chia

sog35 said:

Its absolutely NUTS that in the USA they take your credit card away from you sight and don't come back for 5+ minutes.

They can easily take a picture of your credit card and security code. And people wonder why credit card fraud is so high.

I've seen in the UK consumer advocates and law enforcement recommend you never let your cards out of your sight.  It doesn't take long for a rogue employee to "skim" your card details using a rogue device or to even swap your card for an identical looking blocked or even counterfeit card.

I think I may even have been a victim of card skimming about ten years ago when I was getting a flight from Prague Airport.  I noticed the employee in a shop there fumble with my card under the counter after she had already processed it through the machine on top of the counter.  A few days later I noticed an extra charge to the account from a business I'd never been to in the Czech Republic. Whilst the airport shop had a chip and pin machine I presume she had a rogue card mag stripe swipe device under the counter.  I guess when you're advised not to let the card go out of sight, they really do mean out of sight!

I believe it's been noticed that criminals would actually take from countries cards which use the EMV chip and pin system to countries with less secure mag stripe swipe only systems.  The move of USA cards to the EMV chip system and  Pay should actually help to cut card fraud not just in the USA but internationally.

I think it's fair to say that in the UK and from my experience, other countries in Europe, it is customary for the waiting staff to bring the card machine to the table or failing that, and increasingly more rarely, for the bill payer to go to the counter to pay. And yes, portable contactless (NFC) payment terminals have become quite common in the UK, though not quite ubiquitous in the restaurants.  It is surprising to see from this viewpoint, how prolonged and protracted the rollout of NFC and contactless payments has become in the USA, though in fairness, the USA has a much larger population and land area than any single European country. Presumably there are also 50 different financial rules from each of the 50 states to comply with when attempting to rollout a nationwide system in the USA.

http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyimages/310_999/796.gif

avon b7 said:

True. USB-C is coming. It is the future. No one has issues with it. Having ONLY USB-C is another matter and you will find a lot of division of opinion over that. It isn't whining. 

Fundamentally your recent torrent of posts are saying Apple shouldn't move forward but wait until most computer manufacturers are using USB-C and then make the switch.
If Apple were to be like you and play it safe then we'd still be using the machine on the left and not the one on the right.
Most of the companies who make Windows machines play it safe and follow; most make very little if any money from their computer division compared to Apple's computer division.

The very ethos of Apple is to push forward for the implementation of technology to be better.

Apple II - ditched the price and the computer lab to bring computing to the home, school and office desk
Macintosh - ditched learning complex computer commands so that anyone could use a computer
iMac - ditched a myriad of ports for an easier UNIVERSAL Serial Bus.
iPhone - ditched the physical keyboard to provide a large screen on a versatile smartphone.
iPad - ditched the necessity of a stylus for effective tablet computing
2016 MacBook Pro - ditched redundancy to provide a simple, truly UNIVERSAL USB to flexibly meet all needs be they for network, storage, display or power.

The ideal time to introduce something new will always be next year but then no needs will ever be met today!
It's a similar phenonemon with those advising to wait next year for Intel's Kaby Lake, then the next advance after that and so forth.
Those people may as well not bother buying a computer until the desktop quantum computer arrives, but then they'll be version 2 to come, then 3...
Those same people are extremely unlikely to be professionals who need work done by their computer TODAY. 

Now, onto the topic on hand.
If soldering everything onto the motherboard meant only 1 in 5,000 Mac portables developed logic board faults instead of 1 in 500 then Apple makes substantial savings in manufacture, diagnostic and repair costs plus their customers get a more reliable product.  If Apple's research revealed less than 1 in 500 MacBook Pro users ever upgrade the internals of their MacBook Pros then why should Apple waste time, capital and materials making an inferior more unreliable product? A product which they'll offer everybody yet is only best suited for meeting the needs of the small upgrade minority?

avon b7 said:

chia said:

It's funny and ironic how so much of the grumbling about the Thunderbolt 3 ports here mirror the arguments made against the first iMac with its USB ports, USB-A ports with connectors that are over 20 years old in design.  It's one of the few connectors in computing (alongside the Ethernet RJ45 and yes, audio jack) still in use after such a long time.

The USB-C connector is however superior in every way to the USB-A connector. Just as by 2002 the USB-A was in ubiquitous use on PCs and Macs, the USB C connector will be everywhere by 2022.  Just as in 2002, people will look back and wonder why some wanted to be tied to the inefficiency of the past.

USB-C and it's advantages are not the issue. I haven't seen a single post against it.

The original Apple switch to USB was the cause of a lot of pain and expense because dongles often weren't the solution.

This switch is only comparable in the sense that it is wholesale.

The zombie ports on your Mac might not be zombie ports for others.

Some people argued ad nauseum that they needed to have a portable computer with a built-in optical drive to do their work.
Why should I be lumbered with the extra weight, expense and redundancy of something I don't need?
Why should most Mac users be lumbered with features only a tiny proportion need?

Where should we draw the line?
Maybe we should add two VGA ports for those who wish to drive two legacy VGA displays?
Maybe we should add eSATA ports for those who want fast storage but dislike dongles and Thunderbolt?
Maybe we should add RS232 ports for those who need to connect their computers to legacy industrial devices?
Maybe we should add ExpressCard slots for those with ExpressCard modems?
then you end up with a 6 kilo, $7000 monstrosity that 99 percent of the people lug around whilst using only 1 percent of the ports and having ten percent of a slimmer computer's battery life.

The Thunderbolt 3 with the USB-C connector truly puts the UNIVERSAL into USB.  All of the above functions, if needed, can be served by the right adaptor.
It actually gives greater flexibility than building legacy ports into the machine.
Want to connect four RS-232 devices to the laptop at the machine shop but plug two extra displays when at the office?  No problem!  Trickier to do on an older laptop with one USB port, one VGA port and one serial port.

Study the Mac line up launched between 1998 to 2000:
May 1998 iMac with USB replacing ADB and serial ports.

May/Sep 1998 PowerBook G3  series with legacy ADB and serial ports, NO USB

Jan 1999 Power Mac G3  Blue and white with ADB and USB  - NO SERIAL

May 1999 Power Mac G4
USB - NO ADB, NO SERIAL ports
PowerBook G3  USB - NO ADB NO SERIAL ports
previous PowerBook G3 discontinued

Sep 1999Power Mac G3 (Blue and White) discontinued,the last Mac with ADB and serial ports.

Apple eliminated its legacy ports within 12-18 months of introducing USB and Firewire on the Mac.

You are entitled to your argument and opinion avonb7 but accept that Apple has moved into Thunderbolt 3/USB-C today; it's extremely doubtful they'll move backward.
I've also underlined above that Steve Jobs made a similarly rapid transition, there was no transitional Mac laptop with legacy ADB and serial connectors.
I vaguely recall the only reason ADB made it onto the Blue and White G3 was to support some ADB software protection dongles.