Firewire was sweet. You didnkt have cables with chips in them. My made for iphone cable I purchased stops charging the phone when it locks. What good is certification for cables if you have no way of knowing it will work?
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Please read!
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordeba...rs/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits
FireWire was slow and doomed from the beginning -
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...the-standard-everyone-couldnt-quite-agree-on/ - its dead and needs to stay that way.
IF you are having trouble with third party cables that are supposed to be MFi-certified and aren’t working, then you need to let them know and have them send you cables that do work. If they won’t, then you need to let Apple know that the manufacturer is not complying with the MFi specs and should have their license yanked. Squeaky wheel...
In the context of my answer, it was in response to a post implying that Apple should have put four Thunderbolt 3 ports on the new 13” MacBook Pro as well, which was purely to upsell to the four port model, the reply was that it was a cost saving measure, then the reply to that was a profit making measure. The bottom line is that every business differentiates their products and stratifies them to provide choice and serve those who may not be able to afford the more expensive model. Automakers do it all the time with trim levels, offering a basic set of the most important features in the base model (DX), more amenities, aluminum instead of steel wheels, a more powerful engine (LX), leather seats, navigation (EX, EX-L) and finally, the most opulent model with wood trim, power everything, active suspension, even more powerful engine, cameras, et al (Touring) and so on and so forth. This is all designed to serve and appeal to as many customers as Possible who want to buy a certain model, but can’t afford or don’t need/want all the amenities as they are more concerned with simply having transportation that looks nice, is reliable, has a few things they want, etc. and I don’t hear anyone complaining about how Honda, Toyota, Ford or GM do the exact same thing Apple is doing.
Finally, the arguments put forth in the NYT article hardly apply to the aforementioned paragraph. Apple is still innovating, creating new products and new categories of products, doesn’t seem to be focused on short term earnings, but on long term growth by widening their product lines, adding Services to their product offerings, is not reckless or destructive, is committed to the environment. They simply said, this model costs this much and we are reducing the number of Thunderbolt 3 ports to make sure we hit the price point we want, along with a cheaper CPU, less base storage, etc. They have clearly decided that the Touch Bar is important enough to include it and help reach feature parity with the 28w TDP 13” MacBook Pros (remember when Air Conditioning and Power Windows were not standard features on the lowest trim level automobiles? If not, they weren’t for a very long time) and have incorporated the latest keyboard mechanism.
Sure, I know there are certain things that Apple could change that would go a long way towards better consumer sentiment that I can and have communicated to Apple. Ultimately, I can decide to buy another companies products, should I decide that Apple no longer wants to serve my interests. That’s how it works.
My new laptop has a tool-less removable bottom cover and battery, and even a removable MXM graphics card. It's awkwardly humungous but I love it. 
