philboogie

lmac said:

Maybe Phil could put some pressure on the mobile device management software team? iPads are designed as personal devices, and that doesn't work in the classroom. Apple can turn their nose up at affordable, rugged technology for schools, or they could actually build something that schools need.

MplsP said:

This. HDMI is THE standard when it comes to video connections for presentations. It’s simple and nearly universal. I have yet to see a video projector in a conference room that doesn’t have it and beyond that, none of these projectors can do 4K, so being able to connect 100 monitors via the thunderbolt 10 port is a completely moot point. My daughter needed a new laptop for college and her first question was “does it have an HDMI port, ‘cause that’s what I need to do presentations”

Now all of the Apple sycophants will go on and on about ‘just buy an adapter’ and ‘be prepared’ and how it’s obviously your fault for not having the right equipment with, and I assume that none of these people have ever forgotten anything or had an adapter break or have someone borrow it and not return it, etc. Nor have they had an adapter not work properly. The fact of the matter is, rather than have a couple of the most common ports available to people, Apple made a decision that ‘we can make USB C do everything’ and, user convenience be damned, they can go out and buy all the ports cables and docks and hubs. 

As for “cables vs adapters” - that’s a completely semantic argument and ignores the point.

Schiller replied:

“Probably not, again nothing about the future is in stone, and things can always change. But, as we’ve been spending a lot of time with MacBook Pro surveying what our customers use, what I/O they need, where their needs are growing and how they are changing, and did a lot of soul searching on it and asking ourselves about a lot of connectors about USB-A about SD card readers, about HDMI and requestioning everything. And really what we came down to is more and more customers are taking advantage of USB-C and Thunderbolt, love the incredible headroom in performance there is there, the higher power there is, the charging ability there is, and so we think having on the highest-end notebook four USB-C/Thunderbolt ports gives the most headroom for the things you will be doing in the years ahead. And the trade-off is for a few traditional media types like SD card readers means using an adapter but there are USB-C adapters, I carry one for that. And ultimately, that gives you the highest performance and most flexibility with this arrangement. So after a lot of soul searching, we think we’ve done the best thing for customers with the I/O we have, meaning we don’t have every port type in the world on it.”

cropr said:

A great machine.  The better keyboard and a real escape key are very welcome.   The only minus point remains the limited connectors.   I travel a lot and almost everywhere I come, there is a HDMI cable available to connect to the meeting room monitor or to an external screen.  While Thunderbolt is great, I still need an external adapter.   And external adapters get lost (in my case about once every 6 months).

avon b7 said:

We'll see if it still has the keyboard/battery/ top case melded together design like the previous generations but in the EU it starts at 2,699€ and quickly blasts past 3,000€.