I said it before and I'll say it again:
Apple is moving towards converging their product line, not expanding it.
They'll keep removing and removing until someday you're left with a product they already offer: The iPad. Or at best, the MacBook. Make no mistake, that is where they're going. And it'll happen sooner than it needs to, which is the real issue here.
TC already expressed that you don't need anything other than an iPad. The CEO of Apple said that.
Thus, this is what I see as simply the next stage (the iPad Pro was Stage 1 and the MacBook was Stage 2) in a phased approach to kill the Mac entirely.
First they seal the box, then they remove all ports, all while they introduce pointless features that they call the "greatest thing they've ever done".
When was the last time Apple added something useful without taking something even more useful away?
Yes, the Touch Bar is cool. But I'd rather have MagSafe, upgradeable RAM and SSDs, and ports that are still in use to day, and will continue to be for the forseeable future.
Apple's omissions on the hardware side are really, really starting to piss me off.
And Apple keeps putting me in the position of choosing hardware over software.
I swear, I want to strangle TC, JI, and PS everytime they make a reference to "our customers". Apple doesn't LISTEN TO THEIR CUSTOMERS. They dictate.
It's painful to lose all the great stuff in their machines. I'm using a 2011 17" laptop as my main machine, for f***'s sake. It has everything you need: Expandable RAM, expandable HD/SSD, Optical drive (although I use the bay as a second HD/SSD drive host), Gbit Ethernet, 3 USB 2 (expandable to USB 3), TB, FireWire 800 (still in use in music studios everywhere), MagSafe (the single most egregious loss in the new machines), and the too-flexible-to-give-up-allows-me-to-expand-the-machine-to-anything-a-pro-could-need-or-want ExpressCard slot.
Their BS that "this machine is the best" is a fresh, steaming pile.
When my 17 dies, Linux had better suck. Otherwise, I'm going the DIY route and finally building something.