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>I think this proves that Apple was right to dump legacy ports. How it proves it? Those guys do not drop ports, they just make them modular. All the "saved sp

>I think this proves that Apple was right to dump legacy ports. How it proves it? Those guys do not drop ports, they just make them modular. All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. I still dream to meet the one who made such 'wise' decision to tell him what I think about it personally! >USB-C, and the correct cables, are all anyone needs. I am not sure you can know what anyone needs. For instance you do not know what I need. I wish you'll be around when I need to copy my files from the camera with idiotic dongle in the field when time is precious. I would love then to hear how sticking card directly into the slot without any headache is less comfortable than looking for some dongle in the bag while holding your camera equipment and then hanging dongle on it's wire because there is no table around to put your laptop on or put it somehow on your lap and try not to move to avoid it breaking during the transfer because then you'll have to start again transferring your important pictures. Then pray it will work because some times it will not when you need it most. Removing sd-card reader slot is example of the most idiotic design decision I can imagine. It is taking what works perfectly and destroying it for no reason at all. It is pure damage without any benefits taking size of it into account. It was done by people who never used laptop for transferring photos from the camera using sd-card. They never thought that while you transfer with the sd-card your other card is available to continue shooting in critical or unexpected situations. This is what makes the difference between making some shots and not! I would never understand this idiocy of removing sd-card slot to "save space". The whole point of laptop is to save YOU space and headache or space in your BAG! Not in the laptop itself by making it useless. Such a dumb decision to remove useful ports. Goodness.

randomchars 6y ago
> All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. Maybe that's the case for you, but that's far from universal. I have zero need for any adapters. At work, I can use usb-c to connect to my monitor, and if I need to present in a meeting room, I do it wirelessly. At home, I can use airplay to share my screen to my TV.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Your monitor which happens to have ports on it?
  - randomchars 6y ago
    It does, and well, they all sit empty and unused.
sleepybrett 6y ago
I'm down to exactly one adapter in my bag. One usb-c male to usb-a female stubby little guy. If I'm heading to someplace where I think I might need more than 1 usb-a port or a situation where I might need a bit of a usb hub I just pack this little 'dock dongle' that's about three inches long and an inch wide that has three usb-a ports (2x3.0 1x2.0), an hdmi port, a sd and tf card slot, an ethernet port, an audio jack, and a usb-c power input port... cost me all of 60$.
- lovelyviking 6y ago
  What you describe is exactly the headache I was mentioning and dreaming to avoid. I do not need part of the laptop separated from the laptop to have additional task to think when to take them together and when not to take them together. I do not want to search for this 'little guy' in the dark and be stuck without it when I forgot to take it because a lot of other things happening in the same time around or I lost it or somebody took it because he thought it belongs to him by mistake. Having the dongle headache or not in certain situations means missing shots or not. And I speak from experience of shooting intensively in addition to doing other things during 5-7 days in a arrow where you do not always have time to eat/sleep and surely no time to waste for this dongle BS.
  - treve 6y ago
    The issue with this thread is that it seems like an argument, but different people just have different sensibilities. Get the machine that suits _you_. Unless you want to run Apple OS because then you're not given choice.
    - funcDropShadow 6y ago
      > Get the machine that suits _you_. Unless you want to run Apple OS because then you're not given choice. And that is exactly the point. I used to be a very happy customer of multiple Macbook Pros over almost a decade. Currently, I am still using my 2015 Macbook Pro 15" with maxed out specs when not in my home office. But all the later models went downhill for my needs. The new Macbook Air M1 is the first model that I am thinking about buying. It is probably powerful enough to work on it, and I think I actually get some value back from the saved spaced due to dropped ports. Even the 2015" Macbook Pros with 15" are at a thickness were I simply see no point to remove even half a milli-meter of thickness. I would gladly use a thicker, heavier variant if it had multiple different ports including Ethernet. One problem that I had over the time with all Thunderbolt dongles was that the physical connection became unreliable over time. That is hassle I don't want to deal with.
yonaguska 6y ago
> All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. A good dock solves this- it's not mobile, but I find that I'm not really that productive when I'm travelling anyways. I only wish that docking solutions became standard offerings with the laptops that skimp on ports.
- lovelyviking 6y ago
  >A good dock solves this It doesn't solve it. Look at my use-case https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 >it's not mobile, but I find that I'm not really that productive when I'm travelling anyways. Laptop is for real mobile usage. In a way you have no need for it according to your description.
sgustard 6y ago
> All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires It's a reasonable tradeoff. Imagine your laptop with the power supply built in instead of as an external brick.
- recursive 6y ago
  You mean I could charge with any cable? How do I get it?
  - sjs382 6y ago
    For my M1, I thought I was in a pinch when I forgot my charger at work. I was fine, though—I just plugged in my 18W USB-C phone charger and used it while WFH.
    - imwillofficial 6y ago
      I hope iphones swap to USB-C soon for exactly this reason.
- lovelyviking 6y ago
  >It's a reasonable tradeoff. Saving 0.1% of space for micro-sd-card reader and having headache of dongle for every photo/video transfer? Doesn't appear reasonable at all. They have found space for micro-sd-card reader on raspberryPi Zero ... It's absurd not to have it even on the phone. Look at my use-case https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 > Imagine your laptop with the power supply built in instead of as an external brick. You know what? Great! One thing less to care separately . It would be bad thermal solution though. By the way the brick itself was coming with extension cord. Now it comes without it. Imagine during your travel squeezing it in some public place with bad socket to charge it when it doesn't fit well enough and could even fall and break and your life depend on your ability to charge it. Do it few times during few travels, then you will understand how "reasonable" was to even to remove the extended power cord from the brick. Many things appear 'reasonable' on the paper until you use them in real life.
sjs382 6y ago
> How it proves it? Those guys do not drop ports, they just make them modular. In the case of the framework laptop, most of the "modules" just seem to be USBC/Thunderbolt-to-X dongles that fit flush with the case.
- nine_k 6y ago
  This is very important. For those who use a laptop outside office desks, there is a lot of difference between flimsy setups with dongles hanging on wires, and the mechanically solid laptop case. Much easier to carry it around in one piece.
  - sjs382 6y ago
    If you need something more 'rigid', things like this exist: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/product/B07PCP5J4Z https://smile.amazon.com/dp/product/B07PCP5J4Z
tomtheelder 6y ago
I think the SD card example encapsulates the issue perfectly. I'm pretty sure that in 2021 that is an _extreme_ niche use case. I feel like only extremely serious photographers and perhaps a particular slice of musicians use them. It makes absolutely no sense for them to have that built into the laptop. 99% of people who own Macbooks or whatever don't own an SD card dongle because they don't need it. However, and extra USB-C port can be used for a multitude of things, including being an SD card reader if you have the dongle. It's completely logical. > The whole point of laptop is to save YOU space and headache or space in your BAG! It most certainly is not. The point of a laptop is to strike a balance between portability and usability. Requiring the extra like two cubic inches of space in your bag for a dongle is assuredly not a design concern.
- sib 6y ago
  And most "extremely serious photographers" today are probably using cameras for which SD cards are not the storage format (or at least the preferred format.)
  - Terretta 6y ago
    Exactly. And since we might carry more than one model of camera with dissimilar memory cards, the Mac could need 3 or 4 slots. That’s why the good pro photo USB-C adapters have 3 or 4 slots. Further, those readers seem to be made /just/ fast enough to read ahead of the current speeds, so when new speeds come out, you need a faster reader. That works fine if you have a USB 3.1 or USB 3.2 adapter, but not so great if the reader is built into a laptop with an otherwise much longer life.
  - lovelyviking 6y ago
    It Depends how you measure "extremely serious photographers". Starting from Nikon d610 you have descent quality on sd-card plus portability in the same time. I understand that you can't put all the ports in the world in the laptop and while CF Cards reader would also be useful for photography I think sd-card reader or even micro-sd-card reader gives a compromise for mobile solution that covers many needs. Lack of this sd-card reader gives additional headache and nothing more useful as I see it.
Eric_WVGG 6y ago
I'm not sure what you need "tons of adaptors and wires" for since you're only talking about SD cards, but to address that one example: what percentage of laptop users are professional photographers? One percent? A quarter? There are at least six fashion photographers in my apartment building and even I know they're a negligible slice of the population. Apple should not be designing their laptops around the needs of 1% of users. That's just dumb. They should be designing for most users, and they are. Which strategy makes more sense… 1. users who need SD card readers should carry around SD card readers 2. users who don't need SD card readers should carry around SD card readers I don't need an SD card reader! I'm glad Apple is using that space to make the laptop more portable with the most battery possible. The whole point of laptop is put as much power as possible into a device that is as portable as possible. The point of a bag is to carry around shit that YOU might need and the rest of us don't. Goodness.
- gowld 6y ago
  Why would I buy a laptop based on what you need, instead of what I need?
  - Eric_WVGG 6y ago
    That’s my point exactly, I don’t want to buy the laptop you need either. Since Apple can’t make models for all users, they design around the needs of most users. And practically nobody needs SD card readers.
- tstrimple 6y ago
  How far do we take this? What percentage of Macbook users use the tilde key? How many users open the terminal? What percentage of users use multiple desktops? The reason Excel remains the dominant spreadsheet software is because it has dozens of features that other spreadsheet applications don't have. Each one of those features is only used by a small portion of the user base but if you add up the users which use at least one of these features it starts representing a significant chunk of users. Each of those feature independently isn't worth implementing in competing platforms because "Google sheets should not be designing their app around the needs of 1% of users", but the culmination of all of those features add up to a platform Google Sheets just cannot compete with.
ogre_codes 6y ago
I must be doing something different from you. I have one adaptor on my desktop which lets me get display/ power/ USB A. It’s nice because it means removing the laptop means unplugging one thing. I don’t take any dongles with me. Or any adaptors. My laptop case is just a protective sleeve and sometimes I bring the power brick. It would be nice to have one USB-A port, and HDMI, but it’s not that big of a deal either.
- lovelyviking 6y ago
  >I must be doing something different from you. You do. From my perspective you are barely use laptop as laptop for any serious work on the go. Look at my use-case https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855

randomchars 6y ago

> All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. Maybe that's the case for you, but that's far from universal. I have zero need for any adapters. At work, I can use usb-c to connect to my monitor, and if I need to present in a meeting room, I do it wirelessly. At home, I can use airplay to share my screen to my TV.

saagarjha 6y ago
Your monitor which happens to have ports on it?
- randomchars 6y ago
  It does, and well, they all sit empty and unused.

sleepybrett 6y ago

I'm down to exactly one adapter in my bag. One usb-c male to usb-a female stubby little guy. If I'm heading to someplace where I think I might need more than 1 usb-a port or a situation where I might need a bit of a usb hub I just pack this little 'dock dongle' that's about three inches long and an inch wide that has three usb-a ports (2x3.0 1x2.0), an hdmi port, a sd and tf card slot, an ethernet port, an audio jack, and a usb-c power input port... cost me all of 60$.

lovelyviking 6y ago
What you describe is exactly the headache I was mentioning and dreaming to avoid. I do not need part of the laptop separated from the laptop to have additional task to think when to take them together and when not to take them together. I do not want to search for this 'little guy' in the dark and be stuck without it when I forgot to take it because a lot of other things happening in the same time around or I lost it or somebody took it because he thought it belongs to him by mistake. Having the dongle headache or not in certain situations means missing shots or not. And I speak from experience of shooting intensively in addition to doing other things during 5-7 days in a arrow where you do not always have time to eat/sleep and surely no time to waste for this dongle BS.
- treve 6y ago
  The issue with this thread is that it seems like an argument, but different people just have different sensibilities. Get the machine that suits _you_. Unless you want to run Apple OS because then you're not given choice.
  - funcDropShadow 6y ago
    > Get the machine that suits _you_. Unless you want to run Apple OS because then you're not given choice. And that is exactly the point. I used to be a very happy customer of multiple Macbook Pros over almost a decade. Currently, I am still using my 2015 Macbook Pro 15" with maxed out specs when not in my home office. But all the later models went downhill for my needs. The new Macbook Air M1 is the first model that I am thinking about buying. It is probably powerful enough to work on it, and I think I actually get some value back from the saved spaced due to dropped ports. Even the 2015" Macbook Pros with 15" are at a thickness were I simply see no point to remove even half a milli-meter of thickness. I would gladly use a thicker, heavier variant if it had multiple different ports including Ethernet. One problem that I had over the time with all Thunderbolt dongles was that the physical connection became unreliable over time. That is hassle I don't want to deal with.

yonaguska 6y ago

> All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. A good dock solves this- it's not mobile, but I find that I'm not really that productive when I'm travelling anyways. I only wish that docking solutions became standard offerings with the laptops that skimp on ports.

lovelyviking 6y ago
>A good dock solves this It doesn't solve it. Look at my use-case https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 >it's not mobile, but I find that I'm not really that productive when I'm travelling anyways. Laptop is for real mobile usage. In a way you have no need for it according to your description.

sgustard 6y ago

> All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires It's a reasonable tradeoff. Imagine your laptop with the power supply built in instead of as an external brick.

recursive 6y ago
You mean I could charge with any cable? How do I get it?
- sjs382 6y ago
  For my M1, I thought I was in a pinch when I forgot my charger at work. I was fine, though—I just plugged in my 18W USB-C phone charger and used it while WFH.
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    I hope iphones swap to USB-C soon for exactly this reason.
lovelyviking 6y ago
>It's a reasonable tradeoff. Saving 0.1% of space for micro-sd-card reader and having headache of dongle for every photo/video transfer? Doesn't appear reasonable at all. They have found space for micro-sd-card reader on raspberryPi Zero ... It's absurd not to have it even on the phone. Look at my use-case https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 > Imagine your laptop with the power supply built in instead of as an external brick. You know what? Great! One thing less to care separately . It would be bad thermal solution though. By the way the brick itself was coming with extension cord. Now it comes without it. Imagine during your travel squeezing it in some public place with bad socket to charge it when it doesn't fit well enough and could even fall and break and your life depend on your ability to charge it. Do it few times during few travels, then you will understand how "reasonable" was to even to remove the extended power cord from the brick. Many things appear 'reasonable' on the paper until you use them in real life.

sjs382 6y ago

> How it proves it? Those guys do not drop ports, they just make them modular. In the case of the framework laptop, most of the "modules" just seem to be USBC/Thunderbolt-to-X dongles that fit flush with the case.

nine_k 6y ago
This is very important. For those who use a laptop outside office desks, there is a lot of difference between flimsy setups with dongles hanging on wires, and the mechanically solid laptop case. Much easier to carry it around in one piece.
- sjs382 6y ago
  If you need something more 'rigid', things like this exist: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/product/B07PCP5J4Z https://smile.amazon.com/dp/product/B07PCP5J4Z

tomtheelder 6y ago

I think the SD card example encapsulates the issue perfectly. I'm pretty sure that in 2021 that is an _extreme_ niche use case. I feel like only extremely serious photographers and perhaps a particular slice of musicians use them. It makes absolutely no sense for them to have that built into the laptop. 99% of people who own Macbooks or whatever don't own an SD card dongle because they don't need it. However, and extra USB-C port can be used for a multitude of things, including being an SD card reader if you have the dongle. It's completely logical. > The whole point of laptop is to save YOU space and headache or space in your BAG! It most certainly is not. The point of a laptop is to strike a balance between portability and usability. Requiring the extra like two cubic inches of space in your bag for a dongle is assuredly not a design concern.

sib 6y ago
And most "extremely serious photographers" today are probably using cameras for which SD cards are not the storage format (or at least the preferred format.)
- Terretta 6y ago
  Exactly. And since we might carry more than one model of camera with dissimilar memory cards, the Mac could need 3 or 4 slots. That’s why the good pro photo USB-C adapters have 3 or 4 slots. Further, those readers seem to be made /just/ fast enough to read ahead of the current speeds, so when new speeds come out, you need a faster reader. That works fine if you have a USB 3.1 or USB 3.2 adapter, but not so great if the reader is built into a laptop with an otherwise much longer life.
- lovelyviking 6y ago
  It Depends how you measure "extremely serious photographers". Starting from Nikon d610 you have descent quality on sd-card plus portability in the same time. I understand that you can't put all the ports in the world in the laptop and while CF Cards reader would also be useful for photography I think sd-card reader or even micro-sd-card reader gives a compromise for mobile solution that covers many needs. Lack of this sd-card reader gives additional headache and nothing more useful as I see it.

Eric_WVGG 6y ago

I'm not sure what you need "tons of adaptors and wires" for since you're only talking about SD cards, but to address that one example: what percentage of laptop users are professional photographers? One percent? A quarter? There are at least six fashion photographers in my apartment building and even I know they're a negligible slice of the population. Apple should not be designing their laptops around the needs of 1% of users. That's just dumb. They should be designing for most users, and they are. Which strategy makes more sense… 1. users who need SD card readers should carry around SD card readers 2. users who don't need SD card readers should carry around SD card readers I don't need an SD card reader! I'm glad Apple is using that space to make the laptop more portable with the most battery possible. The whole point of laptop is put as much power as possible into a device that is as portable as possible. The point of a bag is to carry around shit that YOU might need and the rest of us don't. Goodness.

gowld 6y ago
Why would I buy a laptop based on what you need, instead of what I need?
- Eric_WVGG 6y ago
  That’s my point exactly, I don’t want to buy the laptop you need either. Since Apple can’t make models for all users, they design around the needs of most users. And practically nobody needs SD card readers.
tstrimple 6y ago
How far do we take this? What percentage of Macbook users use the tilde key? How many users open the terminal? What percentage of users use multiple desktops? The reason Excel remains the dominant spreadsheet software is because it has dozens of features that other spreadsheet applications don't have. Each one of those features is only used by a small portion of the user base but if you add up the users which use at least one of these features it starts representing a significant chunk of users. Each of those feature independently isn't worth implementing in competing platforms because "Google sheets should not be designing their app around the needs of 1% of users", but the culmination of all of those features add up to a platform Google Sheets just cannot compete with.

ogre_codes 6y ago

I must be doing something different from you. I have one adaptor on my desktop which lets me get display/ power/ USB A. It’s nice because it means removing the laptop means unplugging one thing. I don’t take any dongles with me. Or any adaptors. My laptop case is just a protective sleeve and sometimes I bring the power brick. It would be nice to have one USB-A port, and HDMI, but it’s not that big of a deal either.

lovelyviking 6y ago
>I must be doing something different from you. You do. From my perspective you are barely use laptop as laptop for any serious work on the go. Look at my use-case https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26271855