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Apple is becoming more and more of a fashion accessory. They do very well with this approach. When they dropped the audio jack in the iPhone 7 for a dongle medi

by daveguy 10y ago

Apple is becoming more and more of a fashion accessory. They do very well with this approach. When they dropped the audio jack in the iPhone 7 for a dongle mediated or wireless interface I thought they jumped the shark. It appears their sales are suffering because of it. Until 2012 or so I had a laptop with a serial port, because working with serial devices was unreliable with usb to serial dongles. Declaring that standard usb ports are legacy will only slow sales of laptops. Very few people want to keep up with a wad of dongles. Laptops should be convenient. It is relatively easy to plug into any presentation display with an hdmi cable and I am happy to have a VGA port on my circa 2012 laptop (ram and ssd upgraded). When people can't use their machine like everyone else, they don't think "Ohh I have such a modern laptop". They think "This is inconvenient and unproductive. I will think twice about buying this in the future."

chrisseaton 10y ago
> Declaring that standard usb ports are legacy The new MacBook Pros still have standard USB ports. In fact they have twice as many as before. USB C is still standard USB. I think people think Apple have made their own new incompatible port and that isn't true.
- naner 10y ago
  From the context it is clear he was referring to previous generation rectangular USB ports.
  - kgwgk 10y ago
    "Declaring that previous generation usb ports are legacy" doesn't sound as bad, does it?
gaius 10y ago
I have probably stayed in a dozen or more hotels that had in each room a docking station for iPod hooked into the room's stereo... All of which are completely useless since Apple switched away from the old large flat connector. Why would those big buyers be interested in Apple-compatibility next time around?
zepto 10y ago
A pretty standard comment to apply to Apple goes like this: Apple is all about fashion/marketing... [random selection of current justifications of this view, along with what the user wants from a product that nobody actually makes] If you've ever seen one of these threads you must have come across this. My question is, what value does it add? Also, frankly, associating Apple with fashion is now an empty statement. Who honestly disagrees that they care about fashion?
acomjean 10y ago
The macbook pro was a workhorse. Well built, lots of connectivity and useful for whatever life threw at it. A little bulky, Not sleek and elegant. Macbook air (and new macbook) are the sleek light and beautiful models. They're making the macbook pro more like the "air" and "macbook", pretty to look at but much less functional. People who like the OS are left with no where to get the machine they need and aren't happy. While usb c is the future, its going to be a long time before the usb a port goes away. The lack of ports usable without dongles significantly hurt functionality. sometimes its just the number of ports, for example: College intern with air bemoans the lack of ability to connect our fast wired internet and monitor at same time as one thunderbolt port. This kind of thing can't help but hurt your reputation. I use every port on my macbook rmbp except the sd card for bioinformatics job, (2 monitors [2 dongles], gig -ethernet[dongle], external drive, external keyboard and mouse). I could in theory get a dock, but its an unnecessary pain.
- boulos 10y ago
  I think the claim of people with newer monitors is that the hub is built in. So no need for a separate dock, just plug your keyboard and mouse into your monitors (I do this on my Dells today) and then when you "dock" your laptop you now get power, Ethernet, display and peripherals all attached to the thing that's actually fixed in place (the displays). Each of my Dell monitors has 2 or 3 USB ports (and today, I have to connect to them using a single USB to the laptop in addition to each display port connection). I think this new future won't be that bad, but it will require new displays.

by daveguy 10y ago

chrisseaton 10y ago

> Declaring that standard usb ports are legacy The new MacBook Pros still have standard USB ports. In fact they have twice as many as before. USB C is still standard USB. I think people think Apple have made their own new incompatible port and that isn't true.

naner 10y ago
From the context it is clear he was referring to previous generation rectangular USB ports.
- kgwgk 10y ago
  "Declaring that previous generation usb ports are legacy" doesn't sound as bad, does it?

gaius 10y ago

I have probably stayed in a dozen or more hotels that had in each room a docking station for iPod hooked into the room's stereo... All of which are completely useless since Apple switched away from the old large flat connector. Why would those big buyers be interested in Apple-compatibility next time around?

zepto 10y ago

A pretty standard comment to apply to Apple goes like this: Apple is all about fashion/marketing... [random selection of current justifications of this view, along with what the user wants from a product that nobody actually makes] If you've ever seen one of these threads you must have come across this. My question is, what value does it add? Also, frankly, associating Apple with fashion is now an empty statement. Who honestly disagrees that they care about fashion?

acomjean 10y ago

The macbook pro was a workhorse. Well built, lots of connectivity and useful for whatever life threw at it. A little bulky, Not sleek and elegant. Macbook air (and new macbook) are the sleek light and beautiful models. They're making the macbook pro more like the "air" and "macbook", pretty to look at but much less functional. People who like the OS are left with no where to get the machine they need and aren't happy. While usb c is the future, its going to be a long time before the usb a port goes away. The lack of ports usable without dongles significantly hurt functionality. sometimes its just the number of ports, for example: College intern with air bemoans the lack of ability to connect our fast wired internet and monitor at same time as one thunderbolt port. This kind of thing can't help but hurt your reputation. I use every port on my macbook rmbp except the sd card for bioinformatics job, (2 monitors [2 dongles], gig -ethernet[dongle], external drive, external keyboard and mouse). I could in theory get a dock, but its an unnecessary pain.

boulos 10y ago
I think the claim of people with newer monitors is that the hub is built in. So no need for a separate dock, just plug your keyboard and mouse into your monitors (I do this on my Dells today) and then when you "dock" your laptop you now get power, Ethernet, display and peripherals all attached to the thing that's actually fixed in place (the displays). Each of my Dell monitors has 2 or 3 USB ports (and today, I have to connect to them using a single USB to the laptop in addition to each display port connection). I think this new future won't be that bad, but it will require new displays.