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Design For the Present (marco.org)
Technology critic Marco Arment, who co-hosts an Apple-centric podcast called ATP with John Siracusa and Casey Liss, has shared his take on the design of the recently launched MacBook Pro models. Apple's decision to get rid of USB Type-A ports has irked many, with some saying that the company should have left at least a few USB Type-A ports on the computer, even if what it strives to do is lead the industry in how a computer should look like. Arment shares the sentiment. From a blog post: The new MacBook Pro is probably great, and most of the initial skepticism probably won't age well. But I want to pick on one aspect today. Having four USB-C ports is awesome. Having only four USB-C ports is going to hurt the versatility requirement of pro gear, because there's a very real chance that you won't have the right dongle when you need it. This is going to happen a lot, because even though USB-C is the future, it's definitely not the present. We've had the standard USB plug (USB-A) in widespread use for 18 years, and it's going to take a few more years for USB-C to become so ubiquitous that we can get away without USB-A ports most of the time. A pro laptop released today should definitely have USB-C ports -- mostly USB-C ports, even -- but it should also have at least one USB-A port. Including a port that's still in extremely widespread use isn't an admission of failure or holding onto the past -- it's making a pragmatic tradeoff for customers' real-world needs. I worry when Apple falls on the wrong side of decisions like that, because it's putting form (and profitability) over function."Design for the future, but accommodate the reality of the present," he adds.
The new MacBook Pro is probably great, and most of the initial skepticism probably won't age well.
did you forget it requires an adapter to connect an iphone? apple products arent even technologically compatible with themselves at this point, and its not just the iterative and malicious redesign of 6 generations of power cord were talking about here. no one thought this out.
Having four USB-C ports is awesome.
unless you've real work to do. the future is swell until i need to transfer files to a dead server in the datacenter at 4 AM. Apple themselves hire Linux admins with proficiency in ubuntu. How do we expect to issue this kit to the world that hasnt embraced "bravery" and thrown away every still entirely functional USB device they own?
it's going to take a few more years for USB-C to become so ubiquitous that we can get away without USB-A ports most of the time.
can you commit to an idea? either the USB C format is the harbinger of a new dawn for mankind or we must show cautious optimism and restraint. Steve Jobs could get away with this sort of weasel wording because he stood on stage and appeared like a grand wizard but not you. the truth is apple delt a killing blow to their laptop market with the USB C idea, the AMOLED bar, removing the escape key, and whatever paint-fume induced psychosis goes on in the development labs these days.
Including a port that's still in extremely widespread use isn't an admission of failure or holding onto the past
but you just implied it was, asshole.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I'm still angry I can't connect my dot matrix line printer using a parallel port so I can print off all the ascii art I have stored on my floppies.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The Macbook Pro is targeting the luxury consumer, the same people who waste thousands of dollars on a useless diamond ring.
Take music production for example. Professional grade sample libraries whose goal is to allow someone the full width and breadth of an orchestra, can be over 100gb in size for samples. RAM is still faster than SSD, as such if you're going to have hundreds if not thousands of audio samples playing simultaneously with the least amount of latency possible, then loading as much as you can into RAM is what you want. Since Apple is saying "16gb is enough for everyone", they clearly are not targeting studio professionals who understandably want as much RAM as they can get.
But this isn't a surprise. You simply have to look at their iphones and ipads to see the ridiculous limits that are put in place. Go try uploading a RAW image from your camera to your FTP site or even as an email attachment using an iPad and the SD Card dongle and you'll be sorely disappointed.
People chose Apple over anything else for the same reason they chose say, Nike over New Balance. Not for quality, for the brand. Apple knows this, and they rightfully try to milk every last cent out of these people who think brand names and logos are the most important feature of any given product.
Half inch thick core i7 Macbook weighing 1.5 lbs-- $3000
Baggie full of adapters --- Priceless
What do you mean? That have a wonderful market in dongles! It is not like anyone uses a thumb drive to transfer files between Mac and PC. (Not with the poor speed of exFAT anyway!)
Apple has always taken the role of change agent. If you don't forcefully abandon the past, it drags on. You end up supporting legacy requirements forever.
They've always taken that approach (remember abandoning floppies on the iMac, and what a hoo-ha there was over that?). It's painful at the start, but it acts as an impetuous for change in the market. A year from now you'll see PC's with only USB-C ports, and you'll see a proliferation of USB-C devices... starting with USB-C to USB-A converters.
It's painful, but it drives progress. Apple is "brave" enough to take the risk of impact to their bottom line to lead that change.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I keep reading everywhere about how many dongles and accessories you're going to need and not have when in reality it is only one. One single USB-A hub with a USB-C connector. They're cheap, come in pretty small and low profiles, and can come with various additions such as gigabit ethernet, audio, and USB-C charging (as in you can plug your charger into the hub and the hub into the macbook for the ports + charging at the same time) built right in. So why is every article I read exaggerating this so much? What am I missing?
2 or 4 ports with one being needed for power is to low. At least have a power in port. and maybe at least 1 USB-A port.
Just wait for desktops to drop e-net and only have 4 usb-c ports. So after 2 $30 USB-C to A dongles and $30 USB-C to E-net one you only have one left that you need to use for power.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
When everything is USC-C then this whole argument about having the right dongle inverts. Right now I have storage bins filled with various saved cables converting between all different USB plugs, DVI, HDMI, VGAWall warts with all different diameter plugs, firewire, thunderbolt... I'm sure I have over 100 cables to cover all the possible ports on the vavious machines in my office.
Standardizing on one port for the next 5 to ten years is going to be a joy. I'll gladly carry dongles for he various peripheral connectors I target if I can at least standardized one end of them to USB-C. It's the interconversions that turn a few into many by creating a product space.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Has been for 5 years now, no? The legacy is not being carried on well.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I believe the reason Apple included only USB-C ports vs a mix of USB-C/A was out of a design aesthetic consistency. The only time they violate this is when it's the path of least resistance, like how not all of the ports on the newest MacBook Pro are full speed; Apple had to release a separate tech document to describe which ports aren't performance crippled. In other words, Apple likes to design things that they think are beautiful but are very lazy and cheap when it comes to engineering.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame
I was going to mod you up for that, but:
./'s salad days alive
1. that joke's old enough to get it's learner's permit
2. hence, you should provide a link, since some posters won't be properly imbued in troll lore
3. CmdrTaco's loooonnng gone, so we don't get the added satisfaction kicking him again when we beat that dead horse some more.
but hey, kudos on keeping the memory of
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
For everyone in froth mode, google the following: SCSI, USB, Optical Drive, BlueTooth Keyboard, Firewire, Ethernet, Mouse, Graphical Interface, etc. etc. From the arguments that function keys are better for word processing because a mouse take a hand off the keyboard, to where's the PS/2 port since no one sells USB keyboards, Apple has ALWAYS been the first (big player) to adopt new technology. And people ALWAYS spend a year complaining, until Dell etc. follow suit and becomes common place.
So rage away, but look back in a year and see if it was really worth it.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Anyone with a clue knows they removed the headphone jack because PoS services such as Square Reader were in direct competition with Apple Pay and Square relied heavily on the jack. Courage is nothing but marketing bullshit.
I used to work with someone who described USB-A as a "4 dimensional device" - often you can be unable to insert it, flip it over, still be unable to insert it, flip it over again, and then succeed.
#DeleteChrome
Many of us in the media world were die-hard supporters of Apple through their leanest years, and didn't mind paying full-price for their expensive machines because these were necessary tools for the digital creative arts (music, photo retouching, artwork, and so on). These people haven't disappeared today, it may be small but it arguably also is a very stable market.
...food for thought.
Obviously, times have changed and their allegiances lie with the mainstream consumer market. And given the obligations of good-old "fiduciary duty to stockholders", all professional users as a group are being thanked for their undying support by been dumped unceremoniously as un-necessary baggage they probably don't even want to remember anything about.
Now please do not confuse this post for yet another garden-variety rant about how "they've abandoned us". Rather, it should be obvious that there well may be a splendid opportunity here for smaller, more nimble hardware manufacturers to address this situation and take advantage of this void Apple has left behind by making a whole line of professional desktop and laptop systems squarely aimed at this market, with the possibility of their components being so well matched and compatible to Cupertino requirements that these machines could easily run under OS-X as Hackintosh rather than merely the plain vanilla Windows OS they would ship with. Legally speaking, there is nothing that can be done against building PCs that use similar enough compatible components, even if they're one generation behind it probably would still be good enough to satisfy most everyone. Let Apple have all of the fancy gadgets like touch-bar, which obviously isn't the sort of thing pro users need yet. (It may be once software out there can take advantage of these features, but that's years down the road)
There probably is a reasonably massive market out there for people willing to pay for Pro hardware that would be exactly compatible with Apple software, even if installing it is something they have to do themselves because the legality of it might otherwise be a bit fuzzy; and obviously Apple couldn't be arsed to license their OS to someone willing to do what they can't fathom doing themselves.
There's gotta be a way for someone out there to manufacture and sell the products Apple refuses to make and meet this demand
Apple has always been slightly ahead of the game, in part because their products sometimes have a long life between refreshes. The assumption is normally that the old ports will go away quickly.
Unfortunately, USB is a little different, mainly because of the prevalence of thumb drives, for which an adapter is somewhat impractical because it is as big as the device you're plugging in, because people carry them in their pockets, because recent thumb drives last for years before you replace them, and because you don't always plug them into your computer (which greatly raises the risk of the thumb drive's owner not owning an adapter, much less having it with him/her).
The new MacBook Pro added some very consumer-centric features while removing lots of pro-centric features under the theory that wireless will somehow replace those features. I don't think Apple has really taken the time to understand just how slow wireless is in practice. In the absence of an 802.11ac infrastructure base station, the maximum speed two devices can communicate with each other is 802.11g speeds, or about 54 Mb/s. A 5D Mark IV RAW file can be ~60 MB. So it takes ~9 seconds to transfer a single photo. UHS-I can potentially read at ~100 megabytes per second, so it takes 0.6 seconds to transfer a photo. Transferring a batch of photos (say 500 photos for a day of light shooting) takes an hour and 15 minutes over Wi-Fi (long enough to run your camera battery down completely). Transferring the same photos via SD takes five minutes and doesn't run down your battery at all. And it is much easier to shove an SD card into the side of your machine than to keep your camera tethered by USB and using it to transfer photos and takes up less space in your bag than a separate flash card reader or a USB cable.
And then there's HDMI. Apple has always removed ports designed for computer video when newer ports come out, under the assumption that old monitors will get replaced with newer monitors with the new ports. The problem comes when TV is factored in. HDMI is a shared standard used by television sets, Blu-Ray players, etc. None of that gear will benefit from newer standards, and worse, has a much longer service life (decades) than computer monitors. Hotel room TVs will likely have HDMI ports in twenty years. So basically by removing the port, Apple is saying that they don't think most users need to connect their computer to anything except in their homes. Worse, most users who are impacted by this won't even know that they're going to be impacted. If connecting their computer to a TV is something you do every day, you'll have the adapter. Most people who are affected, however, are folks who suddenly decide to stay in the hotel and watch something on Netflix. Those folks won't even own the adapter, much less have it with them. And when they realize that they have to drive three hours to an Apple store to get a special adapter, it will sour their perception of Apple's product line.
These sorts of decisions aren't the sorts of bad decisions that kill a product line in the short term. They don't impact product sales for that model. They're the sorts of bad decisions that insidiously diminish users' expectations, leading them to question future product purchases. Unfortunately, the MBAs won't be able to connect cause and effect, which means they'll keep making the same sorts of mistakes.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Jobs and now Tim Cook are just "queer eye for the queer guy" marketers with no unique features in their devices whatsoever.
You mean except for all the software which you cannot get from anyone but Apple.
This is what people don't seem to get about Apple. Apple is a software company. Don't take my word for it because Steve Jobs is the one that said it. Software is what makes their products different. Apple's hardware is barely different from their competition aside from some fit and finish details. People buy Apple gear and pay a premium for it because of their software. It's why they are so profitable and why their margins strongly resemble those of Microsoft rather than Dell. What makes Apple kind of unique as a software company is that they will not sell you the software as a standalone product in most cases. They only sell it with a (usually good quality) piece of hardware optimized to use their software.
It's a quantum device. It doesn't have an orientation until you look at it.
did you forget it requires an adapter to connect an iphone?
No it does not. You can use an adapter if you need to but it is not required.
unless you've real work to do. the future is swell until i need to transfer files to a dead server in the datacenter at 4 AM.
We can all contrive made up situations where having the wrong ports is a theoretical problem. Has this actually happened to you in real life? If not then I'm not sure what you are complaining about.
I'm surprised that Belkin or someone else hasn't made a C-to-MagSafe adapter for MacBook owners.
You mean like this one?
Jobs didn't start Pixar. Lucas did.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Fixed the subject line for you.
Apple creates superior interfaces. Through custom (& patented) hardware and software. And a lot of thought.
Personally I can't stand the Apple tax (that those same patents enable), but as an engineer, designer and analyst I have to give them full credit for their interfaces. Well. Thought. Out.
As to the latest MBP, it is much like Windows 10 -- put annoying stuff into your product when sales are flagging -- it will give the press something to chatter about and any publicity is good publicity.
I come here for the love
...buy a USB-A to USB-C adapter. They're almost free.
It's not as if this has never occurred before......VGA to DVI (video), PS2 to USB (mouse and Keyboard), ISA to EISA, etc..
What a stupid premise.
From everything I've read about USB C, I really like it, except for its lack of widespread adoption. I'm actually happy that Apple is leading the way in this upgrade, and expect it will be a big benefit to me.
Of course, if I intended to buy any Apple products, I'd be pissed.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Fixed the subject line for you.
No you didn't. Apple is a software company that happens to understand the value of good interfaces, good hardware design, and well built products. Software with a well thought out interface is still software. The value and defining characteristics of a company is what they make themselves. Apple cannot be a hardware company because they don't make any hardware themselves. It's all outsourced. That wasn't what was valuable about what they do. Apple kept two functions in house. Software and product design. What they really sell is software via a well designed piece of hardware that they contracted someone else to make.
No you don't. Plugging in USB can be done without checking: It's a three-step process.
1. Try plugging it in, and find it doesn't work.
2. Turn it around, and try it the other way. You'll find it doesn't work that way either.
3. Turn it around a second time. It'll now go in. You had it right the first time.
Who ordered that?
Re: "You had it right the first time."
Yes, but there is something specific and mysterious about the USB-A port, that the first attempt with the correct orientation, will not work. I'm convinced that there is a troll guarding the port. "None Shall Pass!" But the second attempt scares him off so that the third try will work. Thus the three step process is actually mandatory.
In fact I suspect that the troll and the three step USB plug in is part of the USB specification.
A device with a quantum spin of a half.
And I had been thinking that I should've waited for the new version. Now, I'm sad to say - I would not own this new version. Cannot stand that OLED bar, and no USB-A ,HDMI, or MagSafe ports make it a pain in the ass to use for work.
Apple, you are better that this effort.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
And then there's the other fact that a USB-A plug fits very nicely into the RJ-45 jack for networking.
I've had to diagnose more than a few "why doesn't my USB device work" which involved "unplugging" the USB cable from the Ethernet jack and moving it over to the right port. (after doing the twirl with it because it never fits in the first try).
What do you mean? That have a wonderful market in dongles!
From the GP:
"queer eye for the queer guy"
And you wonder why they have lots of "dongles" dangling off their products? Hmmm?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yes, I agree that hardware improves over time, but some specialized applications depend on the old hardware
Lots of old stuff depends on a hardware parallel port..NOT an emulated USB to parallel printer adapter
Even more stuff, mostly industrial, requires a serial port, and sometimes the USB to serial adapters don't quite work
The mass consumer market is not the entire computing market
USB-C is a Standard, anyone can use that standard to make adaptors.
This is not Apple proprietary hardware.
Given Apples prices, I would guess most people will buy what adaptors they need (if any) from 3rd parties.
Hopefully, Apple will prevent that. They can easily add a check in the OS so that only Apple-approved dongles are allowed, and others are ignored. This would be a good thing to do in the name of "protecting the customer" from "potentially harmful" 3rd-party devices. And of course would be great for boosting Apple's profits. With the prices of Apple laptops, their customers can certainly afford to spend $50 or $100 each on adapters, and have no right to complain about this.
Just like PS/2 when USB came out. FFS, my bike trainer used a PS/2 adapter. Sometimes someone has to go first.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
NeXT and Pixar are marketing companies, not hardware companies or even really software companies.
All the power of a NeXT cube was already available in the Linux world.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Support legacy USB-A connections? Sure. Just get a pair of compact adapters here or here for under $10.
And the MacBooks ports aren't just USB-C they are Thunderbolt-3 / USB-C.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
They seem to do that on their phones now. A friend at work got a new magnetic charging cable with a lightening dongle, and the phone pitches a fit over the "non-apple hardware detected" when you plug it in.
But tell me where I can get a 15" laptop with 4k display and a great touchpad?
It should have USB-C, USB-A, ethernet (I hate that connector), and HDMI, but it should also not weigh much and look half decent.
I am typing this on a MacBook Pro, and the new MacBooks are ludicrously overpriced so my next laptop won't be one. I am just not very impressed when I look at the alternatives.
My current MacBook was merely ridiculously overpriced, but it was the only laptop that could fit two readable "A4" pages on the screen at once. Today, with 4k displays commonly found, that part should at least be fixed.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
USB-A connectors are fermions with spin 1/2. It's in the spec.
All the power of a NeXT cube was already available in the Linux world
*already* available?
Not even a little bit.
The NeXT cube predated Linux by a few years.
Berners Lee had built the first WWW server on a NeXT cube a year before Linux came into existence.
it could have been all lightning ports.
um.. if it doesnt fit one way, flip it 180 and try again.. done. usb-c and other modern ports are even smaller..
Steve didn't start Pixar, he bought it from Lucas. See the recent "How Steve Jobs became a billionaire" for how feared/hated Steve was at Pixar.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Does he complain about it? You should point out that he can certainly afford a $50-100 genuine Apple cable and has no business complaining since he can afford to buy the most expensive phone available.
Maybe this is why I don't have too many friends... that's OK, I prefer friends who are practical and not gullible trend-chasers.
great for boosting Apple's profits
Stupid canard is stupid. All the revenues Apple gets from cables and the like don't even add up to a rounding error in an Apple quarterly report.
Apple knows in great detail how many people are using various features of their products. At every product revision, they take that information into account to decide what ports to keep and what to drop. We've been hearing people squawk about this ever since the iMac shipped without a floppy drive.
YOU might want an RJ 45 or an SD slot, but Apple has to decide whether to incur the cost of each port across every unit they ship. If the numbers don't justify it, the port goes away. Seriously, they're not doing this just to fuck with you.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's pointless. People want legends that gel with their believes, not facts. They also will believe that Apple invented USB C to take away their beloved USB (that Apple pushed into the market with the iMac cutting off all older Apple connectors, but they don't know and don't want to know that).
incur the cost
So, Apple has ceased to operate for profit and must now sell at a fixed price and choose between taking a loss or dropping features? Keeping the features and adjusting the price of the product accordingly isn't an option?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
> Apple has ceased to operate for profit
http://www.investors.com/news/...
ONLY Apple will leave out USB-A while everybody else will include it like they still include VGA which is why just about every projector setup I see still has VGA connections many years after it's demise.
There are millions of USB-A devices being sold now and for years into the future because EVERYBODY except Apple MacBook users will STILL have USB-A connections. USB Toasters, robot claws, mini drones or just quadcopter chargers will all use it.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Jobs never really achieved anything.
I'm not sure that's entirely fair; he took being an abrasive sociopath to a whole new level.
What kind of fit does it pitch? Does it refuse to work? Defective chargers and cables can cause fires and even kill people doing not-too-bright things.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Yes, Apple is still a for-profit company, I know this. Notice the rhetorical question you took as a statement of fact?
Sometimes it's best not to speak. For you, 9:23PM PST on November 3rd, 2016 was one of those times.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
USB-C does not have up and down orientation. One can plug it from the first attempt.
Sure, I can try pug in USB one way, then turn it 180 degrees, etc. It takes just several seconds of fumbling. But multiply it by thousands and thousands times in a company, or billions times globally, and it would be years, millenniums of wasted working time.