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Apple cuts prices on USB-C & Thunderbolt 3 gear in response to MacBook Pro backlash
How about a little objectivity here...bmcf said:I guess most complaints are from those who were not around during other "big" changes... SCSI, ADB, Serial, etc, etc... If you can't handle the continual changes that happen in the tech market change to gardening.
SCCI was only used by a small minority of users
ADB was a one-trick pony used to connect Apple's proprietary mouse and keyboard. Apple included a USB mouse and keyboard in the box when the dropped the port. No impact.
Serial - OK, I'll give you this one as a more commonly used port, mainly for printers (also for modems, but Macs had built-in modem at this point in history). However, see my comment below about this being a desktop machine (the iMac when USB was introduced).
Floppy disk - already largely supplanted by optical media for software distribution and some file transfers using re-writable optical discs. There there could be a need to installed old software from floppies, but this was not all that common. Again, see comment below about this being a stationary desktop computer.
NONE of these outgoing technologies were anywhere near as ubiquitous and in common, everyday use as the USB A port is today. Yes, it needs to be replaced by C, but we ain't there yet. And let's look at much more recent examples than the iMac (which you are alluding to when your port examples listed above) and much more relevant...laptops (with desktops like the iMac attaching an adapter/dongle is less of an issue...once it's attached you can leave it, you aren't constantly plugging and unplugging devices like you are with mobile computers and in today's world of devices).
1. The first laptop that had a FW800 port still had a FW400 port.
2. The first laptop that had Thunderbolt still had a FW800 port.
In both cases the outgoing port was a little used port (again, very much in contrast to today's USB A port), and yet Apple still recognized the need to include it on at least one design iteration of their laptops. So you can point to those "big changes" all you want, they are really not in the same league as this latest port transition.
To be clear, I think the new MBPs are fine machines. They have a lot of great things going for them. I just think they could be even better. It is a real impact (we can argue all day about how big of an impact, but it's real) to people who have a lot of devices they need to connect.
What would be the impact to you if the MBP did have a USB A port? Either in addition to the 4 C ports or in place of one (if you ever have 4 things plugged in at the same time, what are the odds that there isn't at least one of them that's a USB A device?). What harm would it cause you???
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Apple cuts prices on USB-C & Thunderbolt 3 gear in response to MacBook Pro backlash
It was good enough for all of the previous port transitions in Apple's PowerBook and MacBook Pro series. And in those cases, the "outgoing" port was already seldom used. Contrast this with the USB A port which is still THE standard for practically everything. That will change over time, but that's also why in the past Apple has always provided a transition model that had both ports included. To allow customers and orderly transition to the new standard.lorin schultz said:
As for the "transition," how would YOU do it? A machine with half good connectors and half shitty ones? How is that better than using a couple adapters for a while or just replacing a couple cables? Is there some benefit to that approach that I'm just not seeing?
At the very minimum, it was extremely thoughtless of Apple to not at least include a single A-to-C adapter since I'm sure an extremely high percentage of MBP purchasers are going to have at least one A device they'll need to connect (contrast with the iPhone audio adapter which most people probably will never use because they will just use the Lightning earbuds or wireless, but it's included in the box anyway). -
Apple cuts prices on USB-C & Thunderbolt 3 gear in response to MacBook Pro backlash
LOL. You’re not so hot as an observer, either. Why? Because you wouldn’t need to make the MBP base thicker to accommodate a USB A port. You just have to stop drinking the Kool-Aid long enough to see past Ive’s designed illusion of thinness. You clearly think that the thickness of the base is only that narrow flat band where the USB C ports are; and if that were true you’d be correct and an A port would not fit. But it’s not true. That is only about half of the base’s thickness, the other half is the rounded/tapered edge that Apple uses on many of it’s products, part for structural reasons but probably mostly for aesthetic reasons (aka, it makes it look thinner than it really is).flaneur said:
Actually I think it's you and other dongle-phobes who are the anal-obsessives.zoetmb said:
It's not like Apple is selling $500 laptops. There's two ways to look at this:slurpy said:Awesome move by Apple. This SHOULD shut up most of the complaints, but of course it won't.
The first is that if someone is buying a laptop that starts at $2400, they should't be complaining about having to buy some adapters, even if they're overpriced and that if you're a pro, technology advances and the investment is the price of doing business.
The other way to look at it is that if someone is spending between $2400 and $4300 (for the MBP with all options except for application software and AppleCare), Apple shouldn't have cheaped out and they should have provided 2 to 4 adapters in the box of the customer's choosing. The price of four adapters/cables is as much as a cheap PC.
And then my cost of ownership goes up because I can't replace the battery, expand memory or replace the SSD myself. Or, if I Iive with a 256GB SSD, I've got to get a ton of external storage for pro-level photos and video and live with the hassle of not having every file with me when I'm out of the home/office.
This is another example of Apple labeling something "pro" and then not understanding the workflow of their pro customers. They did that with FinalCutPro and they did it when they moved away from the tower configuration of the MacPro.
Every time Apple switches ports, they tell the market how their new choices are the greatest and how they want both manufacturers and consumers to commit to that port. Then after a few years, they change their minds and they move on to something else. Did they really need to drop Mag-safe? What about all the people who bought extra power supplies to keep at home/office, etc.? HDMI is ubiquitous on TVs and receivers and the cables have become inexpensive, but now I've got to buy an adapter that costs ten times what the cable cost?
What was Apple's rationale for going solely to USB-C? Was it because they truly think this port is the future and that the accessory market will fully move to that port and that it provides technological advantages? Or was it really because of Ive's anal-obsessiveness over thinness and not wanting to look at different sized/shaped ports on the side of the machine? What drives me crazy is that Apple wants the machine to have this superior industrial design so that it looks great in photos and in ads, but they have no problem with users having to stick a bunch of dongles and adapters on the thing. It's the same with the iPhone and the obsession with thinness, but then we have to put it in a case because it can't survive a fall. So few are really seeing and feeling the thinness anyway. Sometimes I think people at Apple don't actually use the products they produce in the real world.
So, IMO, criticism is warranted. If Apple wants my money, they're going to have to do a bit better. I hate using PCs at work, but I'm not spending $4K to $5K on my next computer and I don't want to feel like I have less than what I have today. So as much as I hate Windows, my next laptop might actually be a Windows machine. And I've been an Apple customer for 35 years.
There is so much pure, sculpted techno eroticism in the new form factor that you'd have to be a puritanical ass-wipe to give a second's thought to how it looks with an adapter or two plugged into it.
I can't believe the pettiness of you people. The new MBP is the culmination of five years of foresighted development, if you include —as you must — the investments they were jumping on in IGZO development going that far back to Japan, no less, where the tech was developed.
Same with the keyboard. If Swiss watchmakers made keyboard switches, they would maybe be like this. Probably another five years in the making. And the aluminum machining — try to find a wonky tenth of a millimeter of misfit. How long have they been developing that? And the asymmetric fans, and so on.
Go get yourself a Windows machine. You may not deserve to handle one of these unless you come around. Meanwhile, millions are going to get limitless pleasure out of picking theirs up to pack it at the end of the day as they gladly take care to pack its adapters in the case with it.
Edit: you know why there's no USB A? It's too big, that's why. It's as obsolete as the headphone jack is on the iPhone. If you want them to make the base thicker just to accommodate that port, you're disqualified as an Apple observer.Given that Apple machines the MBP case, having one small section of that flat part, say about one inch, be about 2 mm thicker would be a trivial manufacturing change. And it would likely have zero impact structurally. So really, there is no technical, structural, or manufacturing related issue that would prevent them from easily doing that. (Alternatively, they could have made that band wider all the way around and reduced the thickness of the tapered curve to keep the same overall thickness. This would have the added benefit of actually creating more internal space for batteries, etc. But then that would not have given them the excuse that anything bigger than USB C was too thick.)The only issue remaining is that there would be an ever so slight disruption to the aesthetics. And you would no longer have your perfectly sculpted erotic hardware to grasp in your hand.
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New MacBook Pro models reportedly incompatible with certain Thunderbolt 3 devices [ux2]
So I guess Canon's 5D lineup aren't pro cameras because they include SD slots?john.b said:SD cards for cameras are prosumer, not pro.
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New MacBook Pro drops optical audio out through headphone jack
Don't pat yourself on the back too hard. I've posted the same thing several times over the past couple of days in a couple of the forums. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to read the tech specs pages on Apple's web site (even though few bother to do so).jasenj1 said:
