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It's hilarious to me that their own marketing image has two dongles plugged into the laptop so that the user can still use USB. Apple please for the love of us
by blhack 7y ago
It's hilarious to me that their own marketing image has two dongles plugged into the laptop so that the user can still use USB.
Apple please for the love of usability: please give me back USB. I AM the pro that you want to feature in every one of your marketing videos. I have a music studio in my house, I build interactive lighting installations for the biggest music festivals in the world, I build custom hardware controllers for fire effects that travel all over the country, I travel around the world teaching people how to build hardware devices, and when home I spend the majority of my time teaching and building software that people love; I use my laptop for over 10 hours a day.
All of this stuff uses USB. ALL OF IT. Having to carry around stupid dongles all the time is the biggest pain in my ass when I'm trying to do all of this stuff. PLEASE give me back USB, you can even call it the "stupid loser old crappy loser lame macbook for loser non pros". I don't care. This nonsense minimalist sleek design stuff is actually harming my productivity.
- rootusrootus 7y agoI take it you mean specifically USB-A? I can understand that, but I think I'd be satisfied if they would just put more than four USB-C ports on the thing. That should be the upside of a smaller USB connector, give me a dozen ports since dang near everything uses USB these days.
- alluro2 7y agoI think it is to be expected by Apple to remove 2 of those 4 in the next generation, or one afterwards. It's a logical (to them) step towards cable-free computing, which is great and all, but is the only way towards it forcing it through the customers?
- rgovostes 7y agoiPhones 8, X, XR, XS, 11 and 11 Pro have all supported wireless charging but retain the wired charging capability. I don’t think they are incredibly eager to eliminate ports if they don’t gain something from it (thinness, battery life, space for something else, or water resistance for example).
- simonklitj 7y agoWell, the refreshed 13-inch already only has two ports.
- saagarjha 7y agoAnd it replaced another model that had two Thunderbolt ports. The higher-end 13" MacBook Pros have four ports.
- __d 7y agoMy 2003 12" PowerBook had 2 x USB-A ports, 1 x FireWire 400 port, and 1 x mini-DVI port. My 2008 13" MacBook Aluminum Unibody had 2 x USB-A ports, and 1 x mini-DisplayPort. My 2014 15" MacBook Pro has 2 x USB-A, 2 x mini-DisplayPort-style Thunderbolt ports, and 1 x HDMI. If you want a massive amount of built-in ports, then a MBP has never been your go-to device ...
- beefalo 7y agoI think they are limited to 4 by available PCIe lanes since they are thunderbolt ports. It would a a confusing mess if they added more ports but only gave them USB 3.1 capability
- davrosthedalek 7y agoThey could switch them. It's unlikely that you need thunderbolt at 4 ports at the same time. On the other hand, 4 universally usable ports are already a lot. They might not cater for the long tail. Less than 4, and it's not only the tail you are cutting off.
- eugeniub 7y agoWhat type of ports are you using that require USB-A on the laptop end? Pretty much every port I know of has a USB-C cable for it, no dongle necessary. Since 2016 I've slowly gotten USB-C-to-Lightning, USB-C-to-micro USB, USB-C-to-HDMI cables, etc. I gave away most of my USB-A to friends.
- ericd 7y agoAlmost every mouse and keyboard released in the last 20 years?
- tw04 7y agoIf you need a hardwired mouse, keyboard, and power cable, presumably monitor as well - why aren't you just leaving those hard wired to a dock with a single usb-c connection to the laptop? If you're talking about using a keyboard and mouse while mobile, I have no idea why you'd be using wired instead of bluetooth...
- ericd 7y agoI can't stand lag, inconsistent connections, or changing batteries, and with the exception of Airpods, every interaction I've had with Bluetooth devices leads me to believe the whole category of hardware is generally one big dumpster fire. So instead I toss a basic $20 wired logitech mouse into my bag, and it performs flawlessly every time I pull it out.
- robbyking 7y agoIf you're just tossing it in your bag, why not keep one of these permanently attached to the the USB end? https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71jtrs-Na%2BL._SY355_.jpg https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71jtrs-Na%2... That's what I do with the cable I use with my ancient Garmin cycling GPS.
- ericd 7y ago
- ctdonath 7y agoI've observed that sentiment applied to innumerable interfaces for decades. Interfaces change. The change is painful, but moves us forward to better.
- GVIrish 7y agoInterfaces change, but making the switch too early makes it needlessly painful. I mean, how does it make sense that Apple's own iPhone and iPad don't plug directly into Macbooks without a dongle? I mean, why stop there? Apple could just go to zero ports and force everyone to use Wi-Fi peripherals. They could sell a wi-fi peripheral hub for backwards compatibility. Then they could get rid of the power port and use inductive charging. That would make for an insanely sleek machine, even if it were insanely painful to use.
- atonse 7y agoThey've moved to wireless where it makes sense, like with Audio and WiFi (for most). But in many other cases, due to latency issues and such (like displays), USB serves really well.
- ctdonath 7y agoDongle? Just use a USB-C/Lighting cable. Having the right cable has never been considered odd. And even that's optional. I never plug my iPhone into my MacBook, because everything syncs seamlessly via "the cloud"; only use Lightning cable for charging, and I'm looking forward to dumping even that when I upgrade to a Qi-enabled iPhone in a couple months. Yes, I look forward to "zero ports". The only need for cables at this point is high-power/high-bandwidth/high-security applications. Qi doesn't deliver 60 watts, and my employer overloaded the security so I have to use a Lightning/USB-C cable for debugging ... so I'm happy to have 4 tiny identical ports that do the job.
- wilg 7y ago> How does it make sense that Apple's own iPhone and iPad don't plug directly into Macbooks without a dongle? There is no real need to plug an iPhone or iPad into your MacBook though.
- pat2man 7y agoI can easily plug any USB device into my MacBook with a cable. I cannot however plug a firewire, thunderbolt or HDMI cable into a USB-A port. Yes I need to purchase different cables, but they are relatively cheap compared to something like a laptop docking station that I might need otherwise.
- schwartzworld 7y ago> I cannot however plug a firewire, thunderbolt or HDMI cable into a USB-A port. I tried to plug my firewire into my USB-C port and it didn't work. Help!
- pault 7y agoYou can run FireWire over usb-c form factor.
- a13n 7y agoI think the long game here is that USB will shift towards USB-C. Plenty of new Windows devices have USB-C ports, and it's only a matter of time until peripheral manufacturers transition over and the old USB ports become useless.
- alluro2 7y agoThe standard was adopted by IEC in 2016. How many years more do you reckon we should live "in the future" and use dongles because "one day we won't have to"?
- asciident 7y agoI'm already living this future. I've replaced my usb-a, micro-usb, mini-usb, and lightning products. It's wonderful for travel, decluttering, and not having to worry about dongles.
- alluro2 7y agoThat's pretty nice - but people who need to interface with a wide variety of devices in their line of work, or don't know upfront what the situation in the field will require don't have that luxury. So instead using a laptop with minimal 3 standard ports (USB-A, USB-C, HDMI), they have to carry dongles that get lost, bent, stop working etc...MBP is simply not a "pro" machine - it's a mainstream consumer machine that looks fancy on the desk instead of being functional. And that would be totally great if it was called "Macbook" and there was a "Macbook Pro", with ports, battery life, cooling, keyboard etc...
- GVIrish 7y agoThe long game may trend towards USB-C, but in the meantime Apple made the Macbook Pro less usable for people who want to do actual work. How is it better to have to manage a bag full of dongles when Apple easily could've included the ports that people frequently use like SD and USB-A? It was a bad decision 2 years ago when they introduced this generation of Macbook Pros, and it's still a bad decision.
- asciident 7y agoI'm the opposite so I guess our desires cancel each other out. I will never buy a laptop or any device that has USB-A on it. None of my devices use USB-A and it's a legacy port that is ugly and wastes space. Same with micro-usb, mini-usb, lightning, etc. I'm living a 1 port lifestyle and it's phenomenal for traveling, minimalism, and just not having to worry about having the right cable in the right place.
- Zanneth 7y agoSame here. I love using just one charger and cable for my laptop, tablet, game console, headphones, and more. I’ll never go back to USB-A.
- donkeyd 7y agoThings change, deal with it. I've swapped USB cables to USB-C cables. Only USB drives, which i rarely use anymore require an adapter. Meanwhile, I can use all 4 ports to: - Run a display - Charge my laptop - Charge a phone - Connect a drive I can even use a single port to both charge the laptop and run a screen with multiple USB devices attached to it. I now need to daisy chain converters to use my PS/2 mouse on my MacBook Pro though, so that's a bit of a hassle. Also, I can use the same charger and dongles for my work notebook, which is Windows based. I wish every new thing was USB-C, because I love it. (This is a copy of a previous comment, because I feel it is relevant again.)
- dmix 7y agoYou can also use one USB-C to both charge your Macbook and drive a powerful 4k monitor plus a few extra USB-A ports on the back of the monitor. Being able to come to work and plug in a single cord and have it drive my mechanical keyboard, headphone amp, monitor, and power is pretty amazing IMO.
- jedberg 7y agoBut that would still be possible if they added a USB-A to the laptop.
- schwartzworld 7y agoOP never heard of a USB hub
- jedberg 7y agoI’ve never seen a USB-C hub that works consistently.
- jkestner 7y agoLike the original iMac eliminating SCSI, DIN-8 serial and ADB for USB-A, the point of removing old ports is to ensure support for the new ones. Local pain, long term gain. (Uh, once they sort out the many flavors using the USB-C form factor.)
- pier25 7y agoEven Apple still sells keyboard and mice with an USB-A port for charging...
- monocularvision 7y agoWhich ones? The Magic Mouse and Keyboards have lightning ports on them.
- pier25 7y agoOn one end of the cable yes, the other end has a USB-A connector.
- codfrantic 7y agosame with their phones. If you know walk out of a mac store with a new laptop and a phone you can't charge the phone from the laptop...
- sukilot 7y agoApple decided that their laptops are not power supplies. Is that so wrong? I need a single portable computer because it's expensive and has my data. I don't need a single dedicated portable supply.
- turtlebits 7y agoThere's an easy and inexpensive solution if USB-A is such a big deal to you. Leave a USB-C to A adapter on all of your devices.
- codegladiator 7y agowhat is easy and inexpensive about that solution? that's easily the most inconvenient and expensive solution I have come across
- sukilot 7y agoAn adapter is $4 and is reusable when you trash the device or the cable breaks. How many devices do you have?
- ProZsolt 7y agoI'm the opposite. All of my stuff uses USB-C except my MBP. It seems finally I can upgrade that as well. I hate bringing my MBP charge whenever I travel.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bulldoa 7y agoThat sounds like a super cool job, may I ask how did you started?
- blhack 7y agoFind people doing cool stuff and keep showing up and offering to help until they let you. Basically my background is software (like everybody else here), but around 2009 or so that started bleeding into hardware via arduino/hackerspaces. And then that bled into doing some consulting work on large advertising installations (building motor control software for robots, building interfaces etc. Some of the stuff I've worked on has been for SXSW,comic con, and the super bowl). I got lucky in meeting some really cool people doing really cool stuff at burning man, and they eventually let me help on some lighting and fire effects control stuff. That group then eventually morphed into a group that is also building things for music festivals, and when custom stuff needed to get built for it, I was somebody who could help, and so I got to. As far as the travelling stuff: that was something a friend of mine was doing, but when she wasn't able to go on a trip, she connected me with her employer, which then led to more jobs etc. But yeah, basically show up and be nice to people. Offer to help a lot.
- Weebs 7y agoAny tips on finding hackerspaces, online or IRL? Particularly in regards to art installations. It's something that's been on my mind recently :)
- PascLeRasc 7y agoDo you have a blog or anything like that? I'd really love to read more about your work.
- coding123 7y agoOne nice thing about not having a billion ports that can all fail is that now most long term interface failures will happen on easily replaceable dongles. I guess the downside is that the port that connects all the dongles failing is probably really really bad. So you would have to hope that is at least beefed up.
- decebalus1 7y agoIf you listen closely, you'll probably hear my eyes rolling all the way from Seattle. I too connect a bunch of devices via USB to my laptop (minus the brag). The problem was that there were so many devices, I never had enough ports so I had to use a hub anyway. Then graduated to a docking station and carried my hub around with me in my electronics bag. So I just bought an USB-C hub (as the docking station already had USB-C). I stopped using flash drives years ago, I have USB-C YubiKeys now so as a proficient user of multiple devices, I really don't feel any pain because of this..
- TurkishPoptart 7y agoGreat, so I need to take on an extra ~$100 USD to use a flash drive. Brilliant.
- decebalus1 7y agofor peasants still using USB-A flash drives, yes (not if you buy USB-C flash drives). You will pay the peasant fee. My mac is sitting in a docking station with USB-peasant ports 70% of the time so that's that.. I also don't really do flash drives anymore because of this whole internet thing. Also, the laptop costs more than 2 grand. Is $100 too much for you?
- sukilot 7y ago$4 for an adapter.
- dublin 7y agoIf Apple cared about what its users thought about cables, they never would have replaced MagSafe with the wretched USB-C. Interestingly, if you want a MagSafe-like charger now, you have to buy a Surface...
- robbyking 7y ago> It's hilarious to me that their own marketing image has two dongles plugged into the laptop so that the user can still use USB. Where do you see that?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jonhohle 7y agoExcept for devices which have a hardwired cable, you can get USB-C to USB-whatever and nearly all, if not all, professional equipment I know of does not have hardwired cables. So in the worst case, you need to replace your cables and in the best case, you now have four direct ports, more than any portable Mac has had since the transition to USB-C. And for the cases where the connection must be USB-A adapters are small and reliable. If you haven't used a USB-C/Thunderbolt-3 notebook, being able to go from portable to charging, full size monitor, peripherals, external storage, etc. with one cable is a welcome change. Apple's commitment to supporting legacy ports (albeit through adapters) is pretty good, in my experience. As an anecdote, I needed to get some data off of an old Firewire 400 hard drive and linked Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2, Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire 800, Firewire 800 to 400 cable into the drive and it mounts like it would on a direct connection.
- fermenflo 7y agoNo, USB-C is a step in the right direction. It's superior in every way imaginable to USB. It can handle almost every type of transfer (data/power), its orientation-agnostic, it's slim, etc. I could list the pros for days. Having to deal with dongles for a couple years while the rest of the market catches up isn't a reason to push against the best port standard in decades.
- Epskampie 7y agoYeah, we’ve been saying that for what, four years now? Time to face facts. Usb-A isn’t going anywhere.
- Andrex 7y agoType-A has completely disappeared from my life and that of my family's. Micro-USB is still clinging on but those will fade out within the next 2-3 years. Additionally, four years is a laughably short period of time to measure Type-C's adoption, but even given that, I would love to see actual usage data for, say, American adults.
- Nition 7y ago> Type-A has completely disappeared from my life and that of my family's. I'm honestly surprised by this. I have eight different type A devices plugged into my PC right now[1] and I don't own a single type C device (and it's not that I've intentionally avoided it). As for the rest of my family, I don't think any of them have computers that'd even have a Type C port. Mine has just one, and it's brand new. [1] Keyboard, mouse, external audio interface, printer, scanner, iLok dongle, external HDD, flash drive. ---- Edit: Valid point made in the replies that 50% of these could have their cables replaced to do USB-C at one end. Cable could be replaced: External audio interface, printer, scanner, External HDD. Cable not replaceable: Keyboard, mouse, iLok dongle, flash drive.
- inopinatus 7y agoThose mostly aren't "type-A devices". The connector is not the protocol. Except for those physically integrated into a type-A connector, those are mostly USB-2/3 devices that generally ship by default with a cable that includes a type-A connector at one end and a type-B or mini/micro-B at the other. I too have an external audio interface, a printer, scanner, and external HDD, and they are all connected via USB cables that have a type-C connector at one end and the relevant B subtype at the other. These are now cheap and ubiquitous. My keyboard is lightning to USB-C, and my mouse is bluetooth. As for flash drives, I buy the double-ended ones these days. The adapters I still use are for an older U2F dongle that is physically integrated into a type-A connector, which is due for retirement later this year, and a Thunderbolt display. So the writing isn't just on the wall for USB Type-A connectors in my household, they're basically gone. As for what happens to all the cables with type-A connectors that shipped by default, those are in my travel kit for device charging off wall-warts or vehicles that often still have type-A sockets.
- stevewilhelm 7y agoI wanted to give a shout out for this USB C hub. Not associated with the manufacturer, I'm am just a happy customer. https://satechi.net/collections/usb-type-c/products/type-c-multi-port-adapter-with-ethernet-v2#detail-section https://satechi.net/collections/usb-type-c/products/type-c-m...
- Tepix 7y agoIt only has a single USB C port (like every other USB C "hub" out there right now).
- themeiguoren 7y agoAnd to be clear, that port is for charging-in only, not data.
- solidasparagus 7y agoUSB-C is great. Carrying around a dongle is not that hard IMO, but if you can't, just buy a bunch of these[1] and keep them attached to your USB cables all the time. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Syntech-Adapter-Thunderbolt-Compatible-MacBook/dp/B07CVX3516/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=usb+to+usb-c&qid=1573682472&sr=8-3 https://www.amazon.com/Syntech-Adapter-Thunderbolt-Compatibl...
- kpU8efre7r 7y agoThey don't care because you and people like you are obviously buying them.
- rbanffy 7y agoI would say you are not their target market - you have specific hardware needs a tiny fraction of the overall population have. It's been ages since I last used a parallel port to control external devices from a computer. When I do so, I use an $10 RPi-like board and its GPIO pins. I don't do hardware for a living, but I write software and this machine seems perfectly good for that. In fact, it's a bit of an overkill.
- bproven 7y agoYeah it sucks, BUT if they are not going to add it how about throwing a nice hub dongle in the box for free? Something that gives me card reader, a couple USB ports, ethernet, hdmi. that would take some of the sting out of it. Since you can buy a good one for $50 this is not a huge deal considering the premium price you pay already. Also while you are at it include the Apple Power Cable extension cable too. Crazy that is not included.
- iamaelephant 7y agoImagine if there were other computer manufacturers.
- BBDB9 7y ago> Apple please for the love of usability: please give me back USB OK Boomer. And can we get a dang PC Card slot? Maybe a 5.25 floppy drive? And DB9? And a parallel port? :cries in old:
- Tepix 7y agoI looked for the marketing image with the dongles but can't find it. Where did you see it?
- louwrentius 7y agoIf you buy a good usb-c docking station like the dell D6000 for your setup at home some pain will be alleviated
- sukilot 7y agoAt least the dongles are color-coordinated with the white polycarbonate MacBooks.