
Dongle dilemma provokes Apple price cut - timoth
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37880723
======
WheelsAtLarge
Looks to me like Apple is thinking long term and is willing to tolerate short
term criticism over it's decision to remove ports. They've set their future on
wireless and USB type C. Apple is the one company that's willing to sacrifice
now in order to gain in the future. The port decision aren't being done in a
vacuum. They have a reason. And give their size, they have the muscle to lead
all the industry to what they think is the future.

I don't know their endgame but given the fact that more and more work is being
done in the cloud. Macs will start looking more like Chromebooks as time
passes. Ports are less and less important once you have all your data in the
cloud and can access it at will.

What else can you expect from a company who's idol famously said, "Stay
Hungry. Stay Foolish?" They are certainly looking foolish now but their hunger
is leading them to future profit and a long life. I wouldn't bet against them.

~~~
Ph0X
See, I would agree with you, and I definitely agree with their decision on the
new MBP to put four Thunderbolt 3, but I don't understand why they didn't use
a USB-C connector on the iPhone 7, which just came out.

They removed the headphone jack and called it "courage", but real courage
would've been to switch to USB-C. That is the future of connectors, and if you
believe in it, why wouldn't you preach it across all your devices.

~~~
dynjo
Easy...iPhone 8 won't have a charging port, no point changing it for one
generation.

~~~
joeguilmette
I would be pretty damn surprised if they got rid of wired charging
completely... unless they get near-field charging _really good_ , where my
phone doesn't need to be in contact with the charger. Otherwise that makes
external batteries way less useful.

I think going to USB-C is much more likely. That said, a lot of new devices
and headphones are using Lightning, so... who knows. Maybe Lightning has more
life ahead of it.

~~~
vollmond
Yeah, and I need to be able to use my phone (like, hold-up-to-my-ear using)
while it's charging.

~~~
chris_wot
Hell, I need to charge my phone whilst _driving_ because I use the GPS and
Google's traffic options. And Internet Radio and often podcasts.

------
nostromo
Apple is at risk of losing their pros.

Mac Pro is a failure. The old-fashioned "cheese grater" Mac Pros are holding
their price nicely on eBay because many people don't want anything to do with
the "trash can" Mac Pro. And the new Mac Pro hasn't even been updated in 3
years.

And if you do buy a Mac Pro, you'll have to buy an ugly third-party monitor
since Apple no longer provides any displays.

The latest MacBook Pro is a great looking ultra-portable, but is not a pro
computer by most measures. It's a MacBook Air.

I feel like Apple can't walk and chew gum at the same time. They're focusing
so much on the iPhone and Apple Watch, their actual computer company is
atrophying.

~~~
arturoz
I was waiting for the new macbook pros to drop my 11" air and I ended getting
a 2009 Mac pro from Ebay. Few easy upgrades and now I have really fast
workstation for coding with 32gb of ram, ssd, desktop graphic card for around
$500, couldn't be happier!

------
danielweber
It seems like there should be a design principle that the latest iPhone should
always plug straight into the latest Macbook.

~~~
abvdasker
Ever since the iPod Steve Jobs's vision for products always put an emphasis on
seamless integration between different offerings. Carrying around a set of
adapters for these same-gen Apple products seems pretty contradictory to his
original vision.

~~~
tim333
If they'd just made the new pros with 3 usb C ports and one usb B then most of
the connectivity headaches would have gone away. Also the 12" macbook could
have had one usb C and one B. That's what I would have gone with.

~~~
stephenr
And then in 2 years time we have 1 less high speed usb-c port, when everything
is using usb-c.

Seriously, you're spending 2.5K on a laptop but $20 on an adapter for a device
using a usb-a port is too much?

This is just the typical Apple release bullshittery. No matter _what_ they do,
people want to complain for the sake of complaining.

~~~
h4waii
This has nothing to do with the financial price, and everything to do with the
hassle. You can't just pick up your laptop and walk out the door knowing
you'll be able to work with whatever you may run in to (within reason)...

You now have to collect your selection of dongles and stuff them in your
pocket, and hope you didn't forget the USB-C to USB-A/B, or to HDMI, or the SD
reader.

Having 2 legacy ports would have negated all of this, or build a hub device
with the most used interfaces and include it.

~~~
stephenr
They literally sell a device that has usb-c to hdmi and usb-a plus usb-c for
Charing.

I really don't get the ad card thing. Post pro's use compact flash, and most
consumers I'd expect to just plug in a usb cable directly to the camera to
download photos.

------
osrec
Apple did a great job of making tech simple and accessible to an audience
composed primarily of novices. They did this by making their designs Pareto
efficient, and essentially decided what was best for the average user (you
could say they dumbed things down). Now, however, I feel the majority
demographic is more informed, more comfortable with complexity, and more
confident in making their own decisions. They don't want Apple's restrictive
decisions holding them back. Apple's oppression of their users' technical
freedom may well be their downfall (a slightly obscure example: my Grandma,
who was initially only able to use an iPhone, now prefers her similar sized
Samsung, because it's easier to configure, holds more of her music and simply
lets her do more for free. Also, it doesn't keep asking for her damn password
every ten minutes!).

~~~
mancerayder
This is an excellent and understated point you've made.

It may be the trajectory towards 'simple and accessible' via simplicity has
crossed a line that's moved due to people's increased knowledge of computers.
It's moved and its stepping on people's toes. The vendor lock-in strategy via
their ecosystem trappings just amplifies the perception.

~~~
osrec
Absolutely, could not agree more.

------
RHSeeger
> Earlier Macbook models already did away with ethernet ports and the CD/DVD
> drive - a move which seemed absurd at the time, but I’d argue Apple was
> ultimately exonerated. When was the last time you put a CD into your
> computer?

My PC, I put a DVD in almost every week, and has an ethernet cable running to
it. If my mac had an ethernet port, there would be one plugged into it. I find
it very annoying that it doesn't. Rather than exonerated, they are just things
I need to put up with to get my work done (because everyone at work uses a
mac).

~~~
el_benhameen
Not trolling: what do you use DVDs for on a weekly basis? I haven't had a DVD-
playing device in a few years, and it's been a problem exactly once, when I
needed to get some photos from an archival DVD. Never use them at work.

~~~
wtbob
I can't answer for RHSeeger, but I like to watch movies on DVD, because the
streaming options (particularly Netflix) are so horrible.

~~~
zanny
I ripped my DVD collection years ago, internal storage is so cheap it makes no
sense to keep around spinning discs and drives to read them.

------
notadoc
The dongles are a temporary inconvenience, and yes it is an inconvenience
undoubtedly.

The real dilemma is caused by releasing an underpowered new MacBook Air as a
"Pro" workstation, which costs a significant premium yet is unfit for many
actual professional environments. This leaves many users questioning an
already deep investment into the ecosystem, because waiting for a notable
upgrade thus far was not rewarded, and waiting another several years at the
glacial pace of an Apple release cycles is now feeling like a significant
gamble where the next versions could likely be even less professionally geared
than these models are.

------
dalbasal
I love this little article by Douglas Adams. This reminds me of it.

[http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-03-a.html](http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-03-a.html)

~~~
mattkevan
RIP Douglas Adams.

I know he's been gone a long time, but once in a while I read some genius
piece by him like that article and feel sad all over again.

------
matt_wulfeck
I feel the consolidation of ports is a huge step in the right direction. Now I
can plug a single cord and get Ethernet, power, and display, and not jenky
Ethernet speeds also, but _fast_ 10G connections. And PCI options open up the
possibility of having an external graphics card, something that's not possible
without the move to Thunderbolt 3 via USB type-C.

------
ptaipale
Just in case you didn't see this Youtube video (El Risitas meme) yet, making
fun of Apple's decision:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSC_UG5_kU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSC_UG5_kU)

I think the subtitling is very well executed.

------
ben174
It's not often that Apple admits defeat like this. It's a good move, IMO. And
an easy business decision. Cut the very high profit margins on all these
dongles, and remain relevant.

~~~
rosser
This isn't "admitting defeat". This is sacrificing profit to help "transition"
people to where Apple wants them to go.

An admission of "defeat" would be shipping an iPhone that has a headphone jack
again. This is why I don't expect that ever to happen.

~~~
ben174
They're not doing this as a favor. If they intended to do it they would have
done it pre-launch. They've had a huge amount of bad press over this, and did
this as a response to it. They clearly realize that not doing so puts their
business at further risk.

~~~
rosser
That's still not an admission of "defeat". It's admitting they were maybe a
bit callous with how they handled it, but they're still "full-steam ahead" on
USB-C — until the next magical, panacea connector standard shows up.

~~~
redler
There's a near future in which USB C will be as ubiquitous as A. It's the
first standardized, reversible, durable, and versatile adapter -- and it's not
Apple's invention. Apple is willing to annoy the margins to ensure that by the
time that near future arrives, they've got a substantial installed base of
tens of millions already established. They have the luxury of employing a
strategy.

------
youngtaff
See what they really should do is have a trade in program so we can all take
our redundant thunderbolt 2 dongles in when we upgrade

------
SwellJoe
"Its iPhone is still king, but sales have been in decline."

By what metric is iPhone still king? Android phones account for 80+% of the
market.

~~~
altyus
Profit..

[http://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/apple-
iphone-...](http://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/apple-iphone-
grabs-104-of-smartphone-industry-profit-in-q3/)

~~~
nodamage
That's amazing. Apple captures 104% of the profits in the smartphone market,
Samsung is next in line with... 0.9%.

Everyone else is selling phones at a loss in order to gain more market share.

------
chris_wot
So Apple's famed simplicity of design has caused them to complicate the lives
of their users?

Not good.

