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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

> The touch bar macbook seems pretty useful itself considering how insanely good its IO is (4 thunderbolt ports!!!)

Can a machine have "insanely good IO" if dongles are required for everything from iPhones to hard drives to memory cards? I could agree that a machine with 4 thunderbolt ports on top of the regular complement of power, USB-A, and SD slots would be insanely great. But I'm living the dongle life and not loving it.

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A machine can have "insanely good IO" if you're not judging it in the context of older hardware, yes.

Four thunderbolt ports is great. One adapter to plug in all of the things you mentioned is also great. iPhones and hard drives don't need dongles, they just need cables. A USB-C to USB-B 3.1 cable is $1.33 from Monoprice; USB 2.0 version is just $1.12. Not too shabby.

For iPhones: the only times I've had to plug my iPhone into my laptop is doing development, but a cable for that only costs $20.

But let's compare it to the previous (2015) MacBook Pro: two USB ports and two Thunderbolt-and-Displayport ports, and HDMI. Five ports total, but no flexibility. Our office was full of DP-to-DVI dongles already, so swapping one dongle for another seems like a no-op. Difference now is that we can buy USB-C monitors which also serve as a power source and a USB hub, meaning one cable to plug in my entire desk. That's something you can't really get on the old MacBooks (at least, not without spending a lot more than it costs to do it on the new MacBooks.

So yeah, the machine has "insanely good IO", and once the rest of the world catches up it'll be even better.

>So yeah, the machine has "insanely good IO", and once the rest of the world catches up it'll be even better.

I mean, that's the thing. Apple jumped ahead, and USB-C just isn't common. (At least, for me. I can't name any device I've used or even heard of that uses USB-C.) So, it's a less than practical option if you're in the market for a laptop, not so much insanely good.

I wouldn't buy a computer with only serial and parallel ports because none of my devices use them, and I wouldn't buy a computer with only USB-C ports, because none of my devices use them.

I actually have a few devices now that are usb-c now. Pixel phone, Mavic Air and GoPro Fusion are top of mind.

Though to be fair the Mavic Air controller charges with micro USB

I'm mid-transition. Nintendo Switch is USB-C, which joins the Macbook in new connector land.

USB-C to X cables solve most of the problems, but I have a 3-port USB-C to USB-A dongle for legacy stuff ...

I feel that these discussions are always going back and forth because TB3 is a fantastic docking station port, and a niche port for everything else, so both sides are right. Comparing the 2016+ port selection to the 2015 one is a false dichotomy created by Apple. The straightforward upgrade path would have been to replace TB2 by TB3, like they did on the iMacs.

Exactly. There's nothing wrong with TB3 as a connectivity option, but it shouldn't be the only option.

I understand the desire to make the machine thin, which means the old USB had to go. But taking out the SD card slot makes it seem like they don't want you to have an easy way to add more onboard (-ish) storage space.

> if dongles are required for everything from iPhones

I never understood this complaint. AFAIK, I've never seen a macbook with a lightning port or the older 13-pin iphone port. If someone had an iphone, they had a USB-A to lighnting cable. Now they need a USB-C to lightning cable. Then you can use the macbook to charge your phone, or the usb-c charger that charges your laptop to charge your phone. Or yes, you can get a usb-c to usb-a dongle - but you can just as easily get the appropriate cable. I'm also seeing that Apple is going to start producing usb-c chargers for iphones and ipads (with a usb-c to lightning cable) in the near future.

I'm a macbook + android user, so I've had USB-C phones for a while, so now I can use the same cable and charger for my laptop or my phone.

> If someone had an iphone, they had a USB-A to lighnting cable. Now they need a USB-C to lightning cable.

iPhones don't come with these, so it basically means you have to go out and buy another cable, which won't work with any of the wall charger power bricks that came with your previous iPhones. I understand a change needs to be made at some point, but it's strange for Apple to ship computers with no ports that are compatible with their iPhones.

iPhone syncs on WiFi to Mac. I do not charge my phone with my laptop. I have an inductive charger on my desk at home, desk at work, table next to bed. I just set the phone on it.

I guess that works great for people who spend hundreds of dollars on inductive chargers!

I work in many environments and just bring a charge cable with me.

Of course, the iphone was just one of many things that I was noting isn’t compatible. External hard drives? Thumb drives? SD cards? All easily plugged into my previous Apple laptop, but require a dongle here. I have a mini-hub, but even that isn’t great because it can’t charge anything.

Anker Wireless Charger Charging Pad for iPhone 8 / 8 Plus, iPhone X, Galaxy Note 5, S7/S7 Edge/S6/S6 Edge/S6 Edge Plus, Nexus 4/5/6/7, LG G3 and Other Devices

$9.99 on Amazon. So I spent $30.

Glad they're cheap now! I stand corrected on that point. Curious to know your thoughts on the question of hard drives etc. Seems to me like Apple jumped the gun here.

Eh, is what it is. I recently swapped my MacBook Pro with TB for a MacBook. The HD is plugged into the Apple (LG) 4K. It runs at USB2 in this setup. I duplicated the same keyboard, mouse, monitor, HD at work and at home. I like 1 cable and the smaller size of the monitor given the resolution works fine. For me, the size and weight of the laptop was key due to 150K miles a year on a plane. Does the rsync of the HD to the home NAS take longer, yup. Does it matter, no. It’s a script that runs when the device is plugged in, in the background. If I need to do heavy lifting, CPU, compile, etc, I ssh to a rack of build servers in a colo. 3 racks of 48 cores a blade with a huge SSD NAS and 10G or 25G NICs sort everything. It is really about YOUR workflow and what works for you. My laptop is pretty much a window to google docs and for everything technical it is pretty much the same as a dumb X terminal. It works for me as my goal workflow is always the same no matter where I am.

> If someone had an iphone, they had a USB-A to lighnting cable. Now they need a USB-C to lightning cable.

The problem is that when they purchased the iPhone, it came with said cable.

I purchased an iPhoneX this year and it comes with, you guessed it, a USB-A cable. So in order to connect it to my new Apple laptop I need to buy either a $20 cable or a special dongle? If Apple wants to go all in on USB-C then they shouldn’t still be shipping their top of the line “futuristic” phone with USB-A cables.

But obviously they already know that they would have gotten many dissatisfied customers complaining about having to buy a cable just to ‘connect their phone to their iTunes’ if they did that.

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