Dongle dilemma provokes Apple price cut | Hacker News Reader

Dongle dilemma provokes Apple price cut

bbc.com

67 pointstimoth83 comments

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.

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.

You do know why, if you think about it for a bit.

Look at the backlash Apple got for removing the 30 pin port on the iPhone. There are so many docks and devices out there which supports the lightning port, way more users than macbook users.

Sure, but if they were following that logic there'd still be a headphone jack, no?

The outcry would be worse if they changed both at the same time. And delaying the death of Lightning, if its death is indeed Apple's plan, will make it older at the time of the announcement, make it feel less like a bait and switch.

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

That... actually makes sense.

Sort of except charging ports are kind of handy for charging the things.

Given the Apple Watch has wireless charging and this https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/31/foxconn-iphone-8-wireless-cha...

And Apple's obsession with removing holes, I would put money on it.

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.

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

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.

That must be what the wireless headphones are for.

It could still attach magnetically like the Watch charger, just no actual hole.

Then it might just mean that you are holding it wrong

"Unless they get near-field charging really good"

There's another option, you throw it out and buy a new one when the battery dies. I really wouldn't be too surprised at this point.

https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/31/foxconn-iphone-8-wireless-cha...

Well, the cynical side of me says that they least have all these lightning-port apple-only headphones by beats to sell..

USB-C being the industry standard means they no longer can gouge fools for their riddiculously shitty cables without strain reliefs

This is a consistent complaint about the new systems but it ignores the history of Apple's device connectors. Macs are distinguished from iOS devices by a level of complexity; Mac users should be OK if they encounter a cable or device that isn't digitally compatible, its been that way since the beginning of consumer PC's. iOS isn't and never has been about those types of considerations.

If they had used a usb-c plug on the iPhone 7 there would be a lot of blow back when iPhone's port fried since people were using third party cables that weren't regulated. It doesn't matter if Apple tells them not to use it. Media will put the blame on Apple even though it's the manufacturer's responsibility. This is why they require lightning cables to be certified.

There are many more iPhone users than MacBook Pro users out there. My guess is there will still be some people bringing in fried ports to the Apple store, but it'll be a lot less than if they had released usb-c on the iPhone.

http://phandroid.com/2016/10/14/recommended-usb-c-chargers-f...

By the wrong cable, fry your phone.

This makes sense. I hope they reinvest in the pro community this year, however; any advantage that macs give disappear as devices are split. If I don't need to develop for iOS or the mac itself, I can get along fine with a thinkpad/bsd for Dev and an iPad for music and notifications.

I don't want to reinvest all my USB cables and chuck away my touch typing just to get a small power bump. I can't even upgrade my memory!

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I am glad Apple is leading the charge in getting rid of the headphone jack. My main problem with the MacBook event was philosophical inconsistency.

Apple removed every single port from previous pros EXCEPT the headphone jack, less than 2 months after arguing for the death of the same headphone jack. Are they implicitly saying that the headphone jack was more important than MagSage, or leaving one traditional USB/HDMI port? Now the flagship iPhone can't be plugged into the flagship MacBook, and neither can the lightning headphones I get in the box with my phone. I'd much rather they'd have just gotten rid of it entirely in favor of being consistent on their vision.

> Now the flagship iPhone can't be plugged into the flagship MacBook

You know that USB-C to Lightning cables exist, right?

Meanwhile, those of us who still care about having control over where our data is and being able to work without a network connection are loudly saying: "DO NOT WANT!"

I think the "Cloud" argument for the ports is wildly off. Unless they're telling me they've thought through that people with cameras are uploading 16-32GB cards full of raw photos up to the cloud too [ or would in this theoretical scenario ]? And what about a photographer in the field? People want to see the photos they just took, or are taking if they have some complex strobe lighting setup, in a laptop-sized screen instead of a squinty back-camera one. Sometimes people even edit and submit photos on the fly from a laptop.

It's more "the dongle" argument than the cloud one.

No way, Apple didn't expect this. If they did, they would have cut the prices of dongles at the announcement or provide a dongle for free with each MBP.

You say given their size they can lead to the future. I say, given their size, they could have had a MacBook, MacBook Pro and a MacBook "Concept" product line. A forward thinking line for the early adopters who are OK with moving to USB-C only with touchbar (ie no tactile Esc key) and paying a premium. Car companies show off their concept cars each year to gauge the response. Apple execs had no clue this was going to happen.

I had my wife convinced to switch to Mac and was waiting for a refresh, money in hand. Now we are looking for alternatives. Huge mistake for Apple to give me a reason to look elsewhere after using Macs for 20+ years.

> I say, given their size, they could have had a MacBook, MacBook Pro and a MacBook "Concept" product line

They did... the concept was released last year..

Look I think it's ridiculous but maybe they did and reducing prices was just something they expected to have to do if backlash was over some threshold. It's not like they were blind-sided either, they're not complete idiots.

How keeping the old connectors and easing user transition is bad for Apple?

"Carrying around assorted collection of dongles and loving it." - Mantra of blind Apple lovers. Seriously, I don't get why people feel they need to defend every wrong decision Apple takes.

Why can't your wife decide what laptop she wants?

Let's all agree to call it USB type iPhone 7, out of respect for their planning and vision for the future.

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.

> They're focusing so much on the […] Apple Watch

From the hardware side, maybe. The developer experience for it is a miserable one.

Lots of people are throwing "pro" around as if there is an understanding about what it means. A video producer has a completely different set of requirements from a web developer. If we're talking about iOS devs, then they're probably working on an iMac or they'll buy one of these MBPs. As for graphics pros or game devs, they're probably just not all that compelling for Apple as a revenue opportunity in the laptop form factor.

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!

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

And that a single set of earphones would work with both, especially since apple's so heavily into selling you music.

de minimis. I'd add that a MacBook Pro should be configurable for pros. This is really an expensive MacBook Air.

Define "pros." I ask because the number of pros who can't use this machine seems incredibly narrow.

EDIT: I know that using a mac for what I'm describing is a goddamn joke, but you people are triggering me way to hard. World doesn't end on people writing text or working with 2D logos you know

How about anyone in engineering? I mean real engineering not cobbling flavour of the month js together that you could do on a friggin i3 provided you get an ssd and you wouldn't know any difference.

Try 3D CAD software with 3,5k parts, any rendering, anything that needs more than 16GB, how about an SD card slot? I've got a 10 inch e-reader with SD slot that I use to read/browse tons of things?

People who need a proper mouse?

How about an USB stick? Do I make literally everyone buy a shitty new Macbook so don't have to sit there for 15 minutes waiting for Wifi?

I mean, it was early 2000's where I had to worry about fucking dongles and what-nots

ok, mechanical engineers. What percentage of the market is that?

It's crazy to me that a company with so many designers in positions of leadership could miss something so obvious. I mean I know they were aware of the problem, but why wasn't there anyone with enough perspective and influence that could step back and call out how stupid it was?

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.

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.

that wouldnt force peripheral companies to adapt, and youd own ten gadgets competing for one port.

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.

Yeah but the vast majority of peripherals use usb-b. I solved the problem with the 12" Macbook by not buying it and sticking with my Air. My friend traded his Air in for the Macbook and hates that aspect of it - he has to get the adapter out all the time and tends to lose the things.

Um, what? USB-B is a device-end port. It's the square port on your printer/scanner/etc type device. You probably mean USB-A, which is the rectangular one used by e.g. flash drives.

Assuming that's what you meant: I don't care. People always harp on about how Apple does "planned obsolescence" to force hardware upgrades.

Here they are, fully committing to cutting edge, amazingly versatile, backwards compatible, INDUSTRY STANDARD ports, meaning the MBP you buy in 2016 not only can use (via a relatively cheap new cable/adapter or a multi-device hub) any USB device released in the last 15 years, but also has a good chance of being future compatible with devices released for a good number of years, both low AND high speed.

What is the response?

Waaaaa I want to plug my old shit into my $2.5K laptop but $9 is going to break the bank.

I have a 2011 MBP. It has 3x USB2, Firewire 800, Gig Ethernet and ONE freaking thunderbolt v1. Its still very usable, with one fucking exception. USB2 is slow as shit. Firewire drives have no adoption outside of Mac users, so they're not available everywhere, and when they are the price is ridiculous.

If my MBP had 4 TB1 ports instead of all the legacy ports, yes I would have had to buy a couple of USB2 adapters back in the day, but I would be able to have multiple USB3 adapters now.

The situation now is honestly the best scenario. Apple is embracing an industry standard and honestly the ones who aren't following it are the el-cheapo PC makers who are still shipping PS/2 and VGA ports.

No, the issue is of convenience: most devices out there are not USB-C yet. Carrying around and losing adapters makes life less convenient.

So instead, you'd rather be inconvenienced in a few years when you have a heap of usb 3.0 ports that aren't forward compatible and you have only one or two tb3 ports?

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.

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.

Seamless integration while maintaining a wall between apple and everything else

But they sell a lighting to USB-C cable so it does...

It's optional and non obvious.

I think it's completely plausible that someone would go to Apple.com, order a new phone and laptop, and then be surprised when they arrived...

I expect there's a long-term design principle that neither device should need to plug at all.

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!).

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.

Absolutely, could not agree more.

> 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).

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.

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

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.

Redbox is still cheaper and better selection than pay-per-view or any streaming service, even if artificially inconvenient. (so i can then rip the dvd from my drive > usb stick > roku 3)

Do you think this is very common? I haven't used discs regularly in my PC since about 2005. In 2011-13, I used DVDRs to make regular repo backups for the company I ran at the time. In 2006-9 I had a car with a CD player but no tape deck (so no tape adapter), so occasionally I would burn an audio CD. Aside from that, nothing. My 18 month old MBP doesn't have a DVD drive, and I have to say it's never once been a problem. My desktop PC does have a DVD drive, but I can't remember ever using it after I installed Windows 7 in 2012. It might not even be connected any more... I can't remember...

Anecdotally, from talking to friends and colleagues, I don't seem to be very unusual in this respect.

Ethernet is potentially an issue, since even today wi-fi can still be hit or miss, while cables remain as reliable and high-bandwidth as ever. So when I bought my MBP last March, I bought a USB3 ethernet dongle for it, and that's done the trick. Though to be honest I haven't ended up using it as much as I'd expected I would...

Apple's track record on this stuff is fairly good, I'd say. When they get rid of something, there's a better-than-merely-non-zero chance they're right. And while I'd never suggest holding fire just on that basis - after all, they're betting on wireless headphones, which is obviously crazy talk - as a purely practical matter, waiting and seeing will at least save you from a bombardment of neckbeard fanboy spittle ;)

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.

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

http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-03-a.html

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.

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.

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

I think the subtitling is very well executed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

"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.

Probably the most important one: profit. I believe Apple takes most of, if not all of, the profit in mobile phones.

Profit..

http://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/apple-iphone-...

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.

To those citing Apple's profit: it is certainly an important metric.

Nonetheless, there is also another angle to consider: how much a technology enables, by being affordable and accessible.

I live in India. In large parts of this country, smartphone uptake would simply not have happened but for Android's ecosystem.

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

Not good.

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