The key point besides price is functionality. Will it have the necessary ports, i.e., SD card, USB-A, or continue this stupid thinness craze. We want FUNCTIONALITY and not having to look for adapters. A couple of millimeters isn't a deal breaker. LACK OF FUNCTIONALITY IS!
Again with the ports. It will not have those ports. The industry just needs to catch up already.
And no, I’m not being a sheeple fan boy. I hate the old ports.
You’re talking about “FUNCTIONALITY”? Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C is the ultimate in functionality. It is/does everything.* The old ports* offer
nothing technologically or functionally that USB-C/TB3 don’t offer except that the
only reason to hang on to them is compatibility with other stuff that (so far) refuses to move forwards. And that’s not a good enough reason, (especially when in the meantime, in most cases - sure, not all, but most - a cable swap solves the problem anyway and a dongle still isn’t needed).
As slow as the industry is, Apple insisting on not putting old ports back will bring the rest of the world forwards faster than if Apple gives in and puts old ports back. Yes, it’s a little painful, but if Apple (and/or sometimes other companies too) didn’t do this time after time, we’d all still be using ADB, SCSI (remember terminators?), Zip/floppy drives, etc. etc. ... or punch cards... and your precious USB-A from 20 years ago wouldn’t even exist.
So pushing forwards is the only sensible option. MacOS and this mentality are a package deal. This is how Apple has always been.
I’d argue that this mentality is
one of the reasons macOS is “better” than Windows. Wait... is it better? Well that’s a matter of opinion, but presumably it’s your opinion that it is, otherwise why do you care? If macOS isn’t “better” then who cares what ports Apple does or doesn’t put in their computers, when the Windows world has countless choices of all shapes, sizes, configurations, etc. and we can all just abandon Apple and get our choice of those? And that’s before we start talking about how much better Apple’s support is compared to the competition.
No. You want your ports in Apple’s laptops because you think macOS and/or Apple’s support is better (or you’re just a troll - but let’s assume the former). So you like Apple’s OS and/or support. And so you have to understand how this stuff works. One of the biggest reasons Apple’s OS and support is “better” is because Steve was obsessed with stripping out stuff and that mentality has continued on since his unfortunate passing. Apple puts limits on what they have to support (both customer support and what hardware the OS has to support).
Windows is a mess (relatively) because it has to accommodate all the permutations of every piece of hardware out there, while Apple’s laser focus on a limited range of hardware means they can spend their resources on fine tuning for that instead of accommodating everything. So this is cause and effect. It’s a package deal. If they keep supporting legacy stuff then macOS and their support won’t be “better”.
If you don’t like Apple’s mentality (the very mentality that at least partly
causes Apple’s OS and support to be better) you have the choice to give up on macOS and go to Windows, into an ecosystem that supports your mentality of holding on to old stuff.
You have that choice.
(Or... if you think you can do it better then you have the choice to build your own computer company and show the world how it
really should be done. )
I choose pushing forwards. You might choose otherwise. Isn’t it great that we both have that choice! But if you’re going to expect the company that wants to push forwards (as one of its defining features) to stop doing that then you’re just going to be disappointed. So now you have another choice: Adjust your expectations or stay disappointed.
Sorry.
PS. Every reference to “you” above is not just you specifically. It’s everyone here who complains about the ports. Your message is just one as good as any to start from.
——
*...except SD which could arguably not be called a “port” anyway - although I don’t mean to split hairs. Perhaps there’s an argument for SD card slots but if you put that in then where do you stop? What’s so special about SD as opposed to all the other types of memory cards, and in fact anything else they could put in? What do you want SD for that absolutely can’t be done some other way? It’s slow as molasses compared to just about any other kind of modern storage. Just as much as the world needs to catch up and move on from USB-A and all the other ports, it needs to move on from SD as well, to other better alternatives (eg. wireless for starters).
Additionally, why should they make it bigger to put SD in (which can be added externally for the few people that still want to hang on to it) when if they’re going to make it bigger they could use that space for more cores, more RAM, better cooling, and other things that can’t be added externally. Sure they could make it big enough for all of the above but then the battery time halves. Ok so put a bigger battery in? Then it’s not just a bit bigger, it’s a lot bigger, and you might as well carry an iMac and portable AC power pack around. Where does it stop?
Aside from which, if you really want all the ports and you really don’t care if it’s bigger, then get one of these:
https://www.hypershop.com/collectio...-13-and-15-2016-2017-2018?variant=41421336460 or any of the other slightly differently configured options (more choice) from the same company... or heck, even two of them, one on each side, and leave it/them permanently attached. There you have your bigger MBP with all the ports you could possibly want and the net result is still lighter and no bigger than the older MBPs with all those ports built in. (What’s the big issue with adapters anyway?)
And that’s the point. With USB-C/TB3 we have choices that we didn’t have before. No matter which way you bend it, that is better than before, and better than if they revert back.
So no. Apple, please don’t put an SD slot in it, or any of the old ports. Instead, put more cores, more RAM, and even more 40Gb/s ports in it. Real pros need that stuff a lot more than we need SD or HDMI or USB-A or any of the old, slow stuff.
I can only hope that this thing isn’t just the same maxed out MBP as today with just a slightly bigger screen. I really hope they’re putting more performance in it too.
