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Vintage in what sense? HDMI is literally one of, if not the most common types of display ports on TVs, Monitors, game consoles, etc. I think most people would choose a straight HDMI to HDMI connection over trying to find the right USB-C/lighting/whatever cable to fit their needs (which is very hard to actually do). The HDMI port has stayed the same for a long time, yet new HDMI specs come out every few years expanding the capabilities.

I was being a bit cruel. It's an HDMI 2.0 port, which is useful for presentations (a USB-C to HDMI dongle lives in my backpack for that reason). 2.0 will drive a 4K monitor at 60 fps. Never tried that, but, IIRC, the original USB-C port (and HDMI 2.1) could do it at 120 fps (which, for my terminals, would be... totally overkill, just like 60 fps already is).

While I agree HDMI 2.0 on a new for 2021 machine is an odd choice, displays can still be connected to the Thunderbolt 4 ports much like the previous gen. Apple's spec sheet says two external monitors at 6k/60hz supported this way via TB4.

All of this is to point out, has anyone confirmed 4k/120 on the thunderbolt port? Given the 2x6k monitor output 4k @ 120hz sounds like it should be possible, unless Apple have nerfed the output.

> Apple's spec sheet says two external monitors at 6k/60hz supported this way via TB4.

It’s 2 for the Pro but 4 for the Max (technically 3 plus I think 4K@60, because that’s the limit of the hdmi port).

What's wrong with a USB-C to HDMI cable if you need that connectivity?

You can pick up a 2015 MacBook and walk away carrying nothing else, and handle a wide variety of situations that may occur. Three things enable this: long battery life (don't need your brick); a touchpad that's not absolute hell to use for more than a minute or two at a time (don't need an external mouse); and port selection. Need something off Bill in marketing's USB stick (it'll be USB-A, almost certainly, even in 2021, let alone 2016)? Need to plug into a TV or projector, or even just a normal monitor that's not super-duper-new? HDMI is far and away your best bet, especially if you're not carrying your own cables. Photographer has some pictures for you that need to go on the web site (or you are the photographer)? SDCard reader, no problem.

That ease-of-use—just pick it up and walk away, you don't even need to think about it—is significantly weakened if you need a few special cables and dongles to be similarly-well-prepared.

I mean let's be honest, how many of us are road warriors that need every single type of connectivity known to exist? Having a single port type on your device simplifies one half of the equation.

Your device's ports are a casualty of the lack of standard data port. The HDMI on displays makes you feel like you need an HDMI on your laptop, I disagree if my USB-C port can do that AND a whole bunch of other things.

> I mean let's be honest, how many of us are road warriors that need every single type of connectivity known to exist?

Road warrior? It also meant you could grab it and go to the conference room and not have to take anything else with you, or go back to your desk for something. Packing for a business trip? Maybe you need to throw the power brick in the bag. That's all. Every single type? It had, what, five, including the rather niche Thunderbolt ports? Those are what should have become USB-C ports, as that change would have been 100% an improvement. Keep the rest, including USB-A, which might finally not be the most useful USB port to have in, oh, 2030 or so, if trends continue. Should be right about the time USB-C is being replaced ("Can you believe anyone ever thought that cable situation was OK? LOL.")

> Having a single port type on your device simplifies one half of the equation.

I don't think it's been most people's experience that having only USB-C makes their device simpler to use with a broad range of peripherals, even ~5 years after Apple went all-in on it.

I'm not sure I see it, the same.

At home I have a CalDigit docking station. One cable to my laptop, and I get power, video to a second monitor, digital audio connection to a DAC for audiophile quality headphones, SD card reader if I really need it and wired ethernet. The laptop still has 3 open USB-C ports. How is it not beautiful that a single cable takes care of all of that. Sure, we've had docking stations forever but they weren't single cable, they looked like cash registers you have to literally sit your laptop in to get the same level of connectivity.

When I'm traveling I have a few cables for various scenarios and adapters. USB-C to HDMI for video, also works for my iPad so it serves two purposes. I don't use SD-cards on the road so this isn't a problem for me but a USB or USB-C or whatever to SD-card reader isn't bulky enough to gripe about for traveling.

At work conference rooms can simply provide the needed connectors so when I disconnect from my desk and end up in a conference room I still have the connectivity I need.

I definitely agree that USB-C makes a great connector for workstation-type docking situations, if you're getting to pick all the hardware for that purpose (which is what I've done, too).

> USB-C to HDMI for video, also works for my iPad so it serves two purposes.

I get why they didn't do it at first (lower-end models exist in part to use up parts from previous higher-end models, so you can't just change them all on day one) but it's crazy to me that they're still shipping iOS devices of any kind with Lightning ports. The dongle thing would have been less annoying if I could at least use the same dongles on all my (new) Apple devices, iOS and MacOS alike. As it is, only my 4th-gen iPad Pro has it. [edit] And man, is it so frustrating that they've almost achieved a situation where you can travel with one brick and one cable to provide power for your laptop and phone and a tablet... but no, they kept putting out new Lightning devices for years.

When Apple finally ditches Lightning on the iPhone, people are going to raise holy hell. That's probably the only reason it's still there.

Despite intensely disliking meetings I regularly get pulled into them, and having to go back to your desk to get an adapter wastes everybody’s time and makes you look like an idiot.

It also requires carrying an adapter at all times just in case.

> Your device's ports are a casualty of the lack of standard data port

To my great dismay HDMI is the standard video port, that’s why it got added back.

> The HDMI on displays makes you feel like you need an HDMI on your laptop

No, what makes them feel that is that every video input aside from specifically desk-top computer displays is HDMI.

We used to have other cable's for video prior. However, today we expect interoperability across so many more devices that saying we need this to be a video cable and this to be an audio cable put us in this position in first place.

Over time I imagine we will evolve to a more standard "data transfer" cable that is what USB-C is trying to do. The transition isn't always easy and will introduce friction to various use cases.

Remember firewire? Today when I'm mobile I have a bookbag, a laptop and a small accessory bag. The accessory bag has various cables, dongles and adapters to ensure I have plug-ability.

Going back to your desk is a work problem, the office should just have those dongles in all the conference rooms and the problem you describe is entirely moot.

> Going back to your desk is a work problem, the office should just have those dongles in all the conference rooms and the problem you describe is entirely moot.

You run into this a lot places where only some developers and maybe the artists use MacBooks. Everyone else has fat Windows machines that have every port known to man and don't need dongles. Past the initial (annoying and unnecessary, but oh well) adjustment period, it wasn't that bad for all-Mac shops, but it's a real pain in mixed shops because it's basically just a MacBook problem.

And this is why our meeting rooms have either usb-c called directly for video or an hdmi to usb-c adapter tie wrapped to the hdmi cable.

With my 2014 MBP, my Windows laptop, or my Chromebook, I can plug straight into a hotel TV and watch a movie from my laptop. With my 2019 MBP, I need an adapter.

This doesn't seem like a big deal, but the first time I went on vacation with my family after getting the 2019 MBP, I forgot that I needed to pack the adapter, and we couldn't watch whatever series we were currently binging on Netflix or HBO, which was pretty annoying. I'm happy to see HDMI ports showing up on more laptops these days!

> I'm happy to see HDMI ports showing up on more laptops these days!

HDMI is going to be especially sticky, and great to have built-in, for years to come, most likely. AFAIK USB-C cannot replace it, because, like most data cables that aren't HDMI or Ethernet, it has really, really short max-length limitations. Meanwhile, HDMI can have runs of 20+ meters and work totally fine, no repeaters or anything. If you're building in a ceiling projector, or have a TV at one end of a room but the connection in a conference table, you will use HDMI. Something might replace it, but it'll be a cable we've not heard of yet, not USB-C.

You can send USB C and/or Thunderbolt over fiber. It's rather expensive as of now, but it's possible.

Example 50m cable: https://www.rockshop.de/corning-thunderbolt-3-optical-cable-...

Or, you know, buy a $10 dongle.

That's actually really cool if you wanted to send input over the same connection. Like, if the thing that's remote is the computer, not the monitor or projector. Put your noisy graphics workstation in the utility room or something, run Thunderbolt & USB3 over fiber to your desk on another floor, but still feel like it's local, not like RDP or VNC.

Way too expensive for that, but if the price drops a bunch on that tech, that'd become an option.

> Way too expensive for that, but if the price drops a bunch on that tech, that'd become an option.

You can get those cables for ~500$. It's not super practical yet, but if you can afford a 1500$ GPU, you can also add that :) Plus, you'll need to worry about cooling, noise and optics a lot less, which, on a high end build, might already be enough saving to make it worthwhile.

Yes. Luckily I fetched up at that place around 2015 - so I was given the best MacBook Pro ever made, and the best iPhone ever made - the 5S. Shame to have to give it all back really.

Still baffles me why there was no hash key though.

This is why I never upgraded from my 2015 MBP. I'm still using it everyday, God forbid it breaks. My next laptop will be something else entirely, with Linux on it.

It seems that you're not in a line of work where people give a lot of presentations. Where I work it was almost a certain that at the beginning of some presentation session one mac speaker had to ask if someone had an adapter because they lost/forgot... theirs. If lucky another speaker was on a mac as well and has an adapter, otherwise someone has to go find an adapter somewhere

In the world of covid no I don't give presentations which are not virtual. In the prior world I did and if I was traveling I would bring dongles needed for connectivity. In the office I would our company provided dongles for this purpose.

I really don't see the big deal with a one-off use case like that being the reason my machine NEEDS a specific port that doesn't have a compatible adapter.

and that would go away shortly as everything becomes usbc

it's great if you have one. doesn't work so well if you don't have one.

HDMI is great because whatever random TV you want to connect to probably already has some other device plugged in with a 6' HDMI cable that you can steal.

Ports tend to be common until Apple deprecates them.

Apple is still one of the large personal computer manufacturers.

Nevertheless, when Apple excludes a port the other OEMs start wondering whether that port is necessary or if they're including it out of blind convention.

Likewise, when Apple champions a non-proprietary port on their PCs, other manufacturers tend to follow suit.

Apple is more than just another large OEM. They are the standard bearer for the personal computing industry. They have tremendous influence over what a computing device looks like and how it connects to peripherals and other machines. (WiFi was largely a lab experiment before Apple's AirPort.)

> They are the standard bearer for the personal computing industry.

That they are indeed. HP has a whole line of laptops named "Envy" for a reason.

> I feel that, on the ports and touchbar side, this was a step backwards. The SD slot is a good thing, but the replacement of one USB-C with a (vintage) HDMI port and the addition of a proprietary power connector is a leap backwards in time.

Just because it's a leap backwards doesn't mean it's bad. Sometimes changes are not good and backtracking is.

* HDMI inputs are in super common world in the professional world, it's become the standard for all video projection or conference room TVs (unless you still have an even more ancient VGA) and having to carry adapters to meetings or to give talks is a pain in the ass. It's also pretty much the standard for digital audio (since Apple also removed SPDIF).

* The touchbar was shit, it could have been OK as an addition to function keys, but it precluded any and all muscle memory and quick access to featues. "More useful than F1 to F12 ever were." isn't even remotely true.

* And not all users are at your desk, that the laptop has "all day battery life" (as long as you only watch youtube videos, you're not going to get 11h battery life if you're actively working with demanding software) doesn't mean people won't need to charge them at places which are not your desk. Plenty of people work on kitchen tables and whatnot, with the power cable in the way and yankable by a pet, a child, or just somebody going through.

> On my desk, the Mac is plugged into power, two external monitors, ethernet, keyboard and trackpad with a single cable, as God intended it to be. That's 3 free USB-C connectors for anything else (such as the external storage) and there is one power brick that lives in my backpack along a pair of US/EU adapters for when I need to travel. With USB-C power, it was nice to have the Dell and the Mac sharing power bricks when needed (if I said that 10 years ago, I would laugh myself out of the room)

Certainly I can't see how you could ever survive with only 2 free USB-C connectors left. Poor you.

> * The touchbar was shit, it could have been OK as an addition to function keys, but it precluded any and all muscle memory and quick access to featues. "More useful than F1 to F12 ever were." isn't even remotely true.

I mean, the F1-F12 keys are so mostly useless that the majority of laptops require you to press a modifier to use them as such. They replaced them with functions that are more broadly useful to most people: media keys, brightness control, keyboard back lighting, etc. I mostly agree that those keys are easier to use than the touchbar, though.

> media keys, brightness control, keyboard back lighting

Gaming and hotkey macros notwithstanding, I think this is what people are mostly lamenting when they complain about the TouchBar replacing F-keys.

When was the last time someone touch-typed F9?

> The Touchbar was my daughter's favorite - an Emoji keyboard

This is the Macbook Pro, they shouldn't be optimizing for children's love of emojis. I get what you're saying about your other usages of it, but I hate the Touchbar with the heat of a thousand suns, and given that Apple did decide to remove it on the Pro I'm guessing my sentiment was in the majority.

I don't get this charicterization where professionals don't have fun or use those childish whimsical things like emojis. By a huge huge margin I use more emojis at work than anywhere else and having a keyboard for them is quite nice.

The Touch Bar is infinitely more useful than the function key row -- volume and brightness sliders are way better than "louder" and "brighter" buttons. Answering calls with the bar is easier than mousing over to the Teams notification.

I found it useful when changing brightness or tuning with the sound, other than that I don't use it, like, 99% of the time. It would be awesome if you could customize it easily (think i3 status bar, polybar) but I guess this wouldn't happen with Apple. So they abandoned it (which is a wasted effort) for a promising feature.

Even when using emojis, I am extremely serious and professional.

I may or may not have (ab)used mine as an emoji keyboard after realizing Github Enterprise could deal with emojis just fine.

Cmd+ctrl+space

You can then search for whatever emoji you want and hit enter without taking your eyes off the screen or your fingers off the keyboard. Typing emojis was never a problem in macOS that the touchbar needed to solve

The default fn key with globe icon by itself keystroke works as well on the newer MacBooks.

Thank you. [hands pressed together]

The MagSafe connector is just USB-C on the other side, so it's almost just a form factor thing (though obviously it doesn't support data).

And you can still power the thing over USB-C (alongside data), just not at the same wattage/no quick charge. It's perfectly serviceable unless you're doing something really punishing.

The only problem I've had so far is getting a two monitors working with my particular USB-C dock (it works with an Intel MacBook). Hopefully it's a software/firmware thing, because I enjoy the single cable life as well.

It was a known limitation of the M1 that it only supported one external display even if your Thunderbolt dock supported two displays.

The M1 simply couldn't push more pixels.

This is false. It has nothing to do with pushing pixels. Else it should be easily be able to handle 4 Full HD monitors instead of a single 4k monitor.

If it completely replaced the USB-C port and made the power brick also an Ethernet interface, I’d love it. USB-C minus data isn’t what I’d expect from USB-C.

my only real disappointments with the new MBPs so far, on paper (haven't received mine yet) have to do with networking. I was really hoping the new MagSafe would be precisely that, data+power with ethernet in the power brick. I'd have recommended adding 140W bricks to every desk in our office if that had been the case.

And while I understand the chipset availability limitations, 2x2 802.11ax will at best nearly equal the performance of my 2017 MBP in my current 3x3ac deployment. Guess I'll have to hurry up transitioning to ax.

> Magsafe is nice from a safety standpoint (I have a kid and work from the couch sometimes), but with all-day battery life, what is the use of it?

I was having a similar discussion the other day. MagSafe was amazing when my Intel MBP had to basically be tethered to power all the time. My M1 MBA only ever gets charged at my desk plugged into a dock/monitor. MagSafe was great when it was needed, but its time is passing.

> bringing up manpages in the terminal

Ha, that was one of my use cases as well. Not an extremely compelling one, though, to be fair. (^⌘? does the trick with a keyboard shortcut).

To be fair you can still charge the new macbooks via USB C if you want, and magsafe in this iteration is just a USB C to magsafe cable now

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29015869 (there's nothing wrong with it, I'm just pruning the thread, which got too top-heavy on the page.)

The proprietary power connector is not a leap backwards in time. The current generation of USB-C spec just can't provide more than 100W PD charging, which the 16 inch model needs.