They're also moving towards everything wireless. I can't remember the last time I plugged my iPhone into my MBP. It syncs to iCloud and updates are all OTA.
That sounds great if you want Apple to have all your data. But why do you?
Never mind that wires will always be better and more private than wireless.
For some values of "better". For me, not plugging in and needing to carrying around wires is always better.
> and more private
Wireless can be secure and unencrypted wired transfers can be sniffed via the electromagnetic radiation they emit. This isn't as cut and dry as some like to pretend.
Ha! I don't believe it for a second. The other day my iPhone went from 100% to dead in less than an hour - in airplane mode using only the music app and strava.
Given that you were using Strava, I'd guess you killed your battery running GPS, but that doesn't mix with airplane mode.
I went to a security conference once where a presenter was telling me about a previous conf, where he was demonstrating a 'free wifi' box that snooped on all connections and pulled passwords out of them. He was demoing it on stage when the wifi went out in the other auditorium behind (also part of the sec conference). His magic little box then went berserk as huge amounts of security professionals at a security hacking conference then connected to it to try and re-establish their wifi. [1]
Compare this kind of story to the kind of setup you need to have to sniff EM radiation from a cat-5 cable.
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[1] The point of his story was that security professionals love to lecture others on correct tech use, but in reality the sec recommendations come so thick and fast that even the sec professionals don't keep up with them. How is a mere mortal to cope?
The "better" argument was my bigger disagreement. Wired isn't "better" in any absolute terms. I'll happily use wireless rather than wired for the convenience of walking across my house with my laptop. Or, you know, actually using my cell phone.
And if I'm in that situation (often: in a library, a school parking lot waiting for my kid's basketball practice to end, etc.) I'm stingy about battery power. I turn off the Mac's Wifi (which makes a big difference), and wire tether my phone.
Yesterday at an airport to charge my phone! But I haven't synched via a cable in ages.
I would not be surprised if the next iPhone came with a USB-C cable.
I don't buy into enough of the eco system, but do Apple devices sharing an Apple ID to sync over LAN/WLAN instead of hitting icloud?