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Apple Surveying MacBook Pro Users About Headphone Jack and Other Ports

I didn't even want them to remove the Line-In jack on their MacBook Pro line... but that's more due to me being an amateur stickler with a shoe-string budget and the most basic gear.

Recordings I do are from pre-amped guitars DI into my 2012 MBP and recorded through Logic. For keyboards I tend to use USB MIDI with AUs. People who are a little more professional tend to use external DACs anyway, so it's probably way overdue for me to step up my game and get some new gear (if I ever end up upgrading to a newer MBP).

In all honesty, they'll eventually end up dropping the headphone jack. There'll be a bit of a fuss and then people will stop caring. I don't think it's as big a deal on the Pro line as people are making it out to be.
 
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Being sympathetic with Apple I concede the removal of the earphone jack on the iPhone and I "buy" the space issue, using wireless is easier on the go and the iPhone is small.... BUT!!! removing USB ports (used to connect iPhone 7 with my MBP), removing HDMI (used on a daily basis to project my presentations in meetings), removing the SDCard slot (used constantly for my camera with OPTICAL zoom) its INFURIATING and a deal breaker for me.

And if you need the earphone jack space to add features in a 13 inch laptop, well, there is something wrong with your design; so removing the earphone jack in the MBP is nonsense.

Apple is making the same mistakes Sony did... Trying to make THEIR standard the industry standard... Ghosts like BETAMAX and Memory Stick are rounding around Cupertino....
 
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tentales said:
Seems to be the favourite point made by Apple apologists.
Those were computing legacy products that needed replacement and I was fine with that.
FYI, I've been in this industry since the 1980s and I wouldn't have been successful in my IT career if I'd be living in the past.

The audio-jack is way older than the personal computing industry. In fact it traverses industries.
Try telling a music professional that he should change his whole gear from dozens of vendors, just because Apple decides to bury the audio jack. This goes beyond you listening to your fashionable new Beats pods on your commute in the morning.

As for ethernet ports. They are still in heavy use and removal (or replacement by dongle) especially on Pro models is a disservice to many IT pros.

I've worked with Windows, Unix and every type of proprietary system out there in 35 years and "uprooting" means nothing to me. I chose Apple for the lower TCO, ease of integration with its other products and solid build construction, but I'm quite capable of doing this with other hardware. Hackintoshes are quite easy to build these days, albeit, not as "pretty".

My threat to leave is not just on the basis of the Audio jack, where it to come true, but a whole range of missteps that Apple has made wrt. computing professionals in the last few years. They've gone from being tech focused to being fashion focused.

I used to defend Apple long ago when it wasn't fashionable, before the new generation of Apple fanboys, in fact before the term fanboy, but to me and a whole bunch of longterm Apple users, the company is becoming too arrogant and ignorant its Pro user base.
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Music professionals very rarely use a 3.5mm socket on a MacBook Pro. Professional headphones typically are 6.5mm plugs. They generally need better amps than what is in the MBP and typically they are plugged into audio interfaces that are often as expensive as the computer is.

My Sennheiser HD650s for example are 6.5mm and way too difficult to drive at even moderate levels on my MBP or MB
 
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blackcrayon said:
Go for it. Riddle the perimeter with USB C / Thunderbolt 3 ports and it can do anything.
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Yes, but the four USB-C ports mentioned in the article is not "riddling" — My 15" MBP has seven ports (plus headphone/mic) and I use a minimum of five at home.
 
Well it looks like Apple has got us by the dongles for future MBP's.

Not having either an HDMI, 3.5mm jack or SD card slot is just plain idiotic. I use the optical out all the time on my MBP, as in my study it sits 10m (as the cable runs) away from the DAC, which is too far for USB, without a repeater. As a professional photographer, I use the SD slot every single day. Having to go back to using external readers is a retrograde step not an advance.
 
Just get rid of the headphone port. I'll be more than happy to move to Lightning, USB-C, or Bluetooth.

They did include an adapter with the iPhone 7 so I'm sure people will survive using one on a Mac as well.
 
Mildredop said:
And what about Windows compared to OSX?
[doublepost=1473930447][/doublepost]
It still has magsafe, no?
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The latest MacBook Airs have a USB-C port from which they charge. They removed the magsafe, at least for now.
 
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If this survey is going out now, doesn't this mean we are at least six months away from a MB Pro form factor update?
 
Never use it. When using Garage Band I use an external interface for recording and listening to guitar tracks. When coding, and literally any other time, my volume is muted.

I have desktop speakers, but I plug my phone into them, not my laptop.
 
I would be devastated if Apple left out the 3.5mm port and SD card slot.

The beauty of having that port is that there is no latency, and if I use my MacBook when travelling then I want to be able to use whatever headphones I like - without a dongle. I only use an audio interface for work activities, and even those are still mostly USB 2/3.

And there is no practical reason to drop the SD either. Connecting a camera via wifi requires you to use camera's battery (which is a total waste), it's just more practical to pop a card out of one device and into another.
 
Jsameds said:
Go buy something that suits your needs then. See, was that hard?
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Less than brilliant comment - the whole point is that if you want to remain on the Mac OS, unless you have a large and immobile MacPro, you may not be able in the future to buy something that suits your needs for assorted and convenient ports. There are a lot of us who never want to go back to Windoze.
 
I'd love to get one of these surveys so that I could give Apple a piece of my mind, and hopefully save things like the SD card slot, 3.5"mm jack, etc.

I'm already on the fence as to whether my 2011 MBPro (with DVD drive, replaceable/upgradeable RAM & HD & battery) gets replaced with a Samsung Notebook 7 (with replaceable/upgradeable RAM & HD & battery) or a newer MBPro/Retina.

It just DOES NOT make me feel good to throw a grand-and-a-half at what really is Apple's disposable appliance, especially when I need to pay a few hundred dollars extra to get one with 16Gb or RAM rather than the puny standard 8Gb of RAM.

I am not happy at all about the Apple-brand options that I have to replace my 2011 MBPro.
 
Cayden said:
I agree for iMacs and Mac Pros for sure. But for mixing engineers and indie artists, being able to mix on the go with a simple headset plugged into the 3.5 mm jack on a MacBook Pro is just a necessity
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Pretty much every sound tech, dj and even guitarist I know carries a little USB audio interface with them - none of them ever use the built in headphone jack.
 
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wilsonlaidlaw said:
Less than brilliant comment - the whole point is that if you want to remain on the Mac OS, unless you have a large and immobile MacPro, you may not be able in the future to buy something that suits your needs for assorted and convenient ports. There are a lot of us who never want to go back to Windoze.
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Then move with the times and use either USB-C, Bluetooth, Airplay, the built in speakers or an adaptor for your old pair.
 
As a professional photographer, USB-C Bluetooth, Airplay are irrelevant. The internal speakers are never going to be better than crap, compared with a high end external system. Also like around 90% of the people posting on this thread I don't want to use dongles. That is what we did 15 years ago. Going back to external adapters is retrograde not an advance.
 
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As long as there's a built in alternative to listen to wired headphones on my mac I could give 2 *****. If Apple is hoping that I'm fine with listening to everything through the speakers, they're out of their minds.
 
phillytim said:
I'd love to get one of these surveys so that I could give Apple a piece of my mind, and hopefully save things like the SD card slot, 3.5"mm jack, etc.

I'm already on the fence as to whether my 2011 MBPro (with DVD drive, replaceable/upgradeable RAM & HD & battery) gets replaced with a Samsung Notebook 7 (with replaceable/upgradeable RAM & HD & battery) or a newer MBPro/Retina.

It just DOES NOT make me feel good to throw a grand-and-a-half at what really is Apple's disposable appliance, especially when I need to pay a few hundred dollars extra to get one with 16Gb or RAM rather than the puny standard 8Gb of RAM.

I am not happy at all about the Apple-brand options that I have to replace my 2011 MBPro.
Click to expand...

I had the same dilemma when I switched from a 2010 MBP to a retina. My logic was:

- how often did I realistically use the DVD drive? (other than Xbox/PS4 games, I haven't touched a DVD/BD in years)
- the battery isn't really an issue for me. I'd never use a 3rd party battery. Batteries for the old MBPs are £109. It's £169 for the new retinas. £60 isn't going to break the bank, and also gets you a new top case, which, if you are at the point you need a new battery, won't hurt.

As for the RAM, yeah, their ram prices sucked, but now the 15" comes with 16GB as standard. My current model, (2014 15", 2.8 i7, 16GB, 512GB, 2GB 750M) is 2 years old now, and tbh, I can see it easily lasting another 3/4 years at least. The equivalent model now is £2000 - if you'd get 6 years out of it (which is really possible these days), that works out at £27/month - probably less than half of what most of us pay for our iPhones.
 
wilsonlaidlaw said:
As a professional photographer, USB-C Bluetooth, Airplay are irrelevant. The internal speakers are never going to be better than crap, compared with a high end external system. Also like around 90% of the people posting on this thread I don't want to use dongles. That is what we did 15 years ago. Going back to external adapters is retrograde not an advance.
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I don't understand why you'd think the audio jack is relevant yet none of the other options are, it doesn't make any sense. Besides the adaptors are tiny and can just sit on the end of your old pair of headphones if you like.

If you refuse to make use the perfectly good alternatives out there then I'm sorry but it's your own fault. Are you still using SCSI printers?
 
wilsonlaidlaw said:
As a professional photographer, USB-C Bluetooth, Airplay are irrelevant. The internal speakers are never going to be better than crap, compared with a high end external system. Also like around 90% of the people posting on this thread I don't want to use dongles. That is what we did 15 years ago. Going back to external adapters is retrograde not an advance.
Click to expand...

But why is USB-C irrelevant? Adapters are a stop-gap. Eventually (well, hopefully) everything will just run from USB-C. We won't need thunderbolt, or SD card readers. You'd just have a bunch of ports, and your camera would connect via USB-C.

Surely as a pro photographer, you can see the advantage of connecting (and possibly charging) your camera via USB-C in the future as opposed to taking an SD card out of the camera and shoving it in your laptop. Besides, what if you buy a camera that uses CF, or some other format?

What people don't seem to get is that this isn't a short term thing. Like remember when you plugged your camcorder in via firewire? For me, I'm willing to put up with adapters for a few years until we get to the point where there's one cable that does everything.
 
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Brian Y said:
Pretty much every sound tech, dj and even guitarist I know carries a little USB audio interface with them - none of them ever use the built in headphone jack.
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This ^

Also, I never use the SD slot either.

I am a power/pro user, and never use the headphone jack or SD slot. Guitarist, Software Engineer, Occasional Gamer.

Maybe they are considering a product line fork. 13" without the ports, 15" with?

Maybe they will remove them from the line entirely? I would bet people using the headphone jacks and SD slots are in the minority, and that must be Apple's bet as well if they are surveying.

In fact, I don't think I've ever even witnessed someone using those ports.

Honestly, at least they are bothering to survey. If they didn't, everyone would complain... and the Apple of a few years ago likely wouldn't have surveyed.... so at least you have a voice.

I'm not saying anyone here doesn't have a valid argument, but I am saying prepare to be in the minority.
 
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satchmo said:
Or they're pretending to care what we think and never had the intention of removing the jack in the first place.
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Because they're going to waste their time collecting data they don't need just to waste time and money, while also getting all you people up in arms for no reason.

:rolleyes:
 
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