Thunderbolt is a multiplexed port. Typically, you plug it into your big screen. The external keyboard, mouse and speakers are attached to the big screen. Now your MBP charges from that cable too.
No need to tell me that your use case is slightly different. You can't please everybody.
Edit: I just discovered that the LG screen Apple is selling as a proposed match for their new laptops does NOT have legacy ports on the back, but just more USB-C ports. This seems very dumb. I don't want three $39 dongles on the back of my screen.
Yeah so now you have to carry some sort of multi-adapter in addition to your ultra clean laptop.
> It also doesn't have a floppy drive or an IBM serial port.
So how long do you think until cameras stop requiring a SD card? How long until most peripherals go to USB-C? Any way you slice it, for the next 3-5 years people are going to need to carry around a dongle (or dongles) with their Macbook. Not the worst thing in the world, but certainly doesn't make the user's life appreciably better.
Adapters and dongles are pretty much unavoidable these days. There are simply too many semi-modern ports still in use for each type to be included on a laptop to cover everyone's needs. It makes sense to move towards modern ports that provide more functionality and better backwards compatibility via adapters. In that sense I'd argue they do make people's lives better because it's a solution to almost every potential problem. Back in the USB2 era it was simply impossible to connect many devices to a laptop. Now we have multi-function ports that can accommodate multiple external PCI-E enclosures.
What's unavoidable about the basic requirement of a USB3 port and SD card? How about HDMI/DP at least? I take it this is a sign every Thunderbolt device is totally dead in the water now? It's not about including a port for every single type, it's about including at least SOME kind of port. It's one thing to make a leap like Thunderbolt 1 and then Thunderbolt 2 and Lightning etc. have been, then it's another to say it's all USB-C now (with no real transition!) and expect anyone to believe you when you say it's REALLY THE LAST PORT THIS TIME GUYS TRUST US. Would it really have ruined the laptop to include a single USB3 port?
I just bought their latest phone offering. If I also pick up their latest and greatest MBP, I won't be able to charge the phone with it unless I buy a dongle. I want to buy a nice pair of thunderbolt headphones, this won't work with the MBP. I don't know what the hell they're thinking. Nothing "just works".
Why waste space with an inferior port? A USB Type A port is useful for backwards-compatibility, but lacks the speed or the Thunderbolt support of USB-C.
When a client gives you documents on a thumb drive when they meet you at the airport 30 mins before your flight, and you sit on the flight for 6 hours with your useless laptop that can't read the contents of the drive, then maybe you'll understand why having the most popular connector currently in existence on your new laptop might be useful.
Just like I don't want a Leatherman® with just a knife blade on it, even if it is slightly larger I want my laptop to have all of the connectors I'm likely to run into over the next N years so that I don't need to carry a separate bag just for the dongles.
Because the inferior ports are used by almost everyone? If I just want to plug my laptop into a projector it doesn't matter that I have a technically superior port that I can't use.
Imagine they added a couple USB-C ports in place of the little used Thunderbolt ports and then waited a year to see the usage frequency... I bet the HDMI and USB-A ports would be used a ton more than USB-C.
I'm in no way defending Apple's decision here - I think having no standard USB ports is stupid - but this is kind of Apple's thing.
Apple knows you'll use the standard ports if they give them to you. And that's exactly why they've taken them away. Because it forces users to actually make the switch to something (they think is) better.
I know this, but since they haven't fully committed themselves to USB-C yet so this move feels early. It's insane that you can't plug an iPhone into your brand new MacBook Pro without another trip to the store for a dongle (they aren't shipping a dongle in the MBP box).
MacBook laptops have headphone jacks and USB-c connections but no lightning input ports. If I wanted to use my EarPods with the lightning end on my Macbook I'm screwed. Nor can I use the headphone jack or the USB-C ports on the Macbook with my iPhone.
The lack of integration here between Apple's own products is alarming and indicates that a high level someone is asleep at the wheel.
It's worrying. Apple didn't want to drop Lightning from the iPhone, because it would mean losing control over iOS accessories. But now their iOS and Mac products have incompatible connectors, which can't be easily fixed. I mean, they could go for USB-C on the iPhone 7S, but they just told everyone to switch to Lightning headphones. And Lightning, which is essentially a glorified USB 2.0 port, is a waste of space to add to the next MacBook.
Because it's still the port that nearly everything uses. USB-C is great and fast but I still have to replace all my cords and chargers because my new phone has USB-C and nothing else I own does. It's the same for a laptop, if everything I have expects USB-A USB-C for all it's great features is a hassle.
Insert USB connector
Ooops, must be wrong orientation
Insert USB connector upside down
Nope, that was right the first time
Insert USB connector correctly
USB C solves this very real time-wasting problem! =)
Waste space? My current Macbook Pro has 8 ports. The new pro mac pro has 5 ports. The non-pro mac pro has 3 ports. Surely we can fit a HDMI and a usb...
Oh wait, they had to make this thing thinner. Because thinner is more useful, right.
But now you get the silly extra-low-travel keyboard as well, like typing on a table.
I don't think this is going to really be a thing, aside from fairly specialized use cases. Some devices with integrated cables are going to require adapters (and, fortunately, an A->C adapter is tiny, or carry one of those Anker 4-port USB hubs that's the size of a pack of gum), but I'll just buy new five-dollar cables for my type-B devices and not really care too much about it.
Having to re-buy all of them is a drag, I am totally not saying that doesn't suck, but I'm not worried about having a bag full of them.
Wrong all around. Thunderbolt is a superset of HDMI. Thunderbolt is ALSO a superset of miniDP.
Mac laptops haven't had Ethernet for many, many years, except via the Thunderbolt or USB adapters, both of which will still be possible on this machine, too.
Yes, the SD card reader was left out.
Wrong on USB ports; it's absurd to suggest that "100 out of 100" keyboards and mice plug into USB-A. Most such products these days are, in fact, wireless, and those which aren't can simply use a very very cheap USB-A to USB-C adapter.
Connectivity includes AirPort Extreme (802.11a/b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet, a Firewire "800" port, two USB 3.0 ports, a "Thunderbolt" port, audio in/out, and an SDXC card slot.
Just to point out that assuming "most wireless HID devices are Bluetooth" is likely incorrect - a huge amount of the devices I see come with a dongle of some kind, that plugs into... (you guessed it) USB A sockets.
HDMI, miniDP and SD ports should never be present on a "pro" machine of any kind.
"Pro" doesn't mean "more". Sometimes it means less. Like fleet cars that don't have cruise control. You don't need cruise when your job is driving around the city and you shouldn't need a SD card slot for any job that's not photography.
My professional photographer friend will be mightily pissed off by the loss of SD slots. Every dongle is a bit more gear he has to drag around the city while shooting.
My professional radio guy will be mightily pissed off at losing HDMI. Or rather would be, if he were still bound to the Apple ecosystem - he left it several years ago, never to return, because the price/performance ratio on their desktops went down the toilet when they stopped making user-upgradeable "cheesegraters".
Apple has gradually abandoned the Pro market. I thought they were simply trying to move everyone to laptops, but now I can see that they really have no use for non-iDevices.
3D Printers typically have SD or MicroSD slots for uploading STLs for unattended printing. Most electronic music equipment like keyboards, synths or sampler pads have SD/MicroSD as well. Hell a lot of shop tools like CNC mills and welders have SD Card slots. Don't most Action Cameras use SD or MicroSD? Most professional grade video cameras will record simultaneously to multiple media formats and one of those is always an SD Card. Anyone tinkering with a Raspberry Pi is going to need an SD reader too. If you're doing any data logging with embedded micro controllers then you're probably using SD or MicroSD as well.
Probably CF cards. Most pro-level cameras have that as the primary card slot with some also offering a secondary card slot that is SD. Our cameras all do. The standard slot on regular cameras tends to be SD, though.
Which, apparently, is only an acceptable response if you're criticizing the decision to remove ports. I have literally no need for a 3 1/2 floppy these days, but I'm sure not everyone "is me". Should that be a standard adapter as well?
Clearly Apple believes there are more people like me (with bluetooth cars, headphones, keyboards, and trackpads) than people like you. Anyways, his "100 out of 100" comment is comically wrong.
Oh, come on. I don't "support" anything, being a fanboy of a peripheral plug variant is a life I don't even want to contemplate.
I'm very happy to adapt to new things, when they offer a demonstrable benefit to me. What benefit does a USB-C keyboard give me, exactly? I don't need the extra bandwidth to transmit keypresses. Why not include one or two traditional USB3 ports alongside the USB-C ports to ease people over to a new standard?
Unfortunately, there's no height for traditional USB ports! If you look at the photos, the 3.5mm jack is just barely fitting. USB-A is ~4.5mm tall, while USB-C is 2.5mm tall.
Not a knock here since I know this is not a majority case, but for marginally quick typists, I would say these wireless/bt keyboards are useless. Input lag is dreadful.
I type roughly 150 WPM without many errors, though I can burst much higher. The last disconnected keyboards I tried were:
* Apple Wireless Keyboard
* Logitech K 300
* Microsoft -god-knows-what-it-was-called- from back in the day.
In all cases, I experienced stuttering or dropouts of my input at high speeds. This did not happen all the time, but it was frequent enough where I felt the need to go back to a wired keyboard (currently Filco Majestouch). Maybe I had a bad batch, or something was interfering with the signals in my homes. Either way, I don't plan on recommending wireless alternatives for quite some time.
Might be a OK solution if it was not that OSX continuously losing Bluetooth connection, the mouse paring when switching mouse is buggy or you want to play computer games at all.
I despise bluetooth keyboards because they always disconnect at the wrong time.
Now, I do stick with wireless keyboards in general, but that's because the proprietary Logitech dongle has never failed me in years.
If Apple can ever make a Bluetooth keyboard that "just works" in the sort of way they're advertising their upcoming AirPods will, including working properly during the boot menu and every time I restart into Windows, then I might reconsider it.
There are no^H^H only useless ports.