I was there when apple dropped SuperDrive, FireWire, Ethernet and more from the mbp. The sun came up the next day. And I was completely content adjusting to 'moving forward' after a short adjustment. That's what Apple does. They move things forward because nobody else will.
It's a laptop that's way too big and expensive for the email / web browser market, but way too limited for professionals. Of course the sun comes up tomorrow, and this laptop still sucks.
i'm a software developer and it is perfectly suited to my profession. meanwhile, you've never even seen the damn thing. the eitltlement is strong in this one....i suggest you start a company in your garage.
"Thunderbolt 3 Dock connects to a host Mac via an included 0.5-meter Thunderbolt cable" So much for using it with a 12" MacBook or new MacBook Pro, neither of which even have a Thunderbolt port...
Oh, look, your ultra light $2500 new MacBook Pro only needs 2 pounds and $400 worth of accessories to make it useful. Thanks, Apple, you're amazing!
your post is idiotic, because not everyone needs the accessories. i sure as hell don't. my work is code and lives on git servers and my local device. why the f would i want to carry around a bunch of dumb legacy ports and slots i've never used and will never use? just to make you random haters happy?
What, no MicroSD slot? What, no 10GigE? What, no VGA? What, no ADC? What, no Serial? What, no Parallel? What, no eSATA? What, no USB Type-B, Type-B SS, Mini-A, Mini-B, Micro-A, Micro-B, or Micro-B SS? What, no BNC connector for Token Ring?
What, no SCSI? What, no ADB? What, no PS/2? What, no LocalTalk? Ouch, I forgot the eternal PCMCIA... NuBus, no NuBus?
The reason OWC's dock 'spontaneously' unmounts drives is that it is poorly shielded. Try putting an iPhone next to the dock then call it. Boom, drives are gone.
Also, this dock won't power the MacBook? That's a drag.
Contacted them, it does, in-fact, charge up to the 15" MacBook Pro. They even say in the material, 1 cable to charge your laptop and connect devices.
All these hubs have the same ports -- yet no HDMI. They probably all use the same made-in-china cheap internals wrapped and branded slightly differently.
HDMI is really not keeping up. It's to large for one thing. Thats why DP (Mini) is taking over.. HDMI is fine for TV's but for small, thin devices, you really need a Mini Display port or USB C display ports. It just makes sense..
Besides, you COULD get a DP to HDMI cable or adaptor or USB-C to HDMI.. and that would work fine.
On the MacBreak Weekly podcast Andy Ihnatko and Leo Laporte both said the new MacBook Pro butterfly keyboard was a "showstopper" and is basically unusable for any serious typists, while Alex Lindsay, head of PixelCorps, said the lack of standard ports removes this latest model from consideration and it is no longer a serious computer for professionals.
i'm getting the impression some people don't like what Apple is doing with their Macs.
I have Apple's TB-to-Ethernet one for my 2013 MBP so I could restore from Time Machine faster than using WiFi when I first got it. I think that's the only time I ever used it. No one else was selling TB stuff then and I wanted to test the Ethernet performance. It's 2016 and wireless communication is king. Today, with 802.11ac MIMO I don't think I'll use a wired connection to set up my new MBP using Time Machine. I will likely end up buying the $19.99 adapter I posted because I like to plan for the unknown, but I doubt I'll need to use it.
I haven't yet tried the USB-C version of the ethernet adapter because I obviously haven't yet received my new MacBook Pro, but if it's anything like the Thunderbolt model, I'll still be using it.
There's no question current incarnations of wireless are fast, but in my setup of all-Apple products the wire is still consistently 1/3- to 1/2-again as fast as wireless. A file transfer that took 24 minutes over wireless was only 16 minutes wired. You may want to do your own comparison and see if it's worth a few seconds to plug in the wire.
Then again, you may not be transferring 20-40Gb at a time like I am, making the difference less important to your workflow.
"Thunderbolt 3 Dock connects to a host Mac via an included 0.5-meter Thunderbolt cable" So much for using it with a 12" MacBook or new MacBook Pro, neither of which even have a Thunderbolt port...
I don't know about the 12" MacBook, but the MacBook Pro has FOUR Thunderbolt ports. That's the beauty of the new design -- every one of those ports is a combo TB3/USB 31. Gen2.
"The dock is also supports daisy-chaining multiple Lightning devices together, useful in professional image editing workflows where fast data retrieval is vital."
I'm surprised it has mini displayport rather than HDMI - more versatile this way though!
What, no MicroSD slot? What, no 10GigE? What, no VGA? What, no ADC? What, no Serial? What, no Parallel? What, no eSATA? What, no USB Type-B, Type-B SS, Mini-A, Mini-B, Micro-A, Micro-B, or Micro-B SS? What, no BNC connector for Token Ring?
What, no SCSI? What, no ADB? What, no PS/2? What, no LocalTalk? Ouch, I forgot the eternal PCMCIA... NuBus, no NuBus?
Don't forget CardBus while you're at it.... dang... you didn't. my bad.
On the MacBreak Weekly podcast Andy Ihnatko and Leo Laporte both said the new MacBook Pro butterfly keyboard was a "showstopper" and is basically unusable for any serious typists, while Alex Lindsay, head of PixelCorps, said the lack of standard ports removes this latest model from consideration and it is no longer a serious computer for professionals.
i'm getting the impression some people don't like what Apple is doing with their Macs.
if only Apple had any serious typists in their offices -- they could have caught this glaring oversight before releasing it! oh wait, they're absolutely chock full of them. hmm. so i guess that means...some people have different opinions on some things??
I'll wait until it has more than 1 review, but it does look like a compelling alternative. I wonder why I didn't see that one during my hours of searching/browsing USB-c stuff the other day.
Remember when the iPods first came out and there were web sites devoted to reviewing iPod related accessories? As (my last week nemesis) Soli said, we need something similar for USB-c accessories. I don't want to buy a $60 no-name do-it-all dock/dongle thing just to find that it some of the ports don't really work. Sure there are Amazon reviews but I'm starting to trust them less and less.
Though dongles are somewhat costly and unsightly, it would be a mistake for Apple to design new computers around legacy peripherals. New peripherals will appear soon with the right connectors for use with MBP.
For nearly $300, OWC could have included a Lightning port for iPhone charging. Also a WiFi booster.
I agree this dock should have included a Lightning port, but not for charging. Not sure I follow your thinking as that would require a Male-to-male Lightning cable which doesn't currently exist. The only thing a Lightning port would be good for charging would be an Apple Pencil, which is not currently compatible with the Mac.
The Lightning port would be there to correct Apples oversight of not allowing their iPhone 7 included Lightning EarPods to be used on a new MacBook. I mean, there's not even a dongle for Lightning headphones to USB-C, much less anything else. That's a hint Apple wasn't ready to add Lightning to OS X, or we would have heard about adapters by now -- Apple clearly isn't allowing it yet.
And that's the reason it's probably not on the MBP or likely able to be included on the dock is because Apple isn't likely ready to implement Lightning in OS X, which would require support not only for the headphones, but all Lightning devices, adapters and cables. That's why I think we'll see it potentially first appear on the Retina MacBook update in the Spring. Some evidence points to the fact they didn't include a USB-C charger in the iPhone 7 box either -- basically Apple isn't ready to merge the two platforms together yet. And that's not surprising after seeing the significant engineering that went into its first all USB-C Mac. They likely want to introduce that and get all the bugs worked out before they add Lightning issues to the mix.
i wouldn't be surprised to see Pencil support added to the Trackpad in near future as well, further justifying adding Lightning.
That is a USB 3.1 Gen 1 product, not a Thunderbolt product. It's not really honest to compare them so directly.
Why does that matter if you don't need TB speeds? Why do you make a big deal about TB but don't indicate if it's TB1, 2, or 3 supported by the accessory?
If I have to do a PowerPoint/Keynote presentation 2–4x a year in a conference room that still requires a VGA connector why do I need a $300 adapter when a $14.99 adapter will suit my needs?
If I have some odd device that I have to plug into my MBP or need to plug in via Ethernet on some rare occasion why do I need a $300 adapter when I can spend $19.99 on an adapter that has Ethernet and 3x USB-A 3.0 ports?
I have Apple's TB-to-Ethernet one for my 2013 MBP so I could restore from Time Machine faster than using WiFi when I first got it. I think that's the only time I ever used it. No one else was selling TB stuff then and I wanted to test the Ethernet performance. It's 2016 and wireless communication is king. Today, with 802.11ac MIMO I don't think I'll use a wired connection to set up my new MBP using Time Machine. I will likely end up buying the $19.99 adapter I posted because I like to plan for the unknown, but I doubt I'll need to use it. Even my iPhone 7 was restored via WiFi from iCloud because it was fast enough that it's no longer a requirement to have the Mac as your Digital hub. I'm very happy that I don't have all these "we should include them on every device just in case someone might use them" ports. I can't tell you the last time I've attached a monitor to my MBP and yet my entire computing life I've had a notebook with a dedicated port just for display-out… until 2013. Now we're truly moving into the future with the USB-C port. This is a good thing.
Get the new Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt adapter and daisy-chain will your Thunderbolt to Gigabit adapter. Do not go with USB-C based Gigabit adapters. They do not provide a discrete I/O chip to offload I/O from the laptop's CPU.
That's an option, but I have it as a "just in case" option, even though I won't likely use it. I also have a USB-A-to-Ethernet adapter for work, which I've never used.
The problem with that double dongle solution is Apple charges $49 for it. I'd rather just pay the $12.99 for Monoprice's USB-C-to-GigE adapter if I'm just going to hold onto it. I doubt I'll ever be connecting a Thunderbolt/mDP-port-anything-else in the future.
Comments
Not good enough! Nothing will assuage the thirst for blood of disaffected “power” users. DIE Apple... DIE!
i'm a software developer and it is perfectly suited to my profession. meanwhile, you've never even seen the damn thing. the eitltlement is strong in this one....i suggest you start a company in your garage.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019R9ILTG/ref=cm_sw_su_dp
But it connects via USBC not Thunderbolt
What, no ADB?
What, no PS/2?
What, no LocalTalk?
Ouch, I forgot the eternal PCMCIA...
NuBus, no NuBus?
i'm getting the impression some people don't like what Apple is doing with their Macs.
I haven't yet tried the USB-C version of the ethernet adapter because I obviously haven't yet received my new MacBook Pro, but if it's anything like the Thunderbolt model, I'll still be using it.
There's no question current incarnations of wireless are fast, but in my setup of all-Apple products the wire is still consistently 1/3- to 1/2-again as fast as wireless. A file transfer that took 24 minutes over wireless was only 16 minutes wired. You may want to do your own comparison and see if it's worth a few seconds to plug in the wire.
Then again, you may not be transferring 20-40Gb at a time like I am, making the difference less important to your workflow.
I don't know about the 12" MacBook, but the MacBook Pro has FOUR Thunderbolt ports. That's the beauty of the new design -- every one of those ports is a combo TB3/USB 31. Gen2.
"The dock is also supports daisy-chaining multiple Lightning devices together, useful in professional image editing workflows where fast data retrieval is vital."
I'm surprised it has mini displayport rather than HDMI - more versatile this way though!
Rs 432 anyone?
I'll wait until it has more than 1 review, but it does look like a compelling alternative. I wonder why I didn't see that one during my hours of searching/browsing USB-c stuff the other day.
The Lightning port would be there to correct Apples oversight of not allowing their iPhone 7 included Lightning EarPods to be used on a new MacBook. I mean, there's not even a dongle for Lightning headphones to USB-C, much less anything else. That's a hint Apple wasn't ready to add Lightning to OS X, or we would have heard about adapters by now -- Apple clearly isn't allowing it yet.
And that's the reason it's probably not on the MBP or likely able to be included on the dock is because Apple isn't likely ready to implement Lightning in OS X, which would require support not only for the headphones, but all Lightning devices, adapters and cables. That's why I think we'll see it potentially first appear on the Retina MacBook update in the Spring. Some evidence points to the fact they didn't include a USB-C charger in the iPhone 7 box either -- basically Apple isn't ready to merge the two platforms together yet. And that's not surprising after seeing the significant engineering that went into its first all USB-C Mac. They likely want to introduce that and get all the bugs worked out before they add Lightning issues to the mix.
i wouldn't be surprised to see Pencil support added to the Trackpad in near future as well, further justifying adding Lightning.
The problem with that double dongle solution is Apple charges $49 for it. I'd rather just pay the $12.99 for Monoprice's USB-C-to-GigE adapter if I'm just going to hold onto it. I doubt I'll ever be connecting a Thunderbolt/mDP-port-anything-else in the future.