
Apple cuts USB-C adapter prices in response to MacBook Pro complaints - uptown
http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/4/13524272/apple-cutting-usb-c-adaptor-prices-macbook-pro
======
TheSpiceIsLife
_We want to help them move to the latest technology and peripherals, as well
as accelerate the growth of this new ecosystem._

So just build laptops with _some_ USB-C ports, so we can buy new things with
USB-C and keep using our old things.

Dongles. What a circus.

~~~
wlesieutre
If they released a computer with two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports, every
device manufacturer would continue to release all of their products for USB-A
only and say "We've chosen to build our products to be compatible with all the
old computers, you can use those USB-A ports for our products and the USB-C
ports for somebody else's."

And then 5 years later, nobody's adopted USB-C yet because every computer
still has USB-A ports and every accessory manufacturer wants to be as
compatible as possible.

Apple is betting that the short-term inconvenience of a few dongles is worth
it in order to force every accessory manufacturer to jump on the USB-C train
immediately. I can't say I disagree with them.

~~~
giarc
Would placing only 1 USB-A port help at all in your opinion? Make it a bit
tougher to use older products?

~~~
wlesieutre
Hard to say how that would play out, but I wouldn't want the computer I'm
going to be carrying around for the next 5 years to be thicker just to include
a port that will hopefully be out of use within 1-2 years.

In the short term, my main desire for an A port would be for wireless mouse
dongles or other people's flash drives. But I mostly switched to a bluetooth
laptop mouse already, so I'm not sweating the mice. For my own flash drive,
you can get one that supports both ports, but other people won't necessarily
have one.

I think I'd still rather carry around an adapter for the short term and be
able to transition completely off of USB-A when I no longer need it.

~~~
seanp2k2
I personally don't care how thick my professional laptop is. I'd rather have a
12-hour battery, 32GB RAM, two DisplayPorts, a few TB3 ports, serial, network,
audio in/out (+toslink), and 4-6 USB ports. I guess I want the Thinkpad P70,
but I want it to run macOS, and not have a terrible track pad. There is
currently no option for this. The Mac Pro used to be cool, and they could
update it to make it great again. I'm not sure why they don't invest at all
into the pro market. People have been saying this now for about 5 years, and
Apple would obviously rather sell luxury consumer "lifestyle" laptops than
serious professional tools.

It's not that I'm against thin-and-light, I just see that as fitting the needs
of e.g. PMs and managers, and the MacBook / Air filled that need nicely. Now
they've gone and made the mbp into the air, thinking that's what everyone
wants and needs.

~~~
wlesieutre
It's basically my dream laptop on account of the screen: wide gamut, variable
refresh rate, great brightness and contrast. In the regard it's way nicer than
the Air (which is what I have now). But I do any heavy lifting tasks on a
(cheaper + Windows) desktop with an i7 and 32 GB of RAM, so my laptop doesn't
need to be the beefiest machine in existence. Nor do I run piles of VMs or
huge deep learning datasets. IMO it's a computer more for artists than it is
for programmers, and that's driving a lot of the negativity about it on HN.
We're mostly programmers on here.

On the USB-C note, I'm curious what happens to the Mac Pro now. They're
pushing USB-C as the new standard for pro accessories, and yet the Mac Pro
doesn't support it. As if being 3 years old wasn't bad enough, now it's 3
years old and has the wrong ports.

Here's hoping for an "Our bad, the new Mac Pro has USB-C, Thunderbolt 3,
upgradeable GPUs and multiple drive bays," but I'm not holding my breath.

~~~
goalieca
Am I the only programmer that uses tmux and vim with old fashioned makefile? I
still need a serial port to talk with hardware but a simple usb dongle works.
I remember people complain almost 15 years ago that apple didn't have a serial
port on their laptops. Its funny that windows itself became the biggest
problem for serial.

------
orbitur
What the hell is going on over there?

1\. Did they honestly think no one would balk at the prices?

2\. I feel like they're reacting to every single wave of criticism over these
last couple years, and instead of making me feel good, it makes me feel like
none of the execs have any idea what they're doing. Kinda would prefer they
stuck to their guns about having 10000% margins on their accessories.

------
djyaz1200
This move and Phil Schiller's justification of the compromises of the Macbook
([https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/02/phil-schiller-justifies-
th...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/02/phil-schiller-justifies-the-
compromises-of-the-macbook-pro/)) seem uncharacteristic of Apple. Perhaps they
are realizing they have made mistakes?

------
liquidise
While saving $30 sounds nice, it is not the biggest issue here. Historically
Mac users have sacrificed cost for usability and elegance. Apple seems to be
suggesting the opposite is now a better idea?

Right now, my $1,000 2012 Air has a charger, usb keyboard, usb phone charger,
and a usb conference mic plugged into it. I don't even want to imagine
carrying around the number of dongles that would allow me to do the same on a
2017 Pro machine.

~~~
outworlder
Historically, Apple has always dropped declining tech, even if they were at
their prime. See also Floppy Disks, dedicated keyboard/mouse ports, Firewire.
This is not the issue.

Using dongles is also not the issue. Having a versatile port is a good thing.

The issue is that they seem to be neglecting common use cases _in their own
platform_. As in, you cannot plug an iPhone to their own computer, not even to
charge it. This is inexcusable. At the very least, they've lost control of
timing (if the next iphone happens to have a USB-C port).

> Right now, my $1,000 2012 Air has a charger, usb keyboard, usb phone
> charger, and a usb conference mic plugged into it. I don't even want to
> imagine carrying around the number of dongles that would allow me to do the
> same on a 2017 Pro machine.

A single USB-C port can replace all that and more, you can also carry power
and video. There's no reason why those can't be provided by a single "dongle".
Which would actually be more convenient to carry around.

Would it have killed Apple to include a USB-C to USB3 dongle? I can't believe
their margins are that thin.

~~~
kenferry
> you cannot plug an iPhone to their own computer, not even to charge it

Am I just confused? A USB-C to lightning cable connects an iPhone to a new mac
without a dongle, no? It's just a different cable than before.

~~~
nicky0
It's not you that is confused.

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pier25
Apple again missing the point. It's not about the money, but about having to
deal with dongles and adapters.

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serge2k
> Through the end of the year

better than nothing I guess.

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joshmn
Can only imagine what the cost to make these is. $1? Can't imagine a lot of
engineering went into them.

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JBerlinsky
Go figure that it's not retroactive. Gotta get that early adopter/purchaser
tax somehow...

