docno42

omasou said:

Yes, we have stepped back but not in a good way.

How so?  None of the things you cited cost you one thing in functionality.  You can simply ignore their presence (as you already are!) and they don't impact or impede you in ANY way.

However if any of those are missing for people that do need them it's a HUGE inconvenience to work around their exclusion.  

Your take on the HDMI port, in particular, is utterly laughable.  While I applaud you for being able to avoid having to interact with people and present to others while out and about, I assure you that you are in the vast minority. For anyone in a normal business setting, presenting in conference or meeting rooms and hooking up to external displays is a ROUTINE requirement and finally being able to once again do so without the need for a flipping dongle is a godsend.  

Thank god Apple pulled their head out of their ass and stopped designing crap for some future that is never going to happen and once again started meeting their customers where they live TODAY and will continue to be forced to live for a long time.  I would love to be in the same bubble you are; sadly I can't will everyone else around me to enter the USB-C/Thunderbolt only world.  If I only had that power....

MplsP said:

you lose nothing unless you actually need 4 TB 4 ports (and even then you've got the MagSafe so you're not using a port for charging. So far I've seen exactly one person who says they use all 4 TB ports. If the sight of it is that offensive to you you can take some silver epoxy and fill it in so it disappears.

Absolutely.  A port you don't need doesn't do a damn thing if it's there, but if it's not there and you need it then it's a huge PITA to deal with.  If someone really needs 4 TB ports then, since (according to them) dongle's aren't a big deal, they can just carry a thunderbolt hub with them.  Problem solved.  

You can daisy chain Thunderbolt devices.  Just buy better devices that have multiple ports built in or suck it up and carry *your* dongle (hub) of choice 

As for the whole empty port offending their delicate sensibilities - they should just stick with the consumer laptops and leave the pro models to the pro's. 

StrangeDays said:

Using a regular USBC-HDMI cable is not a dongle. It’s just using a cable, as we have used various IO cables for decades. 

Semantics - whatever you want to call it, it's another *thing* you have to remember to have with you, not leave behind, find out one day it suddenly has some problem and needs to be replaced (while you are stuck without functionality in the meantime), etc.

Whatever your choice of pedantry, in the end it equals more friction for every day use.  For what?  A port on the side of the machine that offends someones sensibilities?  How utterly ridiculous.  Thankfully the likes of you LOST the argument and saner heads prevailed.

EDIT: Ha - just realized who I replied to.  What a shock; the king of pedantic nit pickers.  

anome said:
Magsafe power you can make an argument for, but my desktop setup is kind of reliant on my power being on the other side, so I either forego one of my only 3 TB ports, or have my power stretching across my desk and bending at an odd angle.

Pretty sure TB ports support power and data at the same time.  You want everyone else to get a dongle for HDMI, just get a dock for your machine to only need one cable.

Seems like a small sacrifice you were willing to force everyone else to make 

fastasleep said:

Yet there’s one fewer TB ports, so…

TB chains.  Just buy better peripherals that support chaining. 
It's not Apple's problem but your problem