vainboxtech

It seems fairly clear given the direction of things that Lightning is the last port that the iPhone will ever have, and that in a few years' time Apple will ditch Lightning for no ports at all and long range wireless charging. Even then, of course, they'll leave a little connector for diagnostics like the one hidden in the strap slot of the Apple Watch, or a smart connector-type thing. But Jony Ive is going to want to seal up the body of the iPhone, leaving no unsightly ports, as soon as he has the chance.

As far as I am concerned, it would be sufficient if the LTE was used for an emergency call option -- free of charge of course. And by emergency I don't just mean the ambulance, but also, for example, sending a text to a contact. I personally dislike the thought of going on a 50+ mile bike ride and have no way of calling if I have a crash, or even just running for 30 min and not having any way to get help if I slip and break my leg. None of this happened, of course, but still. 

digitol said:

i'm seriously having trouble believing this. Maybe Apple only made 100 macbook pro's? Seriously, i'm finding it extremely hard to comprehend people wanting to pay more money for a laptop that has taken away more i/o than ever, and on top of that still sports the same CPU's that have been sold since 2013. Gimicky touch bar aside, I just don't see it. 

Keep trying. It's hard at first....

This is nice. And yet it will fail, because you need dedicated fanboys to pick up that kind of product at that price and I feel that Microsoft doesn't have any. Professionals know better than buying Microsoft hardware because of their track record of poor obsolescence stats and reliability.

But it is a shame that it will fail. Because at some other level the truth is that Microsoft has been genuinely creative in recent years (they had to in order to survive, much like Apple in 2001), whereas Apple has become fixated on the bloody iPhone and has really been quite conservative in terms of design. In some libraries these days I see more Surfaces than MacBooks. I whip out my iPad Pro 12.9" and it's usually the only one.

Disclaimer: I have only bought Apple hardware and gadgets since about 2003. Never owed a Microsoft thing in my life. I don't really expect this to change anytime soon.

But NFC... I wonder if they're making an Apple Pay terminal to ship off to shops? That would speed up adoption