.
So far I haven't found a dongle that takes a lighting cable and allow you to plug it into a 3.5mm jack.
1) With their new system which is now anonymous Disliking of a post, those who put emotion before critical thinking will hit Dislike on anyone that has ever disagreed with them.
2) You're right. I absolutely inverted the connections on the adapter. Probably because it was late and I never use Apple's headphones. I did a very quick search but saw nothing that would interface properly with Apple's Lightning headphones to a 3.5mm adapter. I have to think it exists or will exists, but I came up empty. Good eye.
That said, one might argue that if you're using Apple's include iPhone headphones with a new MBP you have bigger issues to deal with.
OR you buy ONE dongle which does SD card, USB 3, LAN and HDMI. Then you only have one dongle.
So you think that having to buy and carry around a $300 brick sized dongle to restore functionality that the previous gen model had is ok?
1) The previous model didn't have Ethernet/LAN. That left 4 years ago.
2) Why would you pay $300 for something you don't need, especially when there are all sort of varieties ranging as low as $5.
3) If you're still using VGA, Ethernet, DVI, an SD card, and other archaic ports that the rest of the world has been moving away from then you need to ask yourself why the fuck are you looking at a modern MacBook Pro in the first place? The answer is simple: you're not. You're just here bitch and moan.
Didn't have Ethernet, needed a dongle! Exactly what people are complaining about now because it was a pain then and the donglefest now is even worse.
Wow, as low as 5 dollars! With Apple's, ehem, premium quality, or just some Chinese rubbish?
SD and Ethernet are archaic? Have you paid us a visit from the future because SD and Ethernet are very much alive and kicking today.
Being alive and kicking doesn't mean they aren't archaic or obsolescing. Have you ever heard of Redbox? That's just one of many ways that DVDs are still alive but I'm glad that Apple removed the ODD from their machines many years ago.Here's an x-ray of a MBP that had one of the slimmest slot-loading ODDs ever made.
Personally, I think Apple removed it a couple years later than I had wished but I'm glad it's finally gone because it took up an excessive amount of room while being used so infrequently, it affected the performance, thermals, ports, battery size, weight, volume, and other aspects in the design, and it was a component that was noisy, power hungry, and prone to break.
Was it a short-term inconvenience for some people, sure, but only those that had no concept of the future or saw how these changes were going to make their machines better as a result were upset by it. I can bet you were one of these people that whined about the ODD—maybe you still you, because Redbox exists—but it's gone our computers are better for it. You had to get over that loss so I'm sure you'll get over needing a dongle for connecting one of the new Macs to some archaic projector with a VGA port using an adapter.
Schiller's arguements for keeping IOS and Mac-OS separate are weak: "There's iPhone and iPad which are single pieces of glass, they're direct-manipulation, multi-touch and tend towards full-screen applications," "notebooks and that's about indirect manipulation and cursors and menus"
Everyone of those examples are objections, minor objections that are relatively easy to overcome. And, they will be -- in time.
Schiller bases his argument on notebooks not being a good platform for touch screen -- and he is right. However, screen touch is merely another way of interacting which can also be done through a large trackpad (such as is on today's MacBook Pros) or with a mouse (although the mouse cannot enable multi-touch.
Sorry Phil, it's a matter of time before you are proven wrong.
Conversely, Apple has financial reasons for keeping watches, phones, tablets, notebooks and desktops separate. Combining any of those lines will cut product lines and revenue. But, in time, the only thing that will separate those products will be screen size. That is something that not even Steve Jobs could out innovate. The rest will slowly be become combined, merged products regardless of what Phil wants or believes.
Added: For clarification: I am not talking about merging physical software or hardware so much as I am merging that functionality. The details may change, but the functionality of those platforms will, eventually be merged. Apple's inclusion of the touch bar is a good example -- but it is only a start. A chink in the armor.
Actually, I made a post (post #126) regarding this as a food for thought. Check it out.
Just a question: does anyone here feel that Schiller has his finger on the pulse of the computer/tech world?
For my part, the answer is no. Microsoft is everywhere with commercials that say "You can't do that on a Mac" and "My Mac doesn't do that". Apple's response (direct or indirect) is nowhere to be found. Is this because Schiller can't think of a response, or because the products that might counter such ads or create their own buzz don't exist? I think the Touch Bar is a significant advance in user interface, and I don't know if the Surface is going to be crap or the Next Big Thing, but right now it's all anyone is talking about. Why would you cede this battlefield to a deep pocket competitor?
Based on the Apple executive interviews everyone is commenting on, the recent Apple approach of "we just took years and years polishing and polishing this pebble until it glowed" is Band on the Titanic Redux. And bad things tend to happen when you bring marketing and advertising all in house. Maybe we can get another Bokeh photo feature ad for iPhone (ask around yourself...most people seeing those ads have no idea what the ad was about), or another "shot on iPhone" ad. I know the "shooting in the rain at night on a skateboard" ad was, uh, riveting.
I qualify as one of the oldest Apple fanboys (1985 and a crap ton of Macs ever since), but this boat needs a new crew. Maybe the Admiral can stay on board, maybe not.
I'm not sure why people who claimed this always end up looking the most stupid around but they do. I mean, Apple respond to Microsoft? WTH? They did that when Microsoft is king, not now.
Also glad that this user is showing his head is firmly in his ass with comment about "Bokeh" (Portrait) shot on iPhone, while everyone else out there is loving it. Even my ex-girlfried who only use Galaxy phone is thinking about buying iPhone (the price is only one thing that hold her back). Oh and yes, "Shot on iPhone" campaign is such a failure, isn't it? When we have an idiot like this, no wonder legitimate concerns get washed up in a trolling sea.
Get back to me when you have some experience selling products and have matured past name-calling (pick one). If you bothered to read on, I said you have to maintain a presence in the market, which Apple has seemed reluctant to do in spite of lagging sales across their Mac and Macbook lines. When MS was promoting the hell out of Surface this summer for back-to-school, where was Apple--nowhere, in a market they used to own by a massive margin. As far as "Apple respond to Microsoft" this isn't 2006 and although MS still has no taste but they have a ton of money and are serious about taking Apple on. The Shot on iPhone was wonderful, award-winning even...about two years ago. As far as bokeh, I would challenge you to show how "everyone else..is loving it", much less is aware of it. Did you hear the oohs and aahs at the iphone keynote when Phil introduced it? Me neither. It's a cute little effect, not much of a reason to buy a phone.
OR you buy ONE dongle which does SD card, USB 3, LAN and HDMI. Then you only have one dongle.
So you think that having to buy and carry around a $300 brick sized dongle to restore functionality that the previous gen model had is ok?
1) The previous model didn't have Ethernet/LAN. That left 4 years ago.
2) Why would you pay $300 for something you don't need, especially when there are all sort of varieties ranging as low as $5.
3) If you're still using VGA, Ethernet, DVI, an SD card, and other archaic ports that the rest of the world has been moving away from then you need to ask yourself why the fuck are you looking at a modern MacBook Pro in the first place? The answer is simple: you're not. You're just here bitch and moan.
Didn't have Ethernet, needed a dongle! Exactly what people are complaining about now because it was a pain then and the donglefest now is even worse.
Wow, as low as 5 dollars! With Apple's, ehem, premium quality, or just some Chinese rubbish?
SD and Ethernet are archaic? Have you paid us a visit from the future because SD and Ethernet are very much alive and kicking today.
Being alive and kicking doesn't mean they aren't archaic or obsolescing. Have you ever heard of Redbox? That's just one of many ways that DVDs are still alive but I'm glad that Apple removed the ODD from their machines many years ago.Here's an x-ray of a MBP that had one of the slimmest slot-loading ODDs ever made.
Personally, I think Apple removed it a couple years later than I had wished but I'm glad it's finally gone because it took up an excessive amount of room while being used so infrequently, it affected the performance, thermals, ports, battery size, weight, volume, and other aspects in the design, and it was a component that was noisy, power hungry, and prone to break.
Was it a short-term inconvenience for some people, sure, but only those that had no concept of the future or saw how these changes were going to make their machines better as a result were upset by it. I can bet you were one of these people that whined about the ODD—maybe you still you, because Redbox exists—but it's gone our computers are better for it. You had to get over that loss so I'm sure you'll get over needing a dongle for connecting one of the new Macs to some archaic projector with a VGA port using an adapter.
We are talking about connection technology. Ports! DVD is a content technology. In this case, discs. You are barking up the wrong tree. When you have ripped your content to disk (be it local or remote) the medium is irrelevant and as such the onboard hardware player isn't missed. No dongle needed either.
Giving DVD removal on MacBooks as a counter argument to someone speaking about port removal is an error.
"Being alive and kicking doesn't mean they aren't archaic or obsolescing."
In fact being alive and kicking DOES mean it is NOT archaic. By definition. Ethernet is not going away anytime soon. HDMI will be present for years to come.
You add 'obsolescing' to your teminology. Interesting.
We are talking about connection technology. Ports! DVD is a content technology. In this case, discs. You are barking up the wrong tree. When you have ripped your content to disk (be it local or remote) the medium is irrelevant and as such the onboard hardware player isn't missed. No dongle needed either.
Giving DVD removal on MacBooks as a counter argument to someone speaking about port removal is an error.
But you bitched and complained about Apple removing the ODD. You said Apple was doomed because there were still so many CDs and DVDs in circulation. And, today, you said that a connection (which refers to an input, not specifically a port interface) shouldn't be removed if there are still some people using it, so I pointed out that people are still using DVDs.
Schiller's arguements for keeping IOS and Mac-OS separate are weak: "There's iPhone and iPad which are single pieces of glass, they're direct-manipulation, multi-touch and tend towards full-screen applications," "notebooks and that's about indirect manipulation and cursors and menus"
Everyone of those examples are objections, minor objections that are relatively easy to overcome. And, they will be -- in time.
Schiller bases his argument on notebooks not being a good platform for touch screen -- and he is right. However, screen touch is merely another way of interacting which can also be done through a large trackpad (such as is on today's MacBook Pros) or with a mouse (although the mouse cannot enable multi-touch.
Sorry Phil, it's a matter of time before you are proven wrong.
Conversely, Apple has financial reasons for keeping watches, phones, tablets, notebooks and desktops separate. Combining any of those lines will cut product lines and revenue. But, in time, the only thing that will separate those products will be screen size. That is something that not even Steve Jobs could out innovate. The rest will slowly be become combined, merged products regardless of what Phil wants or believes.
Added: For clarification: I am not talking about merging physical software or hardware so much as I am merging that functionality. The details may change, but the functionality of those platforms will, eventually be merged. Apple's inclusion of the touch bar is a good example -- but it is only a start. A chink in the armor.
Actually, I made a post (post #126) regarding this as a food for thought. Check it out.
You said, and I agree: "I certainly wouldn't want to see a Mac with a touchscreen bolted on"
But, as Apple just pointed out with their TouchBar, that is not the only way to merge the functionality of these UI's...
I think another way is to expand the functionality of the trackpad to make it provide the functionality of a touchscreen. And/Or, in someway to attach the bottom half of the MBP to an IPad pro. Call the OS anything you want.
Jobs knew that the secret was not in the hardware or the software. It's in the functionality. It doesn't matter how you get there. But right now Laptop users and IPad users are standing on opposite sides of a river looking at each other. If Apple doesn't build a bridge, somebody else will build a ferry -- or maybe a hot air balloon or maybe a large drone to get people to the other side...
This summer I was using Khan Academy to tutor a 9 year old on his mom's laptop. He just couldn't understand why he had to use that "stupid mouse". Apple will either meet his needs. Or it won't.
Schiller appears to be standing on ideology rather than technology. Ideology is not a good thing to stand on in the tech field.
We are talking about connection technology. Ports! DVD is a content technology. In this case, discs. You are barking up the wrong tree. When you have ripped your content to disk (be it local or remote) the medium is irrelevant and as such the onboard hardware player isn't missed. No dongle needed either.
Giving DVD removal on MacBooks as a counter argument to someone speaking about port removal is an error.
But you bitched and complained about Apple removing the ODD. You said Apple was doomed because there were still so many CDs and DVDs in circulation. And, today, you said that a connection (which refers to an input, not specifically a port interface) shouldn't be removed if there are still some people using it, so I pointed out that people are still using DVDs.
With technology and technology change there are several key points and one of them is timing. The switch to a new technology isn't necessarily a bad thing. Often it represents wholesale improvement. However, the switch must be timed correctly and transitioned smoothly. This is not one of Apple's stronger points. As I have said incessantly here over the last few days. Apple's wholesale switch to USB-C was unnecessary. It is a decision Apple took knowing ALL the risks involved. One of them was the flak it would receive for requiring users to get dongles. They must now accept what they are receiving (including lost sales).
The removal of the ODD was logical on a laptop for many reasons. If you remember any of my posts on the subject and have doubts. Give me a link to them and I will put them into the correct context for you.
However, the issue was that you called ethernet and SD archaic. I disagree with that completely. It's only an opinion but i supported it with pertinent information. Every router I see from ISPs etc still has ethernet. I see SD in many areas too.
Still, they should have asked Phil how folk are supposed to connect their lightning headphones to this laptop. I thought the dongle in the box would do it; it won't. So what's the trick, Phil?
This issue, although not a deal breaker on paper, really sums up what has gone wrong at Apple. They go into extreme detail to explain some processes and how they matter and make our lives better. Everything just works, etc We make the hardware. We make the software. It's all in the details etc.
Then they bring two products to market in a short space of time that not only present an irritating connectivity issue but nothing was done to remedy it in the box. Somebody really should have detected this early in the development phase and provided a solution. What is worse, is that I find it hard to believe that someone in higher management wasn't aware of this and that would imply that they just didn't bother offering a fix.
The result now is to add insult to injury. Widespread disappointment/criticism of numerous aspects of the MBP AND the impossibility to connect it to one of their newest products without some extra hardware.
When you start adding up the little things (no power brick extension cord without ponying up 19 dollars etc) they take on a different dimension and people get even angrier about them.
Wow, as low as 5 dollars! With Apple's, ehem, premium quality, or just some Chinese rubbish?
Chinese rubbish? You mean like the iPhone 7? The fact that it's sourced from China doesn't mean much anymore quality wise. The $65 USB-C hub seems well built. I prefer Anker to HooToo simply because I've been happy with Anker products and especially their customer support and I haven't bought anything from HooToo yet.
I'm not 100% sure I get where you're coming from but it was half a joke. I have some great stuff from China but also some horrible stuff. The issue was that someone claimed a solution to something could be found for as little as $5 (no actual product ref or anything included with the affirmation). The idea of resolving a problem - that didn't even need to exist - on a premium Mac by using a $5 Chinese dongle (which would probably be far from premium on every level) was somewhat funny. Most of the $5 Chinese adaptors I've seen have been of very poor quality.
The next couple of years are going to be interesting for Apple. Their drive for thin products is getting ridiculous.
The Touchbar strikes me as something like the S7 Edge. Not convinced it is a groundbreaking new UI that I would use, unless I decide to like Emojis..... Your mileage may vary.
Not to mention a user couldn't connect their 1 month old iPhone 7 (+) to this laptop without a dongle. Not to mention SD cards, USBs, HDMIs....... I totally understood DVI, VGA, Cd drive, and MAYBE Ethernet but no HDMI? Every projector I have seen in the last 4 years uses HDMI; you know, what "professionals" do with laptops. The included port is why I bought the mid-2012 retina.
Apple needs to get their interface connections in order. It is sloppier than I have ever seen it with poor consistency. If they are going to cold turkey USB-C on their products, the iPhone 7S/8 better go that way as well.
Of course, Apple apologist will find some reason that Apple is prefect.
Yup, the usual:
I can't see a use for the Touchbar, so it must be useless. It can't connect to a one month old iPhone because none of Apple's customers would ever think of just connecting it wirelessly (if they ever need to connect an iPhone at all). Apple's customers will need every single dongle every created because WIRELESS DOES NOT EXIST! It doesn't have every single socket dating back to the candle holder on Babbage's Difference Engine, so surely no one will buy it. Remember WIRELESS IS SOMETHING YOU IMAGINE DUE TO YOUR DRUG HABIT. IT DOES NOT EXIST! The only reason this thing will sell like hot cakes is because apologists think Apple is perfect.
Nice job; I think you covered everything.
"Of course, Apple apologists* will find some reason that Apple is prefect" - That one is for you.
Not sure how one calls USB 3.0, HDMI outdated......... Everything in my house, including my iPhone cables use it. Sure, lets phase it out but why not include one port for 3-5 more years? Then USB-C might be more mainstream. Nor did I say it needed every port ever. But again, I should expect logic from the "Apple can do no wrong crowd." Wireless is still a subprime experience. Air Play is a joke compared to HDMI in my experience.
I have two dongles for my mid-2012 Pro, I would need 5 or so for this new one.
OR you buy ONE dongle which does SD card, USB 3, LAN and HDMI. Then you only have one dongle.
So you think that having to buy and carry around a $300 brick sized dongle to restore functionality that the previous gen model had is ok? What is the point of making the laptop so thin if you need to carry around such a dongle to make the laptop usable? Furthermore, these are the most expensive laptops Apple has released in a long time. The added cost of dongles is an extra burden. These are *not* pro machines. Pros need things like hdmi for presentations, optical audio for music, SD card readers for photography and competitive graphics with CUDA support for scientific applications. These are at best prosumer machines and represent a continuation of the trend away from pro markets at Apple. I can understand removing ports if better alternatives are available and it makes the experience better but this just crippling the machine for the sake of some designers preference. The number of different port formats Apple has used for video makes me seriously contemplate that the dongle business is very important to Apple. As an Apple user and supporter through the darkest days and continuing to this day, I'm disappointed.
you completely failed at reasoning. using a $300 dock is not required to restore any functionality. i've never used any of the shit you're talking about for my work -- hdmi, optical audio (wtf?), or SD, which is a consumer format and not even compact flash which is what all my pro cameras use.
not everybody needs all your legacy shit all the time. i'd bet most people don't need them most of the time. many people don't need them any of the time. thus it makes the most reason for those needing the legacy use cases to use adapters when needed.
it ain't rocket science.
I agree with you except that this is meant to be a PRO machine. If you don't need those extra ports, which I agree is most people, then Apple should be making products for that such as regular MacBook and MacBook Air which are more suitable to slimming down on port availability. Whichever way you look at it, releasing a machine with only 1 port format is moving too quickly on a pro machine and indicates that Apple doesn't care about the minority of pro users. That's fact and it's a decision they've made. I'm just disappointed is all, they could have at least left one USB3 on there...
Perhaps we are barking at the wrong tree, Apple through the first MacBook with one USB C port must have learn a lot and hence just USB C ports, I don't think they didn't think it through and many of the negative comments are made by people who don't use or own Macs - perhaps I am wrong about the users.
Comments
"There's iPhone and iPad which are single pieces of glass, they're direct-manipulation, multi-touch and tend towards full-screen applications,"
"notebooks and that's about indirect manipulation and cursors and menus"
Everyone of those examples are objections, minor objections that are relatively easy to overcome. And, they will be -- in time.
Schiller bases his argument on notebooks not being a good platform for touch screen -- and he is right. However, screen touch is merely another way of interacting which can also be done through a large trackpad (such as is on today's MacBook Pros) or with a mouse (although the mouse cannot enable multi-touch.
Sorry Phil, it's a matter of time before you are proven wrong.
Conversely, Apple has financial reasons for keeping watches, phones, tablets, notebooks and desktops separate. Combining any of those lines will cut product lines and revenue. But, in time, the only thing that will separate those products will be screen size. That is something that not even Steve Jobs could out innovate. The rest will slowly be become combined, merged products regardless of what Phil wants or believes.
Added: For clarification: I am not talking about merging physical software or hardware so much as I am merging that functionality. The details may change, but the functionality of those platforms will, eventually be merged. Apple's inclusion of the touch bar is a good example -- but it is only a start. A chink in the armor.
2) You're right. I absolutely inverted the connections on the adapter. Probably because it was late and I never use Apple's headphones. I did a very quick search but saw nothing that would interface properly with Apple's Lightning headphones to a 3.5mm adapter. I have to think it exists or will exists, but I came up empty. Good eye.
That said, one might argue that if you're using Apple's include iPhone headphones with a new MBP you have bigger issues to deal with.
Personally, I think Apple removed it a couple years later than I had wished but I'm glad it's finally gone because it took up an excessive amount of room while being used so infrequently, it affected the performance, thermals, ports, battery size, weight, volume, and other aspects in the design, and it was a component that was noisy, power hungry, and prone to break.
Was it a short-term inconvenience for some people, sure, but only those that had no concept of the future or saw how these changes were going to make their machines better as a result were upset by it. I can bet you were one of these people that whined about the ODD—maybe you still you, because Redbox exists—but it's gone our computers are better for it. You had to get over that loss so I'm sure you'll get over needing a dongle for connecting one of the new Macs to some archaic projector with a VGA port using an adapter.
Giving DVD removal on MacBooks as a counter argument to someone speaking about port removal is an error.
"Being alive and kicking doesn't mean they aren't archaic or obsolescing."
In fact being alive and kicking DOES mean it is NOT archaic. By definition. Ethernet is not going away anytime soon. HDMI will be present for years to come.
You add 'obsolescing' to your teminology. Interesting.
"I certainly wouldn't want to see a Mac with a touchscreen bolted on"
But, as Apple just pointed out with their TouchBar, that is not the only way to merge the functionality of these UI's...
I think another way is to expand the functionality of the trackpad to make it provide the functionality of a touchscreen. And/Or, in someway to attach the bottom half of the MBP to an IPad pro. Call the OS anything you want.
Jobs knew that the secret was not in the hardware or the software. It's in the functionality. It doesn't matter how you get there. But right now Laptop users and IPad users are standing on opposite sides of a river looking at each other. If Apple doesn't build a bridge, somebody else will build a ferry -- or maybe a hot air balloon or maybe a large drone to get people to the other side...
This summer I was using Khan Academy to tutor a 9 year old on his mom's laptop. He just couldn't understand why he had to use that "stupid mouse". Apple will either meet his needs. Or it won't.
Schiller appears to be standing on ideology rather than technology. Ideology is not a good thing to stand on in the tech field.
The removal of the ODD was logical on a laptop for many reasons. If you remember any of my posts on the subject and have doubts. Give me a link to them and I will put them into the correct context for you.
However, the issue was that you called ethernet and SD archaic. I disagree with that completely. It's only an opinion but i supported it with pertinent information. Every router I see from ISPs etc still has ethernet. I see SD in many areas too.
Then they bring two products to market in a short space of time that not only present an irritating connectivity issue but nothing was done to remedy it in the box. Somebody really should have detected this early in the development phase and provided a solution. What is worse, is that I find it hard to believe that someone in higher management wasn't aware of this and that would imply that they just didn't bother offering a fix.
The result now is to add insult to injury. Widespread disappointment/criticism of numerous aspects of the MBP AND the impossibility to connect it to one of their newest products without some extra hardware.
When you start adding up the little things (no power brick extension cord without ponying up 19 dollars etc) they take on a different dimension and people get even angrier about them.
I'm not 100% sure I get where you're coming from but it was half a joke. I have some great stuff from China but also some horrible stuff. The issue was that someone claimed a solution to something could be found for as little as $5 (no actual product ref or anything included with the affirmation). The idea of resolving a problem - that didn't even need to exist - on a premium Mac by using a $5 Chinese dongle (which would probably be far from premium on every level) was somewhat funny. Most of the $5 Chinese adaptors I've seen have been of very poor quality.