Hacker News Reader

Comment by burntwater | Hacker News Reader

Apple and Microsoft's Surface had (does the Surface still have?) the perfect connector - the Magsafe. The more we dig into this power over USB-C garbage, the farther away we go from that perfection. The patent expiration cannot come soon enough, I seriously hope all portable device vendors bring it back.

View on HN

The leaks say MagSafe is coming back on the MBP 14" and 16" laptops coming, possibly, at WWDC next month.

I've sworn off the past 5ish years of Apple laptops, but if they bring MagSafe back, ideally along with a non-Touchbar option, that just might be enough to bring me back!

The rumors are indeed that Touch Bar won't be on the new 14 and 16in either. I won't miss it, but I certainly don't mind it.

OOTH, you'll still be stuck with Big Sur (or worse).

I'm going to be very annoyed if Apple ditches the Touch Bar and gets that close to making the perfect laptop, then takes away my USB-C charging.

Knowing Apple they would never offer both.

Magsafe were the perfect connectors, but it was a huge shame that Apple botched the cables attached to those connectors. I went through three of them in three years; they yellow within months then start to fall apart. But worse than the cables were the fanboys who were always eager to blame me for the cables failing. I've never had such problems with cables before or since. Despite liking the connector itself, I am glad to see these gone.

Surface still does have this connector, but can also charge from USB-C at reduced speed!

That's the perfect way to do it. If it's docked, you likely don't care as much about the charging speed. And if you're using on your lap or coffee table, you probably care more about the MagSafe aspect.

The Surface dock uses the magnetic connector.

There are already plenty magnetic USB cables, most will only carry power or maybe USB 2.0 though

Reply on news.ycombinator.com