It's somewhat funny that not only will you have to carry dongles for everything for a few years time, but also make sure you carry the right USB-C cables, as your friend's might not work. Yay we have superlight laptops, but need to carry a backpack full of spaghettied cables.
You're not sacrificing anything. The old MBP had two usb ports and the new one has 3 available while charging. The only thing that has changed is now you can use the charging port for IO when not charging. Framing this as a "sacrifice" doesn't make any sense.
>make sure you carry the right USB-C cables, as your friend's might not work
With the old Magsafe chargers, and for laptop chargers in general, it's the same deal. If you want to charge your laptop, you have to bring your charger. The fact that the charger is USB-C doesn't make the situation worse.
But assuming you're a professional, you either already have a bluetooth mouse/trackpad or you'll want some quality and order a mouse from a reputable brand.
So I have to admit it's indeed very, very slim pickings.
On top of this I find it weird that people say they have to carry 20 Apple branded dongles. Depending on your use-case there is already type-c usb hubs with HDMI Ports, or Ethernet Ports, or both.[1]
The thing is, I love the USB-C TB3 Ports and I love Apple's decision to drag the industry kicking and screaming into a reality where an Office can have a Monitor that is a Thunderbolt 3 Hub, connected with Ethernet and peripherals, that work with both Windows and Mac. This will revolutionize flex-desk setups for big organizations and Co-Workingspaces everywhere. Imo it's worth to have this transition period where people drag a dongle with them to achieve this.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Resolution-Aluminum-MacBook-ChromeBoo...
Belkin, Elgato, OWC and others sell them. I use the Belkin one and it works great.
I don't think this is going to be as big a deal as people say. Honestly, the biggest beef I have is removing the SD card slot, because I do a lot of photo/video work.
I think it depends on the type of user you are. If you're a true "mobile user", it's probably not a big deal, because you put a value on mobility over other stuff.
If you treat your laptop as a "portable desktop", it can get annoying. The ability to not have dongles for everything is one less thing to think about. Yes, it's not the end of the world to have dongles, but if you're used to not needing dongles, being forced to use them is going to make you unhappy.
Either you're mobile and need the USB ports, or stationary and there's a hub there. What use case am I missing?
I don't know of a monitor that doesn't require a USB A-B cable to provide USB, so you're looking at three $70 adapters, plus three USB A-B cables. Sure maybe all that lives at the office. It's still less convenient.
I still can't get over the fact that you can't plug your new iPhone 7 into your new Macbook Pro without a dongle.
It seems like in the new USB-C world, I'd only have to connect one cable. Bonus points if it's sturdier than mini-DP and less flaky than MagSafe. Sure beats those weird-ass proprietary docks that used to be common ~10 years ago.
That's something I've never seen properly explained. Can you charge at 100W at the same time as using Thunderbolt 3 connectivity? It strikes me as unlikely since the power delivery and the signaling would have to share the same pins/wires.
Edit: I stand corrected after seeing that new LG monitor. Now I'm just curious how it works. Even PoE can't deliver 100w and Thunderbolt 3 uses much higher speeds while having to inject power.
1) PoE only uses two pairs of wires for transmitting current, USB-C PD uses four pairs.
2) Ethernet cables are rated for much longer lengths, show me a 100m USB cable.
3) Ethernet is typically run in walls and more often than not is grouped into bundles, so heat dissipation is an issue.
4) PoE delivers power at ~50v, USB-C PD does 20v.
Also, piggybacking on the other commenter's reply, PoE voltage is carried on the same wires that are transmitting data (for 1000Base-T anyway)
It also has two pairs of unshielded twisted pair for non-superspeed (USB 2.0) though only one pair is used in the cable apparently; which USB 2 channel you get depends on which way the cable is plugged in I guess.
It has a pair for sideband use. A pair for configuration and control.
The data primarily travels over the four high-speed differential signal pairs; two TX pairs and two RX pairs.
All USB 3 cables must have a chip in them. It communicates over the C&C channel to select how the high-speed pairs are used. When a display is connected, one TX/RX set are used for USB 3 and the other for DisplayPort.
USB 3 also supports "alternate" modes, so the C&C can negotiate that all high-speed pairs are used for Thunderbolt which is just the PCI-Express bus. Intel added the ability to interleave DisplayPort packets with the PCI-Express data. I assume that displays with USB 3 built-in are simply connecting a PCI-E USB hub to the Thunderbolt interface since in that mode there is no actual USB signal in the cable. USB 2 can use the dedicated signal pair for that and not interfere with DisplayPort or Thunderbolt traffic.
Thunderbolt is a nicer standard in some ways - interleaving means if you aren't using a 16bpp 5K display at max refresh rate you have more bandwidth available for other devices. With USB 3 you get half the available bandwidth if you connect a display. Thunderbolt is also old-school in the sense that it projects the CPU's bus to external peripherals... something all early computers used to do. Everything old is new again!
It is obvious USB-3 was very forward-looking. The C&C channel means some future version of the standard can drop USB-2 support and start connecting the unconnected pair if both ends negotiate for it. Now you have an extra TX/RX channel to give you +50% bandwidth. You can also imagine taking over the side channel pins. If you assume the next-gen standard can double USB-3's 10Gbps and add in double the data pairs that would be 40Gbps which matches Thunderbolt 3. Apply the same math to Thunderbolt and that's 160Gbps.
> I still can't get over the fact that you can't plug your new iPhone 7 into your new Macbook Pro without a dongle.
You've never been able to though? There is a USB-C to Lightning cable.
I think it was more a complaint about the fact that you'd have to buy an additional adapter to be able to connect the two.
I'll be picking up one of the $60-100 hubs/docks that have a single USB-C connector and HDMI/Ethernet/USB-A to connect all of my devices. When the monitors are cheaper in 4 years I'll buy one of those.
My point was that we're actually moving to a really good solution where you can plug in a single, non-proprietary cable and get all the throughput and peripheral connectors you could ever need. It's not even particularly expensive compared to a dock 5-10 years ago.
That describes my workplace. (But with two rather than three monitors.) Standard monitors that operate over HDMI/DVI/etc don't have USB hubs without a separate USB connection, most keyboards are the same way.
> Either you're mobile and need the USB ports, or stationary and there's a hub there. What use case am I missing?
Sure, you can work around the lack of IO by buying a hub, but the point was that previously you would not have needed yet another dongle.
There aren't that many good one's. What I would need would be one which handle's at least, 4-6 USB, two HDMI, Ethernet and charging would be a bonus.
The display was the soul of the desktop Mac. It's easier to perceive your Macbook as another PC when your window into it is another mostly generic-looking LG display, even if the panel in the Apple branded display was manufactured by LG.
Perhaps they want to focus on the iMac again and don't want the MBP + display combo to cannibalize it. But again, with extreme focus soon they'll be abandoning the iMac for good.
(I still love macOS and I enjoy how the new MBP looks)
This has all happened before with the original iMac. And it was universally seen in the long run as one of the best decisions they made.
Monitor-as-dock makes a great deal of sense for the roving user with a fixed base.
I would be happy if an adapter exists for this job. The monitor needn't natively support DisplayPort.
came up in a quick search. Looks good to me!
But your run of the mill Dell office monitors do have a USB hub, most often 2 ports on the back panel for keyboard/mouse and 2 ports on the side for flash drives and other transient accessories.
colanderman's point is that you should get a USB cable and use that hub instead of individually plugging everything into the laptop. Three video connections and one hub connection gets you all the connectivity you need at a desk. If you're mobile, you'll certainly need less.
At work I have an Apple monitor that has multiple USB ports and an Ethernet port on the back of it. I think it has speakers too. All that and the display run across the mini-DP connection. Again, not exactly run-of-the-mill, but well within the price range of Apple's target market, and given Apple's push in that direction, it's liable to be commonplace in a couple years anyway.
And they can all be 4k.
Second of all, it's yet another dongle I have to carry around and potentially lose. There's often not a whole lot of room on stage, so space is precious.
Thirdly, those dongles that convert video are usually slow garbage. If I am performing as a VJ, I need the video to be frame-synced and perfectly synced to the music without lag. I can do that just fine on my current MBP (run 3 monitors at once from the ports built-in to the computer. That's specifically why I bought it.) And now I can do that just fine from some Asus laptop since Apple doesn't seem to want my business anymore.
Plus, it has an additional 3 USB-C ports, meaning you plug one cable in to your Macbook Pro, and you are left with a total of 6 USB-C slots free, which you don't need because power is provided over the same cable anyway...
[1] http://www.apple.com/shop/product/HKN62LL/A/lg-ultrafine-5k-...
The old Apple Lightning Display was a nice everything-dock.
It has exactly what you want: hook it up with USB-C, and on the back it has ethernet, three USB-A, audio in and audio out. Fantastic thing. Resolution is 2560x1440. http://images.philips.com/is/image/PhilipsConsumer/258B6QUEB...
But I still think it's a net win because:
- We need to buy and manage fewer cables.
- We'll no longer have the problem of having a free port, but not the right kind.
- When we buy a device, we don't have to decide which ports it should plug into. Like, when I buy a monitor, I don't have to decide whether it should have DisplayPort, HDMI, both or either.
That's not really correct regarding MacBooks. If you've got the same Magsafe adapter (gen 1 or gen 2) the charger will work. It just charges at a faster or slower rate than intentional.
IMO, that's the real potential of this style of multi-use connector.
I am the "tech guy" for my circle of friends. Apple has lost all recommendations from me.
Maybe your friends need a new tech guy.
USB-A is certainly ubiquitous, which is a good thing. But it was never going to last forever. USB-C vastly improves on the physical design (reversible, symmetric, easier insertion, etc.) and I expect will carry us forward for even longer than USB-A has.
Thus Apple and everyone else are moving towards adopting USB-C, which means there will be ever more widespread and cheap docking and peripheral options. Yes, these transitions are painful but at least there are dongles this time, which hasn't always been the case. Such transitions are also a part of living during the historically amazing times of an accelerated tech curve. Enjoy that while it lasts!
The MBP is not bleeding edge on that curve, it is (kind of, sort of) near the top-ish. They made a lot of changes for the Future! without adding, you know, actual cutting edge components (from ram to the cpu/gpu chip(s)).
The whole thing breaks down further when you compound this new (old) hardware with the problems macOS will inevitably have. As each release, in my experience, has had significant issues for months with sometimes show stopping bugs. Can't wait to be served an ad on that shitty little screen...
I added an SSD and upgraded the memory to 8GB and it's more than fast enough for everything the normal person would do outside of kids that are trying to game (in which case you shouldn't be buying a laptop anyway).
In my case, mobility wasn't a requirement, so a desktop was fine.
If mobility is a requirement for you, maybe you could buy an iPad Pro or a cheaper laptop than you otherwise would buy, like the single-port Macbook.
[1] It wasn't available in India, and even if it was, it wasn't compatible with most Macbooks. The single model it was compatible with, it required two cables to be plugged in. And the monitor would have been out-of-date quickly, since it didn't support Thunderbolt 3.
The MacBook Escape—which history says will be the most popular new MacBook Pro by far—has only two USB-C ports and a phono jack. There are no other ports at all.
https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...
It's not Thunderbolt 3 compatible yet but making a version that is would appear to be a no-brainer.
You can pump 100 watts through a 60W rated cable - it will probably work because the rule is "users are dumbasses, rate it for 60 on paper and 120 in reality".
Or it could heat up, maybe to the point of damage.
> In the box: BreakSafe USB-C cable with quick disconnect magnetic connector
See slides 7&9 here specifically: http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/PD_1.0_Introduct...
More details here: http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/
There is nothing in the cable that would prevent the current from flowing.
The safe thing is to use wire from a vendor that rates it honestly to conservatively, and start within the ratings.
(That's why out-of-spec cables are dangerous)
The charger offers 87W because it is meant to be able to provide enough power to charge the battery while the CPU/GPU/external devices run at 100%.
The worst you are going to experience with 60W while everything is running at 100% is that the battery isn't charging or charging very slow.
If you're running on the dedicated GPU with high load, a smaller adapter might not have enough power to charge the battery at all.
What I really want (and I'm prepared to pay up to $100 for) is a low-profile (near-flush-mount, maybe 3mm max) Magsafe 2 female to USB Type-C male adapter that I can leave permanently in one of the ports.
I've read that Apple have consistently declined to license the Magsafe patent, so I'd settle for a magsafe-like solution.
But I think that, as peripherals and other devices begin to switch over to USB-C, we'll eventually see dongle use become less and less common except for older peripherals and devices. And that's nothing new. Eventually, it'll go the way of the PS/2 port: included on motherboards, but not really used much (relatively speaking; the analogy breaks down a bit when you think of gamers and the mechanical keyboard community, where it still gets some use for n-key rollover).
Transitions between interfaces, as a matter of principle, suck. But we wind up going along with them because there's benefit to do so. I'm curious how this will play out in five, or even ten, years. Not that I want those years to speed by to find out :).
I'm worried about the DRM situation, myself. My suspicion is that all of the engineering effort that should have gone into ensuring cable quality and spec compliance is instead being spent on new, innovative ways to lock me out of my own hardware.
It's a nice concept but it does not work well under linux. Most times I plug in the dock, a random port will not work.
[1] http://www.apple.com/shop/product/HKN62LL/A/lg-ultrafine-5k-...
http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av...
You can pass power through it and it adds USB-A and HDMI.
You can connect a single USB-C port to a monitor that has a USB-C video in. This monitor will then charge your Macbook and on top of that if the monitor has a built in USB hub it will also do that.
Or if your monitor doesn't support this then you can buy a dock/hub to which you connect your charger, monitors etc and the Mac with one cable.
For me personally that's what I've been missing most since I switched from Lenovo to Macs a few years ago - a docking station. For me plugging in only a single cable is as good as that.
https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-po...
Quote: "60W is fine unless you're pegging your CPU/GPU constantly."
Translation: Your house will only burn down if your laptop goes into a busy loop.
"MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) and MacBook (13-inch, Late 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports) draw up to 60W."
…
"You should not connect any power supply that exceeds 100W, as it might damage your Mac.
"Using a power supply that doesn't provide sufficient power can result in slow or delayed charging. It's best to use the power supply that came with your Mac.
"MacBook Pro can receive a maximum of 60W of power through the Apple USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter or USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter. For the best charging performance on MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016), connect the power supply directly to your Mac."
Source: Apple https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207256
Sure a bad USB-C cable that doesn't negotiate properly may be a danger, but likely the Macbook simply won't charge on such a cable.
I trust Apple knows what they're dealing with (in regards to poor 3rd party cabling) and not end up like a Note7 situation.
I have an odd hypothesis about this --- the less time people spend charging/running from AC, which is inevitably going to happen when there is no separate power input that can be used easily, the more they'll be cycling the batteries, and the faster they'll wear out.
On my 2015 Macbook Pro the port seems pretty finicky and requires fiddling with to get it to light up. The Magsafe connector on my Thunderbolt Display is even worse and a real lesson in patience. It's a Magsafe 1 port which requires a Magsafe 2 adapter - this thing is quite possibly the flakiest Apple hardware I've ever used - needing constant cleaning, fiddling with and blowing on. An absolute and utter piece of garbage - so yeah, I'm not going to miss Magsafe (version 2 at least). Although I suspect I might regret this statement the day I trip over my shiny Thunderbolt 3 cable...
For every button apple removes they add at least one dongle.