....
I travel a lot with the job, its such a pain to move the data to the desktop and then move it to the drive. Surely it wouldn't have been that difficult to add one more port. It wouldn't compete with a macbook pro because its not as powerful and throttles... but its great for viewing images with the screen... and should be good at things like file transfer as its a laptop... its a frustrating experience.
....
when the MacBook was reintroduced the MBA 11" was still on the market. So in a "Princess and Pea", lightest weight contest the MBA 11" was the 'weight to beat' not the MBP.
MBA 11" 2.38 lbs ( 1.08 kg)
MB 12" 2.03 lbs ( 0.92 kg)
MBP 13" (2017) 3.02 lbs (1.37 kg) for context
MBA 13" (2017) 2.96 lbs (1.35 kg) for context
One of the design targets for the Macbook was the hit 2.0 lbs ( or under 1 kg). That's what is getting in the way of the port. The case is made of aluminum and Apple is having to chuck as much dense metal as possible to limbo under that limit.
That is why the "wings" and the recessed keyboard tray is gone. The keyboard goes all the way to the edge. ( so no parts where the keyboard are possible because you intersect the key mechanisms). The rigidity of the display lid... again shave off aluminum to limbo under this weight constraint. The screen is slight smaller than 13" to save glass weight. The object is to shoot for a screen about just as wide as keyboard and cut off any additional metal outside that width.
The ports are stuffed into a the upper corner where the keyboard has to stop because the lid hinge mounting point is in the way.
Step 5 of iFixit Teardown of 2016 model (
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Retina+MacBook+2016+Teardown/62149 )
[ The black thing taking up all the space is the keyboard. ]
Step 10 of the iFixit Teardown of the 2015 model. (not much has changed at the ports ) This is better venue of the limited space that the electronics board to support the headphone jack amp and electronics.
One option would be to dump the headphone jack. It makes even less sense not to label the system "Air" is headphones are also default wireless. Go brave like with the iPhone. ( I think there are more folks complaining about a lack of second port than would complain if there were no headphone jack. )
Second option would be backtrack to MBA 11" weight. That still would be below the MBA and MBP 2017 models. Add some depth so the corner space was larger for electronics and perhaps could even get TBv3 controllers in there. A bit more thickness for keytravel ( to MBP level).
[ These too small corners are another reason way the MacBook is stuck with simple USB Type-C and not Thunderbolt. There are physical chips that have to be within 1-2 inches of the port for it work as it should in a computer system ( were have to alt-mode to DisplayPort and pure USB 3.1 gen2 ]
I still think the basic 13" MBP is poor for its price and size especially when the newer one came out in 2015 with a £3-400 price hike for pretty much no reason at all bar the touch bar. Its crazy they call it a pro it bang average and has no dedicated graphics with 2 ports, honestly whats pro about it? The 13 should be a macbook and macbook should be called the air. At least then there would be some hierarchy to the lineup.
i suspect that this two port, function key, 2016 MBP 13" model was really the MBA 13" upgrade that got hijacked. Apple may not have known if all the touch bar kinks would get worked out in time so they had two MBP 13' in models the more far reaching one failed. (it was probably fairly certain it was going to fall short on affordability regardless of how the tech turned out) They cranked up the screen price ( high color gamut , backlighting, etc. ) . What is odd about the too is that the 2 port and 4 port models weight exactly the same. The 2 port has more battery stuffed in and the 4 port model makes other trade-offs to hit the exact same weight. That is somewhat suggestive they were in a design bake-off with each other for the same slot.
If they had redesigned the macbook air with a retina display with the availability of i7 chips with a cooler as previous I would have been more than happy. Unfortunately they didnt so I bought the macbook as there wasn't another portable choice.
It seems you bought the MacBook more for the screen than the "lowest possible" weight. The current MBA 13" and MBP 13" have a negligible weight difference. If the MBA 13" is "low enough" weight the MBP 13" should be too.
If Apple rigidly sticks with the 2.0 lbs weight constraint for the MacBook I suspect it wouldn't be until OLED displays get cost effective (and Apple can shrink the batteries a bit) until get to point can do two ports + headphone jack.
[doublepost=1520893761][/doublepost]
*5* separate 13" models? Really?
There was a time when Steve Jobs would have instantly killed the idea of such a complicated and confusing product strategy. Let's hope Apple haven't gone THAT insane...
There are only 4 ( the Macbook turned MB air is 12" )
Back in Steve Jobs days there were 13' and 15" matte and glossy models. The non-hiDPI and hiDPI models could be rolled up into one conceptual model just like those were. Should add no more confusion than there was then.
The screen size isn't the sole driver here. The touch bar adding an Apple watch price ( $300 , ~25-30% markup) to the system's cost is one of the things that is a driver here of why there are more models also. 25% on top of Apple's 30% markup leaves people behind and segmented on cost.
Steve jobs introduced the MBA into the MB + MBP mix. So if was so horrible why did he add a 3rd? Today Apple sells at least twice as many laptops as when the more simplified model was in place. More people with more diverse preferences are in laptops now.
