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Comment by edwinjm | Hacker News Reader

Apple's idea is that your monitor will be the hub. See the new LG Ultrafine Display. Just connect your Mac with one cable and you're ready to work.

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Can we say that, at this time, Apple's idea here is a bit dumb/half-baked/incongruent/silly/frustrating and it will materially hurt them in the longer term?

None of what you said is remotely true. Betting entirely on USB-C as the one true connector is not half baked and is quite reasonable. And by using it solely it will force accessory manufacturers to build the docks, monitors etc.

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.

It's the short term where the pain will be felt if there is any. The long term is clear, USB-C throughout which I think is a good thing. What I'm confused about is why the iPhone7 was also not USB-C. I fully expect to see the next iPhone switch over.

while I 100% agree the next iPhone SHOULD switch over to USB-C I'd be very surprised if it actually does...Apple isn't going to want to go through a second port transition in such a short period of time (30 pin to lightening) and certainly won't want to change anything after the headphone port this year. Especially b/c next year is the 10th anniversary, and it's understood that they really want it to be something special,

I agree they won't change so soon, but I just realized there have been as many lightning models as 30 pin models.

Thing is, it's not "just" the connection. They are losing hearts and minds for many reasons... it is not easy to replace that.

On the contrary, it is exactly what I want. And also exactly what I do now with the 27" thunderbolt display. The same way my TV is now my universal HDMI switch.

Monitor-as-dock makes a great deal of sense for the roving user with a fixed base.

I wouldn't buy a $1300 monitor that worked only with a Thunderbolt 3 device. It must work with USB-C and DisplayPort, even if only at UHD resolution than 5K. If I buy a Windows laptop tomorrow, and it doesn't have Thunderbolt 3, I can't throw away my monitor and buy a new one. Or if I want to plug my new monitor into any existing Mac model, which doesn't have Thunderbolt 3.

I would be happy if an adapter exists for this job. The monitor needn't natively support DisplayPort.

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