To not offer a charging brick in a device costing from a grand, a charging brick that most people will NOT have as it's not a standard phone charger, is pretty lowball disgusting money gouging to be honest. The ONLY thing it serves to do is generate for profit for Apple.
Well, there are two separate parts to this: (a) whether it still makes sense to bundle a brick now that pretty much everything uses a standard USB-C charger and (b) whether Apple is passing on any cost saving to the consumer.
(a) is not just about price, it's about not adding to the growing pile of redundant power bricks. It's also about choice - even Apple now offer a range of adapters - some with double sockets if you want to charge a MacBook and phone - higher power ones if you need fast charging. Also, there plenty of
decent 3rd party options these days. Personally, I think Apple should maybe leave out all the cables and chargers and give you a £25 Apple Store credit to buy what you need. It wouldn't cost
them £25 and it could also be a loss leader that encouraged people to spend more in the store.
(b) is hard to gauge, since these are new models at new price points and US vs. rest-of-world prices are always inscrutable (bear in mind the EU and UK are also getting a far better statutory warranty than the US). Ultimately, complaints on a postcard to Apple, and by all means
don't give them a second bite of the cherry by buying one of their overpriced power bricks.
Bricks surely are going to break eventually, or fail PAT tests… surely they should also force Apple to give you a new brick when an old one is handed in.
In my experience, bricks usually outlast the device they came with... unless abused. And, yes, in the EU/UK, if your power brick fails before its time - potentially up to 5 years of
reasonable wear and tear (i.e. there was a design or manufacturing fault that made it unfit for purpose) - you
are entitled to a free repair or replacement. Meanwhile,
no country in the world thinks that you should get free replacements for stuff that has
genuinely worn out or been destroyed by misuse.
if the entry model doesn’t have one, where are you supposed to get this reusable brick from?
If you have any other device charged by USB-C (which is most things now) then
you already have one. And if you somehow
don't then you only need to buy it once, and can choose something appropriate to your actual needs (like a multi port charger).
I'm looking at a shelf with at least 4 old USB iPad chargers, any of which, at a pinch, would charge a new iPad overnight with a USB-A-to-C adapter (and there's a couple of
those sitting on the desk). I don't use
those any more because I already bought a nice Anker 60W charger that will charge up to 4 devices which I use to charge my phone, Kindle, ancient iPad Pro, AppleTV remote - and its easily small enough to take on the road if I wanted.
I've been travelling with a single USB-A charger and a handful of cables to charge all my handheld devices - phones, iPads, ebook readers, wireless headphones, iPods when they were a thing - since the late 00s - now I could just use a single USB-C charger that would charge all of that
and the laptop... and there's already a lighter adapter and USB-A-to-C cable that lives in my car.
Heck, you can fit mains sockets with built-in USB-C charging ports now.
So even if the iPad Pro is your first USB-C consumer electronics device, it won't be your last and it probably makes sense to buy a general-purpose USB-C charger that suits your needs, rather than accept whatever minimum-viable-product gets bundled.
9to5mac.com
