What does that have to do with the single port? Other manufacturers have made thinner notebooks than the "impossbile" Macbook before Apple, and had no problem putting multiple ports into it (even USB Type-A ones that allow you to do amazing things like plugging a thumb drive into your computer without requiring a dongle).
Source please?
Also, have you seen the YouTube videos? It's impossibly thin. How do you fit 5+ port formats not designed for thinness, both outside and inside, on something so thin? Are you considering the insides? Wouldn't adding 5+ ports change the internal strategies?
Look—Apple is simplifying what a computer is. Early adopter markets will put up with "pain" to acquire new benefit. To appeal to early and late majority markets (look it up) it's a company's job to "innovate" the product toward their needs. Sometimes that need isn't specific, like "remove all ports" but is something like "make computing simpler, a no brainer, something I don't need to think about and is always with me." and it's up to any company to interpret and trial-and-error/problem solve how to meet that need. Business is creative, and very artistic in a sense. If you don't like what Apple is doing, make your own company. Express things differently. Compete. Apple is not the only one making computers. This is just Apple's artistic expression. Other companies are answering to different market needs in their own way, as you mentioned.
Also, Apple designed (but gave away/collaborated) the USB-C spec because ALL computers could benefit from this direction, and Apple is tired of port complexity. One port to rule them all! Maybe you don't like the transition phase. Don't all transitions bare some sense of pain? But my point is Apple designed it because they saw a pattern—we're moving to NO PORTS. This is just an introductory product line—a first impression, an experiment, a start. Don't lose your head. That's my core point to people on the forum.
[/COLOR]Did anyone ask for fewer and less compatible ports?
YES! Go search through threads. People are annoyed of Apple using proprietary ports, vs other brands and tech using USB. And USB being all sorts of connectors:
USB has Type A, Type B, Mini-A, Mini-B, Micro-A, Micro-B, and none of them were reversible, and then you have issues with internals, and devices also dealing with them. Plus you had firewire, then thunderbolt, HDMI, display port, and multiple ports for each.
Complexity was pain for both consumers and the industry. So the industry got together and solved it with USB-C.
So yes!!! We asked for fewer ports. And this makes it MORE compatible. I don't know why you're saying LESS? You can now buy a device in 2015-2016 and use that cord or power adapter across all devices. And prices will be cheap, now, too! This is the answer to complaints I've seen since forever. So I don't know how you've forgotten this pain point.