Thunderbolt 3/USB-C Adapters, Cables, and Hubs for New MacBook Pro

[bighype]

That'd be funny if I hadn't bought at least one of each of those.

Such elegant design, keep up the mediocre work Jony.

I've read that Jony Ive doesn't even work much at Apple. He's apparently in UK and he comes to Apple's Cupertino campus few times per year. Ive basically retired and he doesn't design much anymore.

He's still listed on Apple's exec page but that's just to assuage investors.

Main guy who designs Apple's stuff is now some tool who designed CARDBOARD BOXES for iPhone. I kid you not!

That's one of the reasons why everything coming out of Apple looks so horrible.

 

[cult hero]

So many dongles... what do those pictures remind me of?

That's right....

Funny how things change.

This is so contrived. If you have an external, wired device it has to connect to SOMETHING. The more you have, the more wires there are. A standard use case iMac these days would have even fewer cables because even the mouse and keyboard would be wireless.

What's nice is having a dock at a desk so when you set your laptop up you plug in to ONE cable and everything is good to go, which I've been doing with Thunderbolt at my home and office for years now, and it rocks.

Seriously guys, if you have a ton of dongles going, you're just plain doing it wrong.

Also, the fact that the Thunderbolt 1/2/3 adapter is bi-directional is really cool and it's half the price of the one-way adapters being sold by others in this space.

 

[SeaFox]

Or an adapter to use another adapter to connect to a wired network?

You missed the other discussion. According to KPOM wired networking is dead in professional settings and everyone uses wi-fi now.

 

[KPOM]

I'd also note that there are plenty of USB-C cables out there from Monoprice. It would also be good to identify USB-C battery packs that could be used to charge the MacBook Pro in a pinch (most only put out 15W so would be better to use in limited cases such as on a long flight or while the lid is closed).

 

[The Mercurian]

I'm actually really, really happy that it's only $20 (or lower if you go 3rd-party) to replace a frayed charger cable now! Much better than $80

Edit: Oops, misread the article so this is not totally relevant. But I'm still happy about this.

Yeah - so up until now how much profit were they making on these cables ??

The irony is that so many of you are so caught up in the group-think here that you can't see that long-term, the new Thunderbolt 3 ports will greatly streamline connectivity on the MBP. Those of you who still want your HDMI, mDP, usb-a, magsafe, etc. would have a mass of cables connected to both sides of the MacBook any time you were set up with all these peripherals. With Thunderbolt 3 you can have a dock hidden away and 1 clean cable connecting to the laptop. Even cleaner than the iMac in the picture.

You do know that the 2 USB-c ports on the right side are not operating a full speed because the mother board won't support it ? They could have just left it at 2 USB-C on the left and some legacy ports on the right. That would have kept most people happy.

Yeah its dongle-hell now. But when the industry move over to USB-C a in a year or so the dongles arent needed anymore. Then you will be happy the Mac you bought have USB-C ports. Apple have already planned / they know this.

How often do you think people replace their peripherals ? It my printer, scanner, drives, monitor etc continue to work for the next 5 or 10 years I have no intention to replace any of them

Being a MacBook owner, already have to carry a few

The issue with these is the horrible experience of having to buy a USB-c to tb2 adapter....so an adapter for a dongle to a dongle....poor.

I pretty much have to carry 2 dongles for displays and 1 for ethernet because whenI travel for work I never know what overhead projector I will be using and some places require ethernet use and don't offer visitor wifi.

 

[doelcm82]

So many dongles... what do those pictures remind me of?

That's right....

Funny how things change.

If your Mac ends up looking like the PC on the right, then it already doesn't look much like the Mac on the left.

And this photo is dated. My iMac doesn't have wires from the screen to the keyboard or from the keyboard to the mouse.

 

[AfroAbel]

Must every thread turn into a @#$%fest rant against Apple/Tim Cook/Jony Ive/Angela Ahrendts. We get it. You don't like Apple and are convinced Steve Jobs would have given you an 8lb behemoth with every legacy port and all components user-upgradeable because that was his design philosophy. /s

Can you just let the rest of us stay on topic and discuss the topic at hand?

Can't all of them start a "Waiting for the new Surface Book/Studio" thread and whine about how far Apple has fallen and how MS is the true innovator of 2016.

 

[KPOM]

You missed the other discussion. According to KPOM wired networking is dead in professional settings and everyone uses wi-fi now.

I didn't say everyone uses Wi-Fi, but facts don't matter to you people.

I said Wi-Fi is becoming more prevalent in professional settings, which is true.

 

[CBlakeston]

I've been researching this since I ordered the new MacBook Pro and its in no way this simple.

No current pass through power hub has enough power to drive the 87W MacBook Pro. They are all designed for a 29W MacBook one port. No article i've read ever mentions this. Apples Support documents don't recommend you charge a MBP through current hubs and connect it directly to power.

Cheaper USB-C adapters, though listed here often have short comings. When you read reviews for example, in the small print it mentions they won't work with western digital drives.

The hubs with 3 or more USB ports only work with one hard drive. They are deigned for USB thumb drives. They only support one hard drive connected at once. Unless they're super expensive and plugged into power separately via an AC adapter.

Don't trust any article on USB-C accessories that doesn't mention the three things I just explained.

 

[pat500000]

Wish there was a adapter that converted the CEO of Apple into someone competent.

HAHAHAH well said. I think that comes in price as well.....

 

[WestonHarvey1]

MacRumors forums are now at their most insufferable since... ever?

USB-C is it, folks. Everything else is going to be a legacy connector now. Apple pushes you off the cliff with this kind of stuff and always has. You already knew this.

The dongles are no different than the external floppy drives that you had to buy when the iMac came out in the 90s. How many times a day do you use one of those now?

 

[Botts85]

I pretty much have to carry 2 dongles for displays and 1 for ethernet because whenI travel for work I never know what overhead projector I will be using and some places require ethernet use and don't offer visitor wifi.

Same here, I keep a ethernet adapter in my travel bag, and always have a VGA adapter and HDMI cable nearby if I'm going to be presenting.

 

[KPOM]

2 normal USB and 2 usb c would have been more sensible. New MPB is laptop for 5 years time when everyone has USB stuff. By then you'll need to replace it. Sometimes it's more important to be on time than first.

If there were even one USB-A port, there would be little incentive to make anything for USB-C. People would still complain that their old TB2 devices don't work, or how they need more than one USB-A.

The point is that by forcing the issue, just as they did in 1998 when they dropped EVERY legacy port in favor of (ironically) USB-A, they encourage the rest of the market to adopt USB-C and move on to a superior port.

Otherwise it winds up like Windows where there is a complete alphabet soup of ports and PC notebooks shipping to this day with VGA and Ethernet ports.

 

[gnasher729]

The OWC USB-C Dock says 80W of power to charge your device, but the AC Adapter for the 15" MBP is 87W. I wonder if this will cause issues for users?

The MBP will get 80 Watt of power. That means it will charge a little bit slower, especially if you have power draining items attached to the MBP (for example, charge your MacBook while plugging in an iPhone and an iPad and charging them).

 

[tech4all]

Finally! Someone else who lives in 2016.

Hmm I use cables for lots of those items...so you're saying I'm not living in 2016?

Because this was so much better, right? /s

Yup, no dongles are needed for ports that are still widely used.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

Design-Wise those dongles are a nightmare. I get a beautiful space-gray alu MBP and need to attach a white plastic dongle to connect HDMI ? Design destroyed.

At least there is a cable to connect to iDevices.

 

[pat500000]

Confounding.

It's like they actually hate their loyal customer base. You buy the latest phone and the latest Laptop, and you cant plug it in without buying an adapter. You buy fancy new headphones you were more-or-less forced into for your brand new phone and you can't use those without buying ANOTHER ADAPTER.

Seriously, what. the. heck.

No need to worry. Apple will soon find out the hard way. I thought "minimal" was there concept.

 

[gnasher729]

Where the hell is my USB-C to MagSafe adapter??

You can buy that from Amazon.

 

[MH01]

View attachment 669753

They would never build that...when they could sell each of those interfaces as a dongle

 

[trifid]

Is this a joke? Ugliest most ridiculous adapter in Apple history. It's literally a brick.. brickgate?

 

[Mac Addict]

Guess it's not for everyone, but the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter for my MBP brings all of my basic connections to one place. Neat enough for me.

 

[sir1963nz]

You need an adapter to connect almost everything that you already encounter and nearly everything that's currently available for purchase today.

Of course changes happen, that's not at all what I'm saying (hello Mr. strawman). I love change as much as the next person and can't wait for USB-C to be fully implemented across the board.

However, since that is absolutely nowhere near the case, it makes sense to leave some of the other ports in addition to 2-3 USB-C ports.

When Apple dropped the DVD drive, nearly everything was already being done via USB/network. When Apple dropped Ethernet, nearly everyone and everywhere had Wifi. When Apple dropped Firewire, nearly nobody used it or even knew it existed.

And my wife has never plugged anything into the USB port of her laptop.
We file share wirelessly
We backup wirelessly
we print wirelessly
we access the internet wirelessly
Our phones back themselves up wirelessly
we share screens wirelessly on the Apple TV
and when I update my laptop I will also use "hand-off", wirelessly
and so on.

And we know a number of people like that.

Apple understands YOUR needs are no longer the majority, and neither are mine (I have USB logic analysers, oscilloscope interfaces, eprom programmers, arduino development systems and a huge collection of 1980s computers I am slowly repairing).

The majority of Apples users are NO Mac owners and the majority of Mac users are NOT programmers, engineers , video editors, etc etc.

Times have changed.

 

[doelcm82]

In an ideal world, with iPhone 7, they'd have given a wall plug with a USB C slot.

In an ideal world, you'd have been happy with that. Maybe you'll get your wish with the iPhone 8.

 

[pat500000]

I have the 12-inch MacBook, and I purchased the very well made OWC USB-C hub about 18-months ago and it works great. Unfortunately, when I plan to use it with the new 15-inch, it will take a bit longer to charge because it's rated at 60 watts. It should do until OWC invariably makes a new hub to match the 85-87 watt spec. I'm okay with a USB hub, or a couple of dongles. I do believe that Apple should at least include one with the purchase of the new MacBook. This simple gesture might help to tamp down the resentment of MBP customers, myself included.

There are other shortcomings of the new MacBook Pro that bother me more than the dongle thing'. Since they didn't speak at all about the WebCam, I have to assume it's the same POS from the 12-inch MacBook which is very grainy and embarrassing to use.

Are you referring to potato cam?

 

[SeaFox]

Can't all of them start a "Waiting for the new Surface Book/Studio" thread and whine about how far Apple has fallen and how MS is the true innovator of 2016.

Well, considering that Apple's machines are supposed to be the tool of choice amongst creative professionals, it is kinda interesting at Microsoft is releasing a PC-come-drawing-board while Apple's has no similar machine. Closest product is the iPad Pro -- which you can't run full OSX creative production applications on.

The iMac is already half-way there for that product, just need to give it more tilt and a surface you can use a stylus on.
Or is that too innovative?