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I don't get the complaints over stuff like HDMI and SD slots getting dropped. When they're left out, people who need them have to carry around adapters. When th

I don't get the complaints over stuff like HDMI and SD slots getting dropped. When they're left out, people who need them have to carry around adapters. When they're included, people who _don't_ need them have to carry them around (in the form of less battery and a bigger laptop). Doesn’t it make sense to put the “burden” on folks who need this stuff? I don't want your HDMI. I don't want your SD slot. I don't even want your USB-A or audio-out. Why should my laptop be burdened with all this crap just because other people can’t manage dongles or a port replicator?

deleted 8y ago
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chapium 8y ago
For connectivity, device : cable : client is a simple solution. Adding a dongle to the mix is something else you might not have with you. Its something else that can break. It adds to desktop clutter. Honestly i can live without an sd card slot, but that was a nice differentiator for the laptop market. Its also arguably better than usb drives. Just tuck a disk in when you need it and dont worry about sticks hanging off the side of your laptop catching on things. Also many usb dongles are too wide, crowding other ports. Dongles just dont simplify things and are counter to the older product design focused on simplicity and requiring users to manage less of their computing. I use both windows and mac. Simplicity is on the decline in mac, but when you see the contrast in complexity your focus is better for a lot of tasks. The dark side of this is over simplicity which gets in the way of more detailed tasks. No downvotes, I enjoy different perspectives.
tannhaeuser 8y ago
Options are what a "Pro" line differentiates from a "base" or "premium" line: that there are models with and without SD card slot (most mid-tier Android phones have SDXC btw), and models with and without USB ports (higher-end Android have basically more ports than a MacBook "Pro" at this point). Same with display and RAM choices, and especially the touch bar. But Apple only produces shiny thin and thinner notebooks; nothing "Pro" about them.
- ovao 8y ago
  > higher-end Android have basically more ports than a MacBook "Pro" at this point The base model MacBook Pro has three ports; the higher-end model has five. Are there actually Android handsets with more than three ports, and if so...why?
  - tannhaeuser 8y ago
    S8/S9 has USB-C, MicroSDXC, Audio, and SIM
    - ovao 8y ago
      Didn't think about SIM, thanks. Seems unusual to consider a SIM slot as a port for the purpose of this discussion, but it's technically correct.
majormajor 8y ago
I don't need your ... gray case ... or whatever is supposed to be good about the new MBPs compared to the 2015 models. But I rather enjoy SD card slots for my cameras and multiple ports, so now I have a Dell. And based on sales numbers it seems like I'm not in a large group there. Which is fine, the Dell is great. But if I were Apple, I'd be doing a lot of research to find out how narrow is too narrow, when it comes to the bulk of their sales.
ecocentrik 8y ago
No downvote. You're argument for sparseness could be what's best for the most customers but a decline in sales, a law suit and numerous forum threads like this one over the last few years seems to indicate that its not.
danmg 8y ago
> I don't get the complaints over stuff like HDMI and SD slots getting dropped. Trying to connect to a projector is a fairly common use case, so is reading media cards from cameras and phones. Removing them makes them less portable, as they require lugging around a bunch of extra bits. It's basically going back to the 90s where you had to carry a bunch of random PCMCIA cards with you depending on what you wanted to do. What about the "burden" of watching someone scramble around for 5 minutes trying to figure out how to connect their computer to the projector because they don't seem to have the right series of dongles and cables, because their manufacture decided that less ports was a better aesthetic.
draw_down 8y ago
Right, a program I can delete instantly is “bloat”, but ports I don’t need and carry around with me are good.

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chapium 8y ago

For connectivity, device : cable : client is a simple solution. Adding a dongle to the mix is something else you might not have with you. Its something else that can break. It adds to desktop clutter. Honestly i can live without an sd card slot, but that was a nice differentiator for the laptop market. Its also arguably better than usb drives. Just tuck a disk in when you need it and dont worry about sticks hanging off the side of your laptop catching on things. Also many usb dongles are too wide, crowding other ports. Dongles just dont simplify things and are counter to the older product design focused on simplicity and requiring users to manage less of their computing. I use both windows and mac. Simplicity is on the decline in mac, but when you see the contrast in complexity your focus is better for a lot of tasks. The dark side of this is over simplicity which gets in the way of more detailed tasks. No downvotes, I enjoy different perspectives.

tannhaeuser 8y ago

Options are what a "Pro" line differentiates from a "base" or "premium" line: that there are models with and without SD card slot (most mid-tier Android phones have SDXC btw), and models with and without USB ports (higher-end Android have basically more ports than a MacBook "Pro" at this point). Same with display and RAM choices, and especially the touch bar. But Apple only produces shiny thin and thinner notebooks; nothing "Pro" about them.

ovao 8y ago
> higher-end Android have basically more ports than a MacBook "Pro" at this point The base model MacBook Pro has three ports; the higher-end model has five. Are there actually Android handsets with more than three ports, and if so...why?
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  S8/S9 has USB-C, MicroSDXC, Audio, and SIM
  - ovao 8y ago
    Didn't think about SIM, thanks. Seems unusual to consider a SIM slot as a port for the purpose of this discussion, but it's technically correct.

majormajor 8y ago

I don't need your ... gray case ... or whatever is supposed to be good about the new MBPs compared to the 2015 models. But I rather enjoy SD card slots for my cameras and multiple ports, so now I have a Dell. And based on sales numbers it seems like I'm not in a large group there. Which is fine, the Dell is great. But if I were Apple, I'd be doing a lot of research to find out how narrow is too narrow, when it comes to the bulk of their sales.

ecocentrik 8y ago

No downvote. You're argument for sparseness could be what's best for the most customers but a decline in sales, a law suit and numerous forum threads like this one over the last few years seems to indicate that its not.

danmg 8y ago

> I don't get the complaints over stuff like HDMI and SD slots getting dropped. Trying to connect to a projector is a fairly common use case, so is reading media cards from cameras and phones. Removing them makes them less portable, as they require lugging around a bunch of extra bits. It's basically going back to the 90s where you had to carry a bunch of random PCMCIA cards with you depending on what you wanted to do. What about the "burden" of watching someone scramble around for 5 minutes trying to figure out how to connect their computer to the projector because they don't seem to have the right series of dongles and cables, because their manufacture decided that less ports was a better aesthetic.

draw_down 8y ago

Right, a program I can delete instantly is “bloat”, but ports I don’t need and carry around with me are good.