I'd like to praise Apple for switching to all USB-C

[smetvid]

Just chiming in with my opinion

1...... Just 1! USB A port wouldn’t have killed anything. USB C is widely more used today than it was in 2016. Apple could have phased out the USB A port for 2019/2020 and it would have been less complaints than it is today

Regarding the SD Card slot.... there’s a valid debate on one being useful... PERIOD!

The MacBook Pro is marketed as a Pro device.... one of those functions that falls under Pro use is Picture and video editing. I can understand the annoyance of someone who has a $8,000 Nikon who wants quickly edit something off a memory on his $3,0000 laptop and not fumble with a damn dongle all the time

In my opinion.... those who need the SD card slot though the minority outweighs the hipsters who don’t need one... I’m specifically talking about the weirdos who bought Vega MacBook Pros with i9s to do college term papers and play with instagram filters all day.... who the hell cares about their opinion.

The people who make their lively hood off of a Pro machine... their opinions matters the most

Apple needs to stop catering to the hipster dongle crowd and start paying more attention to the Pro user

When you say fumble with a dongle all I can think of is those cheesy infomercials where the horrible actors overact something as being 100x more complicated than it really is.

I am a professional video producer and photographer and I don't see the lack of SD slot a big deal at all. It takes seconds to plug one in and this way I can update the SD slot whenever I need to support newer types of media cards. full size SD is only one type of camera media and while it is the more common media type it does not fit the needs of every user. In fact if we really want to talk about professional then SD cards are not used at all and raw video formats are being shot directly to SSD or Cfast cards. There is a huge professional video market that never touches SD cards. The high end pros shooting ProRes and raw formats have no use for the SD slot and would rather have higher bandwidth ports so don't use the not pro enough argument. The lack of SD slot may affect some small video producers but it definitely does not lack professionalism in any way for the true professional high end market.

I do happen to use SD cards a lot but I am glad the MBP isn't limiting itself to just one media type. SD standards advance as well and continue to increase in speed. As professionals we should want to use SD slots that support those new standards.

The complaints about a lack of USB-A are just ridiculous. It is a minor inconvenience and nothing more. One that has a ton of easy/small/affordable solutions. I don't own a single USB-c drive between my dozen drives and it just doesn't bother me. When the 2016 first came out I also poked fun of it for this reason but that was because I didn't have one and didn't realize just how silly the complaint was. I have older MBPs with USB2 ports and it sucks. Everybody should be very glad Apple went all USB-c on the 2016 since it prolongs its life for many years to come as we move into newer and faster connection technologies like USB4 and whatever we may get in the future.

 

[smetvid]

Indeed and other as posted here and elsewhere.


Actually it is great, as I do use those ports, i.e., SD cards, HDMI, etc


Good for you, you have a USB-C thumb drive for 10 dollars. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You seem to take any criticism against apple personally, without accepting the fact that apple does make mistakes on occasion. Their design decision made life more difficult for many people where as other manufactoreres made the decision to include both USB-C and other ports - more is better. You're happy with apple, great, but that doesn't negate the fact that apple's design decision was a mistake for many people.

I'll probably not respond to your reply because you'll no doubt pick apart my post line by line as you seem to enjoy doing that. I'm happy with my laptop decision and I offered my opinion that apple erred. Its really not worth the hassle of getting all worked up, so I'm outta here.

Yeah accept this is not a mistake. It's a choice to give users the highest possible bandwidth with the highest possible flexability. I'm all for sticking it to Apple when they screw up like not building a mid range headless desktop between the Mac mini and Mac Pro or inventing an utterly useless Touch Bar that nobody asked for or making ram non upgradable on the MBP. The port choices are nowhere near a mistake. They are a perfectly wise decision to no longer limit the usefulness of the MBP as it ages and the ports become outdated. This was a very wise and bold choice and hopefully every computer manufacturer goes this route in the future. Even adding just one USB port would be throwing a bone just to shut up complainers but not really provide any wise value for the future.

This is such a non issue to a first world problem.

 

[Thysanoptera]

What does any of that have to do with the speed at which the battery is charged?

Because you got fixated on battery size relative to power supply, claiming that somehow battery capacity defines how big a power supply is. Or the other way around, doesn’t matter, while the only effect a power supply has on battery is the charging time.

And how long would you need to run the CPU and GPU at 'full power' before the combined energy of the charger and battery force them to throttle down?

First you would need to get some elementary school education and learn what is the difference between energy and power.

What power supply? A desktop power supply? I never claimed it did. A laptop? Of course it does. The less capacity the less you can use it while unplugged. I can't believe the ridiculousness of this conversation now.

Do you read what you write? A PSU matters in any shape or form while a laptop is unplugged? It is ridiculous indeed.

 

[one1]

Apple counts on new users. They hope the older mac users will look foolish when they complain because new users will have no clue why the magsafe was designed or it’s purpose. Apple simply wants to quit replacing magsafes when they fray, bottom line. It costs them money. As a consumer I don’t care, they make enough. Give me my superior magsafe back.

A portion of the inflated price you pay for any apple product is yours to have back, as they calculate future loss into current pricing. They essentially sell you 2 or 3 magsafes they know they’ll be replacing for you when you buy it. Wanna use usb-C now....... where’s our money back.

 

[ugru]

... The original claim was:

Followed by:

What does any of that have to do with the speed at which the battery is charged?

Precisely nothing....I was not talking at all about battery capacity....

I was talking about the inability of USB-C/TB3 protocol to supply enough power to a laptop that has, for example, an i9 + a decent GPU which, under heavy load, can pull well above 150W...

If apple continue using USB-C for power delivery we will never see a MBP with a decent GPU.

You are the one that started this nonsense about the battery, because, as many told you, you are not able to understand che core problem...

precisely here:

So you're suggesting Apple design and ship a laptop that is so power hungry it literally cannot be run from battery, OR that it must have a battery so large it is no longer allowed on planes? Sounds like a great idea.

NO, i am not suggesting anything about battery capacity...

And this is my last post on this topic because you clearly do not have the intention to educate yourself about the topic at hand...

 

[Stephen.R]

Wow guys, first off, nice ad hominem attacks. Why bother trying to defend your own contradictory points when you can just claim that someone else is stupid?

But anyway, let’s try this again. So one of you says:

No, the logical conclusion will be that the battery can be charged twice as fast.

And the other says:

I was talking about the inability of USB-C/TB3 protocol to supply enough power to a laptop that has, for example, an i9 + a decent GPU which, under heavy load, can pull well above 150W...

So, one of you is claiming that you want a higher powered charger so it charges faster, and the other is claiming it’s because the computer draws too much power.

So which is it?

claiming that somehow battery capacity defines how big a power supply is

Not at all. If you inferred that, maybe you should re-read what I wrote. The battery capacity doesn’t define the size of the charger in electrical terms, but in terms of a device that can run from battery power or from mains power, if you design around a significantly more powerful mains adapter (ie 200W rather than 87W) and don’t increase the capacity of the battery then when it’s not connected to mains you have two possible outcomes:

Much less performance or much less battery life.


And that’s my entire point. One of the stated claims about faster charging (and not higher draw) is reasonable, but I don’t agree it’s important enough to lose the ability to be powered from desktop devices like displays or drive arrays or eGPUs etc.


The other argument about being able to draw more than double the power on mains with no changes to battery capacity is the sort of **** PC laptops like the MSI one linked earlier do, and is exactly why they get 2 hours battery.

I was talking about the inability of USB-C/TB3 protocol to supply enough power to a laptop that has, for example, an i9 + a decent GPU which, under heavy load, can pull well above 150W...

If apple continue using USB-C for power delivery we will never see a MBP with a decent GPU.

And my point is if they design a computer around the ability to draw nearly double the power when connected to mains, but don’t change battery capacity, you’re then hobbling that laptop with horrible battery life under load, or much reduced performance on battery (and we’ve seen how that played out with the iPhone storm in a teacup).

NO, i am not suggesting anything about battery capacity...

Ok. So more energy (for more performance), no charge to battery capacity... so less battery life when disconnected from a/c?

They hope the older mac users will look foolish when they complain because new users will have no clue why the magsafe was designed or it’s purpose.

I’ve used a Mac for about 25 years. I understand and agree that MagSafe was a good idea. But a magnetic break-away cable doesn’t require a proprietary connector.

 

[tobefirst ⚽️]

Well, this thread's been fun.

 

[Robnsn2015]

When you say fumble with a dongle all I can think of is those cheesy infomercials where the horrible actors overact something as being 100x more complicated than it really is.

I am a professional video producer and photographer and I don't see the lack of SD slot a big deal at all. It takes seconds to plug one in and this way I can update the SD slot whenever I need to support newer types of media cards. full size SD is only one type of camera media and while it is the more common media type it does not fit the needs of every user. In fact if we really want to talk about professional then SD cards are not used at all and raw video formats are being shot directly to SSD or Cfast cards. There is a huge professional video market that never touches SD cards. The high end pros shooting ProRes and raw formats have no use for the SD slot and would rather have higher bandwidth ports so don't use the not pro enough argument. The lack of SD slot may affect some small video producers but it definitely does not lack professionalism in any way for the true professional high end market.

I do happen to use SD cards a lot but I am glad the MBP isn't limiting itself to just one media type. SD standards advance as well and continue to increase in speed. As professionals we should want to use SD slots that support those new standards.

The complaints about a lack of USB-A are just ridiculous. It is a minor inconvenience and nothing more. One that has a ton of easy/small/affordable solutions. I don't own a single USB-c drive between my dozen drives and it just doesn't bother me. When the 2016 first came out I also poked fun of it for this reason but that was because I didn't have one and didn't realize just how silly the complaint was. I have older MBPs with USB2 ports and it sucks. Everybody should be very glad Apple went all USB-c on the 2016 since it prolongs its life for many years to come as we move into newer and faster connection technologies like USB4 and whatever we may get in the future.

You know you can have USB-C and USB-A on the same computer, right? And if Apple wanted to go all USB-C, they could have had the decency to include a dongle with the machine instead of their $20 USD optional dongle.

 

[smetvid]

You know you can have USB-C and USB-A on the same computer, right? And if Apple wanted to go all USB-C, they could have had the decency to include a dongle with the machine instead of their $20 USD optional dongle.

Of course I know that but why when you can use the space to have four USBc ports instead? Eventually if USB3 becomes outdated that port would be useless. This way none of those ports are ever useless.

Perhaps they could have included a dongle but what about those that need two or three? What about those that don't use the ports at all? Why should Apple waste money including something users may not use? The entire point of the USBc ports is the user gets to decide what/how/when they need to connect something to their laptop. The laptop ports don't dictate what they can use. The user decides. Therefore it is silly for Apple to include something not everybody needs. If they included a USB adapter then people would have demanded a HDMI adapter and then a SD card reader adapter. This way Apple supplies the raw ports and the user decides what they bring to those ports.

I can't believe we are making such a big stink about a $20 adapter. $9 on amazon. $9 is one trip to Starbucks. Buy a couple to leave in your bag. This is such a first world problem.

 

[LogicalApex]

I can't believe we are making such a big stink about a $20 adapter. $9 on amazon. $9 is one trip to Starbucks. Buy a couple to leave in your bag. This is such a first world problem.

Precisely this. On a $2K computer nonetheless.

There are valid complaints to have with regards to the MBP, but this certainly is not one of them.

 

[smallcoffee]

Two biggest complaints I hear are the keyboards and the ports. Only USB C simply does not work for everyone and adds a level complexity that never previously existed.

That layer of complexity has always existed, people just pretended it didn't.

 

[Thysanoptera]

Field engineer's MBP in its natural environment (hotel room after work) with oversized, wireless USB-A dongle for the red flash drive. For those wondering, the dongle is thinner than MBP. And has way better keyboard.

 

[doitdada]

Field engineer's MBP in its natural environment (hotel room after work) with oversized, wireless USB-A dongle for the red flash drive. For those wondering, the dongle is thinner than MBP. And has way better keyboard.
View attachment 847514

Seems legit. Had an oil engineer who used HIS MBP for candy Crüsh, and Windows for Work.

 

[Rodan52]

The real value of the MagSafe power connection was the “safe” bit. If you have a dog or even a cat or small children you will have already realised the advantage of the MagSafe power connector. Something catches on, steps on, pulls on the charge cable and it just pops out. Rather than breaking the cable, damaging the port or in the worst case scenario pulling the laptop off whatever surface it was sitting on.
As for the multi port adaptor which my wife has on her 2018 MBPr I strongly suggest buying one which has two USB-C plugs. Despite the disadvantage of only being able to attach on the left side (it duplicates the power connection too) because the single plug units put so much stress on one USB-C outlet I can see lots of potential for damaging the port.
I am still running lots of USB-A devices, not least of which are 3 USB external HD’s for backup and storage, I regularly use the HDMI port for connection to our TV, the SD card reader for my two digital cameras and the headphone jack for a set of Bose headphones. Lucky my 2015 MBPr still has ports for all of those AND I can connect them all at the same time and still run on AC power. Try doing that with the USB-C model.

 

[Thysanoptera]

Seems legit. Had an oil engineer who used HIS MBP for candy Crüsh, and Windows for Work.

I assume it was a figure a speech, but I can't find Candy Crush for Mac OS anywhere. If there is one I'd appreciate a link - I could toss my MBP to my 5 year old hoping he will kill the keyboard quickly to get a free replacement. He made a short work of the 12 inch keyboard.

 

[doitdada]

I assume it was a figure a speech, but I can't find Candy Crush for Mac OS anywhere. If there is one I'd appreciate a link - I could toss my MBP to my 5 year old hoping he will kill the keyboard quickly to get a free replacement. He made a short work of the 12 inch keyboard.

He used it on FB.

 

[Queen6]

Field engineer's MBP in its natural environment (hotel room after work) with oversized, wireless USB-A dongle for the red flash drive. For those wondering, the dongle is thinner than MBP. And has way better keyboard.

Seems legit. Had an oil engineer who used HIS MBP for candy Crüsh, and Windows for Work.

Same I spend a good deal of time in hotels while in the field, similarly serving as an office and I'm a field engineer in the oil & gas industry, difference being Mac's are relegated to home use as Apple's offering's only serve to hinder my productivity.

Q-6