4 ms·

I have a ton of mixed feelings on this one, but by no means do I think Apple was "Wrong". If apple was wrong, so is/was Google and Microsoft. Realistically th

I have a ton of mixed feelings on this one, but by no means do I think Apple was "Wrong". If apple was wrong, so is/was Google and Microsoft. Realistically there is no reason USB-C could not be what all 3 were pushing it to be, the standard port for most things. Especially with more and more being wireless. I know people constantly complain about dongles, but when I plug in my laptop to work work area I have a single plug and it connects 2 monitors, my keyboard and mouse, webcam, ethernet, etc. That is... really nice. But is also something I don't need when I am traveling. The only dongle I carry with me is my ethernet adapter and even then, I am most likely using wifi. That all being said, it think where this fell apart was a few things. The first being the transition period, that was always going to be painful. As a large industry of cheap products was carried kicking and screaming into the future while also needing to maintain support for older products. The second being... the USB-C "Standard" is a complete mess. Mixed with manufactures cutting corners all over the place on cables. Maybe it was too soon? Idk, ultimately the conversation would have never happened had these companies tried to push it but even with all of their backing. The industry did not follow this time. I wish it had, but I guess here we are... just as fragmented as we always were, if not more. TLDR, Apple was not wrong. The industry just did not follow as Apple (and others) were pushing for.

muro 5y ago
+1. It might have been annoying at the start, but I haven't had a problem with just USB-C in years. If anything, the new MacBooks seem backwards with SD slot and HDMI. If I get one, I imagine I'll use USB-C exclusively - I'll only carry an USB-C charger, as it charges my phone, kids' Nintendo Switch and iPad.
callamdelaney 5y ago
From a professional perspective they were wrong. Say you want to go through some slides with a new client but their meeting room doesn't support new-fangled USB-C video input? You're out of luck if you didn't bring some weird dongle. So from the perspective of ease of use, they were very wrong. The touch bar was stupid. Ridiculously dumb and completely useless. It got in the way, and removed functionality so I'd say they were wrong on that count too. The keyboard is now bad, so they were wrong on that too. I still have a mbp I bought in 2015 which is the 'old' design and it plugs into everything I need it to. I've been given a few of these new macbooks for work and frankly it was a horrible experience. They went from 'it just works' to 'it works if you have a dozen dongles'.
- nerdjon 5y ago
  While I am not denying that first issue exists, that first issue is resolved by the transition finishing. It is painful now but it would have fixed itself. Which again that transition would have never even started had the companies not tried to push it.
cactus2093 5y ago
People talk about the messy USB-C standard, but I think there's another related problem that has nothing to do with any specific issue in the standard. There's just an inevitable economic trade-off with having a port that supports 40gb/s that many users also want to use for multiple cheap peripherals that only need a couple of kb/s like a mouse or keyboard, or perhaps a cheap usb 1.1 thumb drive that only needs ~10mb/s. That's 7 orders of magnitude overkill (or 3.5 orders of magnitude for the thumb drive). I do think a potentially better trade-off for Apple would be to have like 8 usb-c ports instead of 4 where half of them are slower usb 3.0 (or even 2.1) usb-c ports, and come up with some easy to understand user convention of labeling high speed usb-c and low speed usb-c. For some reason where we've landed in the last few years (and not just from Apple but from other PC brands, from usb hubs, from multi-port power bricks, etc.) is that USB-C ports are almost always much faster than corresponding USB-A ports but there are always fewer ports available. AFAIK you still can't find a usb-c hub with more than like 3 ports on it. So it never became a drop-in replacement for USB-A for cheaper devices that don't need a lot of bandwidth, even though I believe the standard does allow for slower versions like usb 2.1 over usb-c.
dylan604 5y ago
It worked for Apple with: ADB -> USB, SCSI -> Firewire -> USB, No Floppy, No CD, etc. However, the device manufactures had bought in and rolled new connectivity with them. Remember hard drives that had eSATA, USB, Firewire all on one chasis? I do agree that the USB combined with Thunderbolt and the cabling differences were a problem and really pissed me off. It also doesn't help that a hub to do what you are doing with a single cable really should be thunderbolt and minimum costs >$200 to do it right. People were used to USB hubs costing $20. Horrible execution in every part of the transition.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  Don't forget removing the damn headphone jack. People are still ranting and raging about this and it was what, 5 years ago? I say, give it up: Apple's target market is the person who is constantly buying new stuff. If you have a lot of legacy peripherals (and yes, 3.5mm headphone jack is ancient--it was introduced around the same time as the old serial D-sub connector), you're bound to be frustrated with any new Apple product. I dumpster dive for most of my stuff, and I probably haven't bought a new computer or peripheral for close to a decade. If I were to suddenly get a brand new M1 Mac, I don't know if it would even work with half my stuff, my stuff's so old. My next computer build will almost certainly be a traditional tower-style PC running Linux. I can't keep up with the peripheral treadmill.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I'm one of those "you can have my headphone jack when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" as I clutch my 6S+. However...I did just break down and bought the newly released airpods. I've been using my phone on my bike, and the cord is just ridiculous for that use case. But I still have the options of plugging in my overear cans that never run out of battery power.
    - taylodl 5y ago
      The dongle you need to convert USB-C to 3.5mm audio is less than $10 on AWS. You could have used your cans without fear of running out of battery power.
karmakaze 5y ago
Hey don't worry, Apple has time to be wrong again and maybe this time around everyone will switch over to USB-C. EU is enforcing USB-C chargers for all phones so that should be taken care of. Next year could be the year of USB-C. Regardless, I still welcome all the ports. The 14" would probably look better thinner but the 16" is fine.

muro 5y ago

+1. It might have been annoying at the start, but I haven't had a problem with just USB-C in years. If anything, the new MacBooks seem backwards with SD slot and HDMI. If I get one, I imagine I'll use USB-C exclusively - I'll only carry an USB-C charger, as it charges my phone, kids' Nintendo Switch and iPad.

callamdelaney 5y ago

From a professional perspective they were wrong. Say you want to go through some slides with a new client but their meeting room doesn't support new-fangled USB-C video input? You're out of luck if you didn't bring some weird dongle. So from the perspective of ease of use, they were very wrong. The touch bar was stupid. Ridiculously dumb and completely useless. It got in the way, and removed functionality so I'd say they were wrong on that count too. The keyboard is now bad, so they were wrong on that too. I still have a mbp I bought in 2015 which is the 'old' design and it plugs into everything I need it to. I've been given a few of these new macbooks for work and frankly it was a horrible experience. They went from 'it just works' to 'it works if you have a dozen dongles'.

nerdjon 5y ago
While I am not denying that first issue exists, that first issue is resolved by the transition finishing. It is painful now but it would have fixed itself. Which again that transition would have never even started had the companies not tried to push it.

cactus2093 5y ago

People talk about the messy USB-C standard, but I think there's another related problem that has nothing to do with any specific issue in the standard. There's just an inevitable economic trade-off with having a port that supports 40gb/s that many users also want to use for multiple cheap peripherals that only need a couple of kb/s like a mouse or keyboard, or perhaps a cheap usb 1.1 thumb drive that only needs ~10mb/s. That's 7 orders of magnitude overkill (or 3.5 orders of magnitude for the thumb drive). I do think a potentially better trade-off for Apple would be to have like 8 usb-c ports instead of 4 where half of them are slower usb 3.0 (or even 2.1) usb-c ports, and come up with some easy to understand user convention of labeling high speed usb-c and low speed usb-c. For some reason where we've landed in the last few years (and not just from Apple but from other PC brands, from usb hubs, from multi-port power bricks, etc.) is that USB-C ports are almost always much faster than corresponding USB-A ports but there are always fewer ports available. AFAIK you still can't find a usb-c hub with more than like 3 ports on it. So it never became a drop-in replacement for USB-A for cheaper devices that don't need a lot of bandwidth, even though I believe the standard does allow for slower versions like usb 2.1 over usb-c.

dylan604 5y ago

It worked for Apple with: ADB -> USB, SCSI -> Firewire -> USB, No Floppy, No CD, etc. However, the device manufactures had bought in and rolled new connectivity with them. Remember hard drives that had eSATA, USB, Firewire all on one chasis? I do agree that the USB combined with Thunderbolt and the cabling differences were a problem and really pissed me off. It also doesn't help that a hub to do what you are doing with a single cable really should be thunderbolt and minimum costs >$200 to do it right. People were used to USB hubs costing $20. Horrible execution in every part of the transition.

ryandrake 5y ago
Don't forget removing the damn headphone jack. People are still ranting and raging about this and it was what, 5 years ago? I say, give it up: Apple's target market is the person who is constantly buying new stuff. If you have a lot of legacy peripherals (and yes, 3.5mm headphone jack is ancient--it was introduced around the same time as the old serial D-sub connector), you're bound to be frustrated with any new Apple product. I dumpster dive for most of my stuff, and I probably haven't bought a new computer or peripheral for close to a decade. If I were to suddenly get a brand new M1 Mac, I don't know if it would even work with half my stuff, my stuff's so old. My next computer build will almost certainly be a traditional tower-style PC running Linux. I can't keep up with the peripheral treadmill.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I'm one of those "you can have my headphone jack when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" as I clutch my 6S+. However...I did just break down and bought the newly released airpods. I've been using my phone on my bike, and the cord is just ridiculous for that use case. But I still have the options of plugging in my overear cans that never run out of battery power.
  - taylodl 5y ago
    The dongle you need to convert USB-C to 3.5mm audio is less than $10 on AWS. You could have used your cans without fear of running out of battery power.

karmakaze 5y ago

Hey don't worry, Apple has time to be wrong again and maybe this time around everyone will switch over to USB-C. EU is enforcing USB-C chargers for all phones so that should be taken care of. Next year could be the year of USB-C. Regardless, I still welcome all the ports. The 14" would probably look better thinner but the 16" is fine.