...and my 2011 MBP is the best laptop I've ever owned. However, if I were buying a brand new Mac today I wouldn't spend $2000 on buying exactly the same hardware. That's the current status of the "trashcan" - the only comparable replacement for the 2013 MacPro currently being sold is... the 2013 MacPro.
What legacy ports??? USB-A is still everywhere, including brand new products. DisplayPort/MiniDisplayPort is what the vast majority of brand new high-end displays use (and only the very latest USB-C equipped computers support DP1.4), while pretty much all TVs and 'economy' PC displays use HDMI. SD/MicroSD features in brand new DSLRs, dashcams, drones. There are 12 million Raspberry Pis out there that are programmed via SD/MicroSD, my phone has MicroSD, my FireTV has MicroSD, I've a Eurorack synth module that uses MicroSD...
Lots of people here have given you straight answers about what they use these ports for - you just dismiss them as wrongthink and just repeat the question. If you're going to behave like that, don't be surprised when people get fed up and start ad-homming you.
So, on your desk, you have an iMac Pro - the one up-to-date computer that Apple sells with a half-decent selection of ports - and you've gone for a separate laptop for mobile use. That's your use case.
A lot of people with <=2015 MBPs were quite happily using them as "desktop replacements" - they had enough ports to hook up to all of their desktop clobber, both at home and work and were still small enough to take on the road as needed. If you wanted a TB dock or display for a slightly more convenient connection experience then that was an expensive luxury you could take or leave. The 2016 MBPs turned those hubs into an expensive necessity.
You don't think that giving presentations is a large part of the market for MacBooks... that suggests that your life has been mercifully powerpoint-free in which case you can probably be excused for not knowing that for many of "those places" having HDMI rather than VGA is still a bit bleeding edge.
Oh, and the modern alternative that is catching on doesn't involve every speaker connecting their laptop to the projector, but rather using Google Docs or some other cloud service that can be accessed from a single computer connected to the projector... but that pre-supposes a reliable internet connection for everybody that doesn't block the required cloud services which, again, is a triumph of optimism over experience (and yours truly has often been the one who needed to worry about coming prepared for plan B - although these days, more and more people are using MS Sway for "presentations" so Plan B can be a lava-lamp and a tape of whalesong which usually imparts more usable information /s).
I think you should perhaps look into the mirror there, because you seem to be the one dismissing everybody else's use-case because the current MBPs "work for you".
Why are you comparing 2010 Macs to 2016 Macs as if nothing came between? Thunderbolt arrived in 2011 - followed in 2012 by macs with two Thunderbolt ports, 2 USB ports, HDMI (giving three possible display connections and four ports that could take ethernet ports).
You're even doing down the older Macs - until the 17" was dropped in 2012 you could have a MBP with an expresscard slot which could be used to add, well, practically anything - ethernet, card readers, USB3... My 2011 MBP 17" has Thunderbolt and Firewire and Expresscard.
...and that's really the problem: not the 2016/2017/2018 MBPs per se but the lack of choice. Apple are #4 by volume in the list of PC vendors, all of whom now offer premium "ultrabooks" aimed at the same market as the MBP. Apple, however, are about the only one on that list who can't contrive to also offer a larger, desktop replacement laptop for people who don't prioritise weight, thinness and battery life over all else, or a tower system for users who prefer the computer equivalent of a pick-up truck or a jeep to a sports coupe.
Circa 2011, Apple did offer that sort of choice - 17" MBPs for people who wanted that, MacBook Air for people who wanted really small, the Cheesegrater for the pick-up-truck fans, (up-to-date) Mac Mini for people who wanted a desktop but didn't care about internal expansion etc...
Even when the 2012 rMBP was launched without (shock! horror!*) an optical drive or ethernet port & compulsory expensive SSD, rather than suddenly pull the rug out from under people, Apple simultaneously upgraded the "classic" models to the latest CPU/GPU and USB3 so there was an up-to-date alternative available for a year or so. C.f. 2016 when the only "alternative" was the least powerful version of the already out-of-date 2015 model at an excitingly new higher price (at least, it was in the UK).
(* not quite forgiven them for the ethernet port, but my optical drive had long been replaced by a second HD by then - and, as I said, they spec-bumped the "classic" models at the same time).
You missed the point of nearly everything I said. Just a few key points:
No. “Lots of people” have not given me answers to the question I’m asking, which is what are you connecting your Mac to that must have those old ports and can’t be catered to by replacing a few peripherals or even cables between them. A few people have answered that question specifically, and there have been a couple of good arguments for HDMI for external conference rooms and SD cards for specific use cases of camera work where wireless won’t cut it. I’ve acknowledged those. If you disagree please point me to the “lots”.
I still assert that those use cases are a small enough percentage of Apple’s target market that Apple believes those users can use adapters and the rest of us shouldn’t have to carry those ports around for the sake of that small fraction. Please don’t try to belittle my “the rest of shouldn’t have to carry those ports around” comment. The
absence of those ports for the rest of us has value because it give us extra battery life or any number of other things in that space that more of Apple’s target market want.
Most people answer my question by ranting more about how they must have
those ports but ignore the alternatives that Apple is trying to push the market towards, that are perfectly good solutions to the same business problems.
For example the person above who stated “HDMI: Every TV has HDMI and nothing equivalent.” Duh. No kidding. But that doesn’t answer the question. What business or personal problem are you solving that needs you to plug your Mac into a TV?
Don’t call me an idiot for not being able to figure that out. Have you actually tried it? Plugging a Mac into a TV is a terrible solution to just about any actual problem other than watching movies/TV because the color is all wrong and it’s impossible to get it right. And if the problem you’re trying to solve is actually watching movies and TV, then Apple’s solution to that is the AppleTV. So from Apple’s perspective, and rightly so, Macs don’t need HDMI.
Aside from all that, even if one person here or even a hundred people here have good reason to plug their Mac into a tv (outside of a conference room - see below) you’re still in a tiny monitory of Apple’s target market. Again more on that below.
On my belief that those of us taking our Macs into conference rooms all the time are a relatively small portion of Apple’s target market... Even your response on that point doesn’t address it. My point: MBP users using conference rooms is a small enough fraction of Apple’s target market. Your response: Even HDMI in those conference rooms is bleeding edge. No comment on the market usage.
So yeah, no, “Lots of people” have
not answered the question I’ve been actually asking.
Yes. USB-A and other ports I’m describing as legacy are still sold everywhere but they are still legacy in that the tech is still many years (a long time in the tech industry) old. Apple has never had any interest in supporting
everything and is always cutting out old stuff to make way for the new. Their interest is in providing an end to end solution to business and consumer problems that uses a limited amount of stuff they decide they’re going to support and they’re going to make
that experience (at least relatively) awesome and not bother with anything else. That’s always been their MO - yes, even under Lord Steve - and nothing has changed.
Whine about that all you want but that is always what Apple has done and they’re never going to change it. That’s why their “modular” Mac Pro is still going to be very limited.
USB-C and everything that comes with it, particularly Thunderbolt 3, is the future and that’s Apple’s interest and Aple’s solution. And so sure... lots of stuff still has USB-A in it but there are relatively few real world problems in Apple’s target market that can’t be solved very nicely with USB-C only or USB-C compatible devices.
And for the problems that still can’t be solved that way, they didn’t leave those users out in the cold completely: adapters address that.
But everyone here complains that the adapters (dongles) are Apple’s solution to everything. No they’re not. There are plenty of other more compatible/convenient/cheap solutions like replacing your USB-A to -B cables with USB-C to -B cables if you’re adamant you’re not going to upgrade your actual peripherals (for example).
Once again, and I don’t know how it’s possible to continue missing this part: this is no different to the USB-A only original iMac. That Mac and the similar ones that followed forced the industry to ditch all the other ports for USB-A and that’s a large part of why we have your beloved USB-A today. Apple is doing the same thing now. And yes it’ll take a few years just like it did then. But when it does, the world will be better. And it won’t happen without
someone significant pushing it that way.
Argue all my points individually as much as you like but none of it will change that part of what Apple is trying to do, and the fact that it is the best thing for the industry in the long run. And that trumps everything.
As for me... as a matter of fact,
the MBP doesn’t just work for me. Which is why I bought an iMac Pro as well. That’s about $11K worth of Mac for me there for base iMac Pro and maxed out 2017 MBP. And I hate having to juggle two machines. There’s nothing I’d like more than to spend that same $11K instead on a Mac laptop with iMac Pro level specs and performance, and like others here I’d be happy to sacrifice size and weight, (and that $11K), for it plus a decent 5K display. The 2018 MBP comes close. 12 virtual cores, 32GB ram, NVMe 2GB/s storage. A huge improvement over my 2017 one, and I’d have bought that but the only 5K display option is the LG one and while the panel is amazing and the built in camera etc is convenient the unit is a piece of junk and after getting a refund for the second one that repeatedly broke on me I said f*** it and bought the iMP instead. That gives me the bonus of the extra performance of the iMP over even the 2018 MBPs and I’m very happy with the iMP but again, I hate having to juggle two machines. iMP level of power in a portable format would be much preferred.
I’ve written a very firmly worded (but still respectful) email to Tim explaining all this and I desperately hope he’ll improve the situation with the next generation and that Apple will indeed be releasing an Apple branded monitor to replace this LG crap. And while he seems to have been very responsive to my requests in the past I don’t expect him to with this one. Why? Because my biggest point with all this is...
I, and you, and the other MR readers who want all that or something like it
are in a very small minority!! Apple isnt going to do it because when they made the 17” MBP, 25 MR readers bought it and
no one else did. Yes, I’m exaggerating a little for a bit of humor - don’t call me out on that and miss the point. It didn’t sell anything like the 13 and 15 inch models did. It’s not a sustainable business for Apple. While millions of people in
Apple’s target market (which isn’t us) are buying the current models.
So again:
1. Apple is pushing one standard for all future ports and the only way they’ll succeed is limit all the other port options on their machines just as they did, successfully, in the late 90’s which brought us the beloved USB-A in the first place. But end to end solutions that use those new ports etc do exist and Apple’s approach is that while upgrading to your new Mac you should also upgrade to those.
2. It doesn’t matter what MR readers want. We’re a tiny minority of Apple’s user base and target market, and what we want is largely contrary to what the rest of Apple’s target market wants. So they’re not going to cater to us and from a business point of view, rightly so.
Sure, that sucks, and so let’s whine about how much that sucks. But my point: many people here need to stop kidding themselves and acknowledge that point and stop spouting off all this crap about how Apple has lost sight of its loyal customers blah blah. Anyone who genuinely thinks that what MR readers want is what most of Apple’s target market wants needs a reality (or head) check.
