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Comment by Osmium | Hacker News Reader

> I mean, I get standardizing on USB-C only for peripherals, but I don't get it for power.

* A dedicated power port takes up space; now you can use it for data too.

* If a USB-C cable breaks, it's a lot cheaper to replace than an entire power brick.

* There are ports on both sides of the laptop, so you can now charge from either side – this reduces cable strain.

* And, as you say, it's a standard. As USB-C cords become ubiquitous, you'll be able to charge anywhere (or from a battery pack even).

It seems like a good decision all told, though I'll miss MagSafe too.

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MagSafe is a product from a different era. It was invented at a time when you needed to be connected to power all the time because batteries didn't last long enough, laptops where mostly made from plastic, heavy, fragile, had spinning hard drives, and would immediately break when dropped.

Today, I only charge my Macbook Pro at my desk, where there's no danger of accidental cable-yanking. A full charge easily lasts all day, so when I'm out it's never actually connected to anything.

The aluminium unibody construction and solid state drives also make it a lot more sturdy. So when it does drop, chances are good it wont actually break.

For these reasons, I don't think that Magsafe chargers are necessary anymore. And considering how expensive replacement Apple chargers are, I'm happy they're moving to an open standard!

"Today, I only charge my Macbook at my desk, where there's no danger of accidental cable-yanking. A full charge easily lasts all day, so when I'm out it's never actually connected to anything."

This is a good take. I hadn't thought of this argument before. It makes sense.

I know I'm in the habit of keeping my laptop plugged in as much as possible for those times when I do need to rely on the battery. I generally get only half a day with my MBA (13" early 2015) running multiple JVMs, Mail, and Safari with lots of tabs. I do find I get better performance when I turn off WiFi and dim the screen.

According to the tech specs, my laptop should get "Up to 12 hours wireless web". The 13" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar specs at "Up to 10 hours wireless web". I wonder if this means I'll get less unplugged time with the MBP.

> I know I'm in the habit of keeping my laptop plugged in as much as possible for those times when I do need to rely on the battery.

I do this too. But also for another reason, I try to reduce battery usage to increase the lifetime of the battery. I should probably research whether this is something I should actually be concerned about (anyone any ideas?)

I've heard rumors that keeping the battery topped off (plugged in) also decreases battery life :) If someone would like to google that for me, much appreciated!

I've killed my battery in a year by repeatedly running it down more or less completely every day

Which kinda sucks if you have glued in batteries...

Apple's power management is smart enough that when you reach 100%, it will let the battery drain a bit before charging again:

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-recommended-to-unplug-a-MacBook-...

Laptops are still fragile. I dropped my work MacBook pro about two months ago from a height of three feet, maybe less. It was onto a hard tile floor with the lid closed.

It killed it. The screen didn't break, not a scratch in sight, but it went dead all the same. The screen would not cut on. Plugging in an external monitor worked with heavy artifacts; I suspect some GPU damage.

I could not log in (it locked up after the fall when logging in with the external screen) and my work replaced it.

Freak accident but falls still kill MacBooks.

EDIT:

Also, without a charger, IntelliJ slurps up enough power I can't last more than a couple hours of dev time. Even that is generous.

I can last maybe 3 - 4 hours on my 2014 MBPr in low power mode at least when writing Scala, longer potentially if it's just Java for some reason. You may also want to try resetting your SMC and see if that helps battery life in general, I know it works for me often enough.

As for reliability, I've dropped this same laptop from about 4 feet off the ground on the corner pretty much flattening the rounded edge and it's been fine.

Doesn't help that MacBooks are so slippery. It's the single reason that I bought a Dell instead. Too easy to drop or slide off my lap, and it's not really feasible to put it in a rubber case like I do with my phone.

It also misses the point that laptops throttle more when on battery. I plug mine in at home to get less throttling when doing something intensive.

Yet another way that Apple don't care about people that use their stuff, and why i'm buying a Chromebook to replace my Macbook Pro where i'll SSH to servers instead of compiling locally.

I'm curious about the comment that Apple doesn't care about people that use their stuff. Isn't it possible that they do care deeply, and that they have carefully designed a laptop that is optimum for most users? Of course, that means some users don't fit this profile, but it doesn't mean that Apple doesn't care.

Good point - so Apple care about some users, but not others. Even my partner, not a geek at all, keeps hers charged to support her 30+ tab Chrome habit. The collateral damage is all over, and won't be apparent until the next generation where the 'normal' users find out.

I'm surprised about people who get so much mileage out of their MacBooks. Is the 13'' that much better, or are people just doing a lot of light work?

I usually work from a café these days, and I go from 100% to 0% in about 4 hours (15'' Retina, Mid 2015). I mostly run VSCode, Vagrant, Safari, Slack, Spotify and Terminal. Of these, Spotify, Terminal, Slack and Safari are easily the most energy-sucking apps.

That sounds like poor battery performance to me. I have a mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13" non-Retina (bought new in 2015) and I get 7 hours battery in cafes, though I don't usually run Spotify and it will dip to maybe 5.5 if I run Parallels Desktop. Usually I do 4 hours with 50% left before heading home.

I mostly use Safari, Postbox, Sublime Text, Coda, Cathode, Tower, Parallels (rarely on battery) and Xojo. I wonder if Sublime is more power efficient than VS Code.

Griffin is already selling a usb-c cable with a MagSafe type feature: https://griffintechnology.com/us/products/cables/usb-c-cable...

That's great from Griffin, kudos to them for doing this. And shame on Apple for dropping the ball.

It's too bad we'll never know what would have happened under Jobs.

What annoys me is that for example Lenovo has 30 notebook models... so how much effort would it have been for Apple to release a laptop that accommodates real professional users a little bit, with, say: a 5th laptop option?

I don't think it's a question of effort: it's a decision on the part of Apple to keep a minimal product line.

Apple's assumption (which is probably backed up by usage studies) seems to be that "real professional users" use their laptops portably, and use lots of weird ports, but almost never at the same time. So the laptop itself can be lighter to encourage that portability, while the ports can live on a dock at a desk (e.g. the Cinema Display, an older iMac, or that multi-port USB-C dongle that will probably just hang permanently off all the cables it's been joined to.)

For those exceptions to the "almost" never—mostly IT people doing field support—they make a litany of adapters. Adapters make sense for this use-case: the target type of user already carries many in a "toolbox", and this is just adding on a few more.

And don't forget the Mac Pro. Apple's own internal "real professional users" are, as far as I know, more likely to use a Mac Pro at their desks and then a MacBook for mobile portability—but they won't bother to try to do work with the MacBook that'd be better done on the Mac Pro. Which includes plugging strange peripherals into it.

it'd be pretty helpful then to have an updated Mac Pro

That's cool, but it's rated to 60W and I believe the 15" MBPs are 87W.

The 87W product is slated for February

IMO improved battery life and standby time have reduced the need for a feature like MagSafe. When you're charging less often it's easier to avoid charging in hostile conditions. The break away adapter seems like a good solution for the people who still need it.

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