8 ms·

I've had MacBooks since 2005, and I'm an amateur photographer. I really don't miss the ports or MagSafe at all. I actually like the USB charging better, as it a

by D13Fd 5y ago

I've had MacBooks since 2005, and I'm an amateur photographer. I really don't miss the ports or MagSafe at all. I actually like the USB charging better, as it allows you to connect the cord to either side, and it doesn't get accidentally knocked out if I use it on my lap. I've found that the cord being on other side is nearly as good as magsafe anyway, as it will be better positioned to pull out if it gets yanked. Yes, I did use the SD card reader from time to time, but most serious cameras use other cards (my older camera uses compact flash, and the newer one uses XQD). It makes no sense for Apple to integrate readers for those, and my XQD/CF readers also read SD cards, so the card reader is useless. All of my mobile peripherals at this point are USB-C, so I don't care about USB-A ports either. And when I'm at home, I use a dock, which has all of the ports I need. Honestly I'd much rather that they keep the laptops thin instead of adding ports I'm not going to use.

etrautmann 5y ago
The vast majority of cameras, even professional mirrorless or DSLRs, currently use SD cards now. Perhaps that's changing, but I would imagine there's sufficient utility to the SD card reader that many users would value that feature.
- D13Fd 5y ago
  That's not true for professional mirrorless/DSLRs, which on the high end often use other cards like CFast, XQD, or CF. And as mentioned, many readers for those cards also integrate SD readers. The vast majority of people these days just use their phones for cameras, and don't use point-and-shoots or other things with full-size SD cards. So really SD cards cater to just the mid-range camera market, where people use mirrorless/DSLRs but not high-end versions that often use faster cards. I don't think it's a good idea for Apple to make everyone's laptops bulkier so a small minority of people can avoid using a $17 adapter like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NW8RPYN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NW8RPYN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
  - ghaff 5y ago
    For a company that prunes as ruthlessly as Apple seems to, including an SD slot in this day and age seems like an odd choice. I'm even a photographer and I rarely use the SD card slot on my MacBook Pro and certainly wouldn't consider tossing a small/cheap adapter into my travel electronics kit a big deal.
- matwood 5y ago
  As someone else mentioned many of the higher end new cameras are moving XQD or something similar that is faster I presume to deal with video. With that said, I have cameras that use SD cards and don't see the need for an SD port. I have usbc adapters that are not much bigger than the SD card that I can use on my MBA or iPad. With LR, I can basically load my days pics on either device and have them available everywhere. I'm very skeptical they are adding back SD, so we'll see. I think MagSafe is going to be something like what came to the latest iPhone and not what people think of traditional MagSafe. Or maybe they'll add something to the usbc port that works like MagSafe if using an Apple cable.
moshmosh 5y ago
USB-C would have been a great replacement... for DisplayPort/Thunderbolt ports. It's finally, years later, getting merely not infuriating to be stuck with only USB-C ports. Single port for display + charging is very nice, when it works. That iPhones and most iPads still don't use it is annoying. Having two kinds of charging cable around, years after Apple went all-in on USB-C for laptops, sucks. [EDIT] two kinds of charging cable and still needing to buy & carry two kinds of adapters/dongles for everything. Ugh.
- D13Fd 5y ago
  I agree about iPhone and non-pro iPads. They should 100% be on USB-C at this point.
  - Kognito 5y ago
    Suspect at this point Apple doesn’t want to break compatibility with their Lightning ecosystem when wireless charging is probably going to be the future on iPhones. The most recent non-pro iPad does have USB-C and I expect whenever they get around to redesigning the lowest cost iPads they’ll also move to USB-C.
- olyjohn 5y ago
  Apple uses lightning on their wireless keyboards and mice for chargring... I mean, what the fuck! They even came with lightning to USB-A cables, which won't plug into any USB-C Mac. Also it didn't come with a power brick presumably "to save the environment." I literally had no way to charge them. Totally asinine.
  - Milner08 5y ago
    I am pretty sure they come with Lightning to USB-C now. At least the ones included with the new iMac do, and iPhones do so it would make sense for them all to.
BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
> and it doesn't get accidentally knocked out if I use it on my lap Man, my 2017 MacBook Pro's USB-C charging cable (the official one, not third party, and in pristine condition) constantly disconnects itself to the point where I'm basically traumatized from the annoyance of it now. It only provides power if it's ALL the way in, and the damned thing just pushes itself out half a millimeter and cuts power repeatedly. I really want to like the generic nature of USB-C charging, but proper magsafe with a strong magnet is just miles better (third party magnet adapters for USB-C both break the spec and also tend to have very weak magnets which can cause damage from sparking at the port).
- oezi 5y ago
  How about cleaning the connector?
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    There's nothing to clean. Everything is pristine. The problem has even persisted across replacement cables and a full top case replacement (the keyboard, of course) where Apple scrubs the whole thing down before they give it back. Maybe I should superstitiously blow on it like it's an NES cartridge. It won't help, but maybe I'll feel like I have some agency.
    - Moosdijk 5y ago
      Maybe bend the male usb out some.
      - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
        Haha yikes. I'm not saying that your idea wouldn't work, but I'm definitely not going to do it. :)
    - domano 5y ago
      Yes, but how about the _inside_ of the USB-C port? Sounds like the inside to me
playpause 5y ago
> I actually like the USB charging better, as it allows you to connect the cord to either side, and it doesn't get accidentally knocked out if I use it on my lap. I felt the same until my cat pulled my laptop off my desk by the cord. It landed on the corner with the USB plugged in, destroying the port on the laptop itself. Probably knocked a few hundred off the resale value. The little shit.
- x0x0 5y ago
  Magsafe saved my laptop from a dog who heard thunder just last week.
- D13Fd 5y ago
  Maybe the difference is that I'm not often using the laptop with the cord strung out around animals (not that there is anything wrong with doing that). For me, at home where I have a dog and several small children, the laptop is usually on the dock. The same is true at work. When on the go, I don't usually have the dog/small children.
- snowwrestler 5y ago
  Apple’s goal is to have every portable computer work like an iPhone: you charge it overnight, then unplug it and use it unwired for a full day. This is why the charging port on the mouse is on the bottom, for instance. They never quite got their Intel laptops there, though. (Especially running MS Teams, Slack, and Chrome!) It’s kind of funny that, now that they can make a laptop that really does last all day on one charge (according to tests of M1), they’re switching back to MagSafe.
  - medium_burrito 5y ago
    Unfortunately that doesn't work for those of us that need to run compute intensive tasks, like browsing the web, or compiling stuff, or running docker. There's this stupid dream that the computer needs to be light and fanless and thin and sexy. It doesn't need to do that. I'm happy if it doesn't melt while trying to run some software I need to do my job.
katbyte 5y ago
Each to their own but magsafe saves my laptop frequently, it’s nice to not have to worry about it being yanked off a table. I have a ton of usb a stuff that doesnt have a usb c counterpart, and likely never will. I tried to use a USB drive to move stuff between two computers and we ran into a “one is usb a only one is USB c only” problem
vmception 5y ago
XQD has never caught on and there hasn't been a camera released that uses them since 2018 Whats up with photo/video people gatekeeping “serious” vs functional Your point might have some merit but SD will hold out for the next 5-8 years that purchasers of this machine will expect
- drewzero1 5y ago
  Regardless of the potential merits of alternative storage formats, it's a good point that people who have needed an SD card reader since their removal have probably gone out and bought external ones by now. I'd expect the standalone units to generally be higher-quality than the ones that would be built in. That said, I'm glad to see Apple has finally realized some of the ways they've been alienating their customer base, and they appear to be walking back some of their most unpopular changes.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Apple has sold their dual GPU late 2015 powerhouse model on the website, allowing people to completely skip the USBC donglebook with butterfly keyboards and touch bar I’m looking forward to having that in the new processor and with touchbar They are acknowledging the folly of their ways as they have gotten rid of the butterfly keyboard, adding magsafe back, and adding sd cards back They are making the least contentious and perfect machine
    - drewzero1 5y ago
      > They are making the least contentious and perfect machine My "perfect machine" could also play DVDs, but that may be getting a bit contentious.
- D13Fd 5y ago
  I mentioned what I use, not what everyone uses (Nikon D850, XQD card). True, XQD has mostly been replaced by CFExpress. Regardless, the point remains that high-end cameras often use high-end memory cards that are not SD cards.
- 5y ago
melq 5y ago
As a musician with tons of peripherals, some of which are annoyingly sensitive and can't be used through hubs or anything but straight-through adapters (my turntable mixer's digital interface, for example), I welcome the return of the ports. Its not uncommon to have an audio interface, one or more midi controllers, the aforementioned mixer all connected for instance. And basically all of those things still use USB-B ports for whatever reason, and I never see USB-B to C cables ever.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Search "USB-C Printer Cable" and you'll find a number of results, i.e.: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=33457 https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=33457
- threeseed 5y ago
  > and I never see USB-B to C cables ever Have you heard of these obscure websites called Amazon or eBay. They have tens of thousands of cables in every configuration you need.
  - domano 5y ago
    It is very difficult to find some cables and adapters on amazon due to the bias towarda the most popular kinda of cables.
  - melq 5y ago
    The last time I searched amazon for usb-b to usb-c cables I genuinely couldn't find any. I bet I would have better luck searching for 'usb-c printer cable' as someone else pointed out, but I didn't think of that. Last time I needed a cable on short notice before a gig I had to settle for an adapter, and was really lucky that it worked. I've had other seemingly simple pin-to-pin adapters not work on me before. Next time I'm in a jam I'll run down to my local ebay though, thank you for this super helpful reply.
    - rumori 5y ago
      Just bought an USB-C to USB-B cable for my Macbook Air m1 and an iConnectivity midi interface and it didn't work. (Brand was Equip). Another cable from Delock to mini USB-A was fine though. Some of these cables seem to be only for charging so do some research. Best bet seems to be Apple adapter even tough I had them break every year or so.
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
My impression from these reports is that Apple is planning to differentiate their laptops more strongly than they have been: there will be ones that place "thin and light" as a priority, and ones that place "give me more I/O, dammit" as a priority. If you want a high-performing Mac laptop that's thin and light and you don't care abort ports (hi, this is me), you can already get an M1 Air that has the same performance as the M1 MBP (and this is exactly what I did). The M1 Air is good enough that you're not really losing anything other than the perceived cachet of putting "Pro" on the nameplate. (Well, you are also losing the Touch Bar, but one can argue that's actually a net gain.) From these reports, the next revision to the Air is going to get a bit of a redesign, colors, faster CPU, etc., but "Air" is still almost certainly going to mean the line that prioritizes being thin and light. You will still have a Mac laptop that gives you what you want. But people who do want more ports will, for the first time since Mac laptops went USB-C, also get what they want. (Or at least get closer to it.)
tinus_hn 5y ago
There’s SD cards for 99% of all hardware, and then there’s a ton of different standards for all these niches. Like CompactFlash, XQD is a dead format already. Apple isn’t going to add ports for that.

by D13Fd 5y ago

etrautmann 5y ago

The vast majority of cameras, even professional mirrorless or DSLRs, currently use SD cards now. Perhaps that's changing, but I would imagine there's sufficient utility to the SD card reader that many users would value that feature.

D13Fd 5y ago
That's not true for professional mirrorless/DSLRs, which on the high end often use other cards like CFast, XQD, or CF. And as mentioned, many readers for those cards also integrate SD readers. The vast majority of people these days just use their phones for cameras, and don't use point-and-shoots or other things with full-size SD cards. So really SD cards cater to just the mid-range camera market, where people use mirrorless/DSLRs but not high-end versions that often use faster cards. I don't think it's a good idea for Apple to make everyone's laptops bulkier so a small minority of people can avoid using a $17 adapter like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NW8RPYN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NW8RPYN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
- ghaff 5y ago
  For a company that prunes as ruthlessly as Apple seems to, including an SD slot in this day and age seems like an odd choice. I'm even a photographer and I rarely use the SD card slot on my MacBook Pro and certainly wouldn't consider tossing a small/cheap adapter into my travel electronics kit a big deal.
matwood 5y ago
As someone else mentioned many of the higher end new cameras are moving XQD or something similar that is faster I presume to deal with video. With that said, I have cameras that use SD cards and don't see the need for an SD port. I have usbc adapters that are not much bigger than the SD card that I can use on my MBA or iPad. With LR, I can basically load my days pics on either device and have them available everywhere. I'm very skeptical they are adding back SD, so we'll see. I think MagSafe is going to be something like what came to the latest iPhone and not what people think of traditional MagSafe. Or maybe they'll add something to the usbc port that works like MagSafe if using an Apple cable.

moshmosh 5y ago

USB-C would have been a great replacement... for DisplayPort/Thunderbolt ports. It's finally, years later, getting merely not infuriating to be stuck with only USB-C ports. Single port for display + charging is very nice, when it works. That iPhones and most iPads still don't use it is annoying. Having two kinds of charging cable around, years after Apple went all-in on USB-C for laptops, sucks. [EDIT] two kinds of charging cable and still needing to buy & carry two kinds of adapters/dongles for everything. Ugh.

D13Fd 5y ago
I agree about iPhone and non-pro iPads. They should 100% be on USB-C at this point.
- Kognito 5y ago
  Suspect at this point Apple doesn’t want to break compatibility with their Lightning ecosystem when wireless charging is probably going to be the future on iPhones. The most recent non-pro iPad does have USB-C and I expect whenever they get around to redesigning the lowest cost iPads they’ll also move to USB-C.
olyjohn 5y ago
Apple uses lightning on their wireless keyboards and mice for chargring... I mean, what the fuck! They even came with lightning to USB-A cables, which won't plug into any USB-C Mac. Also it didn't come with a power brick presumably "to save the environment." I literally had no way to charge them. Totally asinine.
- Milner08 5y ago
  I am pretty sure they come with Lightning to USB-C now. At least the ones included with the new iMac do, and iPhones do so it would make sense for them all to.

BugsJustFindMe 5y ago

> and it doesn't get accidentally knocked out if I use it on my lap Man, my 2017 MacBook Pro's USB-C charging cable (the official one, not third party, and in pristine condition) constantly disconnects itself to the point where I'm basically traumatized from the annoyance of it now. It only provides power if it's ALL the way in, and the damned thing just pushes itself out half a millimeter and cuts power repeatedly. I really want to like the generic nature of USB-C charging, but proper magsafe with a strong magnet is just miles better (third party magnet adapters for USB-C both break the spec and also tend to have very weak magnets which can cause damage from sparking at the port).

oezi 5y ago
How about cleaning the connector?
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  There's nothing to clean. Everything is pristine. The problem has even persisted across replacement cables and a full top case replacement (the keyboard, of course) where Apple scrubs the whole thing down before they give it back. Maybe I should superstitiously blow on it like it's an NES cartridge. It won't help, but maybe I'll feel like I have some agency.
  - Moosdijk 5y ago
    Maybe bend the male usb out some.
    - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
      Haha yikes. I'm not saying that your idea wouldn't work, but I'm definitely not going to do it. :)
  - domano 5y ago
    Yes, but how about the _inside_ of the USB-C port? Sounds like the inside to me

playpause 5y ago

> I actually like the USB charging better, as it allows you to connect the cord to either side, and it doesn't get accidentally knocked out if I use it on my lap. I felt the same until my cat pulled my laptop off my desk by the cord. It landed on the corner with the USB plugged in, destroying the port on the laptop itself. Probably knocked a few hundred off the resale value. The little shit.

x0x0 5y ago
Magsafe saved my laptop from a dog who heard thunder just last week.
D13Fd 5y ago
Maybe the difference is that I'm not often using the laptop with the cord strung out around animals (not that there is anything wrong with doing that). For me, at home where I have a dog and several small children, the laptop is usually on the dock. The same is true at work. When on the go, I don't usually have the dog/small children.
snowwrestler 5y ago
Apple’s goal is to have every portable computer work like an iPhone: you charge it overnight, then unplug it and use it unwired for a full day. This is why the charging port on the mouse is on the bottom, for instance. They never quite got their Intel laptops there, though. (Especially running MS Teams, Slack, and Chrome!) It’s kind of funny that, now that they can make a laptop that really does last all day on one charge (according to tests of M1), they’re switching back to MagSafe.
- medium_burrito 5y ago
  Unfortunately that doesn't work for those of us that need to run compute intensive tasks, like browsing the web, or compiling stuff, or running docker. There's this stupid dream that the computer needs to be light and fanless and thin and sexy. It doesn't need to do that. I'm happy if it doesn't melt while trying to run some software I need to do my job.

katbyte 5y ago

Each to their own but magsafe saves my laptop frequently, it’s nice to not have to worry about it being yanked off a table. I have a ton of usb a stuff that doesnt have a usb c counterpart, and likely never will. I tried to use a USB drive to move stuff between two computers and we ran into a “one is usb a only one is USB c only” problem

vmception 5y ago

XQD has never caught on and there hasn't been a camera released that uses them since 2018 Whats up with photo/video people gatekeeping “serious” vs functional Your point might have some merit but SD will hold out for the next 5-8 years that purchasers of this machine will expect

drewzero1 5y ago
Regardless of the potential merits of alternative storage formats, it's a good point that people who have needed an SD card reader since their removal have probably gone out and bought external ones by now. I'd expect the standalone units to generally be higher-quality than the ones that would be built in. That said, I'm glad to see Apple has finally realized some of the ways they've been alienating their customer base, and they appear to be walking back some of their most unpopular changes.
- vmception 5y ago
  Apple has sold their dual GPU late 2015 powerhouse model on the website, allowing people to completely skip the USBC donglebook with butterfly keyboards and touch bar I’m looking forward to having that in the new processor and with touchbar They are acknowledging the folly of their ways as they have gotten rid of the butterfly keyboard, adding magsafe back, and adding sd cards back They are making the least contentious and perfect machine
  - drewzero1 5y ago
    > They are making the least contentious and perfect machine My "perfect machine" could also play DVDs, but that may be getting a bit contentious.
D13Fd 5y ago
I mentioned what I use, not what everyone uses (Nikon D850, XQD card). True, XQD has mostly been replaced by CFExpress. Regardless, the point remains that high-end cameras often use high-end memory cards that are not SD cards.
5y ago

melq 5y ago

As a musician with tons of peripherals, some of which are annoyingly sensitive and can't be used through hubs or anything but straight-through adapters (my turntable mixer's digital interface, for example), I welcome the return of the ports. Its not uncommon to have an audio interface, one or more midi controllers, the aforementioned mixer all connected for instance. And basically all of those things still use USB-B ports for whatever reason, and I never see USB-B to C cables ever.

kube-system 5y ago
Search "USB-C Printer Cable" and you'll find a number of results, i.e.: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=33457 https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=33457
threeseed 5y ago
> and I never see USB-B to C cables ever Have you heard of these obscure websites called Amazon or eBay. They have tens of thousands of cables in every configuration you need.
- domano 5y ago
  It is very difficult to find some cables and adapters on amazon due to the bias towarda the most popular kinda of cables.
- melq 5y ago
  The last time I searched amazon for usb-b to usb-c cables I genuinely couldn't find any. I bet I would have better luck searching for 'usb-c printer cable' as someone else pointed out, but I didn't think of that. Last time I needed a cable on short notice before a gig I had to settle for an adapter, and was really lucky that it worked. I've had other seemingly simple pin-to-pin adapters not work on me before. Next time I'm in a jam I'll run down to my local ebay though, thank you for this super helpful reply.
  - rumori 5y ago
    Just bought an USB-C to USB-B cable for my Macbook Air m1 and an iConnectivity midi interface and it didn't work. (Brand was Equip). Another cable from Delock to mini USB-A was fine though. Some of these cables seem to be only for charging so do some research. Best bet seems to be Apple adapter even tough I had them break every year or so.

chipotle_coyote 5y ago

My impression from these reports is that Apple is planning to differentiate their laptops more strongly than they have been: there will be ones that place "thin and light" as a priority, and ones that place "give me more I/O, dammit" as a priority. If you want a high-performing Mac laptop that's thin and light and you don't care abort ports (hi, this is me), you can already get an M1 Air that has the same performance as the M1 MBP (and this is exactly what I did). The M1 Air is good enough that you're not really losing anything other than the perceived cachet of putting "Pro" on the nameplate. (Well, you are also losing the Touch Bar, but one can argue that's actually a net gain.) From these reports, the next revision to the Air is going to get a bit of a redesign, colors, faster CPU, etc., but "Air" is still almost certainly going to mean the line that prioritizes being thin and light. You will still have a Mac laptop that gives you what you want. But people who do want more ports will, for the first time since Mac laptops went USB-C, also get what they want. (Or at least get closer to it.)

tinus_hn 5y ago

There’s SD cards for 99% of all hardware, and then there’s a ton of different standards for all these niches. Like CompactFlash, XQD is a dead format already. Apple isn’t going to add ports for that.