Slashdot Mirror
Apple's New MacBook Pro Requires a $25 Dongle To Charge Your iOS Device (networkworld.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Network World: As Phil Schiller explained during today's event, Apple's new MacBook Pros feature four Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C ports, and conveniently, each of these can be used to charge the machine. Now, USB-C is incredibly versatile, and Apple will use the advanced port for power charging, HDMI and much more. However, with USB-C the only game in town, you might reasonably be wondering: How in the world do I connect my iPhone to my sleek new MacBook Pro? The frustrating answer is that you won't be able to do so out of the box. Instead, you'll have to buy a dongle. This is especially frustrating because many people use their notebooks for a) charging purposes when an outlet isn't necessarily handy and b) for transferring photos and other data. Now, you might reasonably state that you can just rely upon the cloud for items like data transfer, but there's no getting around the fact that Apple's efforts in the cloud still leave much to be desired. How much will it cost to connect your iPhone to your brand new MacBook Pro? Well, Apple sells a USB-C to Lightning cable on its website for $25. While this is undoubtedly frustrating, we can't say that it's entirely unexpected given Apple gave us a preview of its preference for USB-C when it released its 12-in. MacBook last year. Still, it's a funky design choice for a decidedly Pro-oriented device where the last thing a prospective consumer would want to do is spend some extra cash for a dongle after spending upwards of $2,399. Lastly, while we're on the topic of ports, it's worth noting that the new MacBook Pros also do away with the beloved MagSafe connector.
That would negatively impact Apple's business model. Accessories sold by a company like Apple are typically much more profitable than the devices themselves.
https://griffintechnology.com/...
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
You must keep calling it that until they no longer exist or are no longer needed. They are horrible, and the name for them should be just as horrible or embarrassing as possible.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I wonder if it's really luck.
Friend of mine noticed a odd pattern at his business - the only MBPs that had regular issues with the magsafe cables were sitting on desks that got direct sunlight, plenty others were still on their original adapters after 3 years.
Makes me suspect that whatever polymer Apple is using for the insulation on those cables is not exactly UV stable...
Back on the old Burroughs mainframes, the unexpected termination of a child process could terminate the parent process. The error message was "Program abort: death of a child".
I remember some gal totally freaking out over that. It may have hit a nerve.
-- Alastair
Money is an issue. One of the reason Apple does so well for itself is because it's constantly screwing its customers over and over again and they love it. Other companies would make their devices compatible as a selling point, Apple makes them incompatible to sell more cheap things at huge markups. And because their items are priced so high already, what's wrong with paying a little bit more? If the phone was a cheap $80 people would be screaming about needing to buy a $25 wire. But since you're already being screwed out of $2,500 then it must be ok to come back for seconds.
I don't understand the goodwill towards Apple. They are one of the most morally corrupt businesses in the computing industry.