I am yet to upgrade my current Macbook Air to Sierra, I’m still scared it won’t survive the process, and I really don’t want to get a new laptop. I was looking forward to the new Apple hardware announcement, the Pro lines of laptop and desktops had not been refreshed since the late 1800’s and with new CPUs from Intel and mobile discrete graphics cards getting better and better I was really hoping a new Macbook Air would include better graphics, or a new Pro would be smaller and lighter. 1 out of 2 isn’t bad, right?
The new Macbook Pro laptops were greeted with a resounding and collective ‘meh’. They are clearly an improvement on previous generations, but they weren’t the jump everyone was looking for, and like the iPhone 7 release, full of compromise.
The processor selection and lack of an option for 32GB of RAM is a compromise, but a manageable one. The lack of discrete graphics options on the lower end is another compromise, but with the improvement Intel has made with it’s graphics processors it is again, manageable.
The removal of all useful ports is just insane. Seriously bonkers, maddening, infuriating, bananas.
On my 13” Macbook Air I have two USB ports, an SD card reader, a Thunderbolt port, and a MagSafe charging port.
I use my laptop a lot when travelling. At the end of day it is not uncommon for me to have all the ports filled with something. A backup HDD in the Thunderbolt port, my GPS syncing in one USB, and an SD card reader in the other.
Of all the things Apple removed I am least sad about about the SD card reader. It is very useful to have, and was a key requirement when buying the laptop. But, it is slow - later model might be quicker but on my 2014 model it isn’t that fast. Downloading 32GB of photos takes a long time. I purchased a SanDisk Extreme PRO USB3.0 SD card reader, and it more than halved the time it took to copy photos across.
I’d often also have either a USB or Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter connected - depending on what port was free. Wi-Fi is fine for web surfing, but a wired connection is so much quicker and more reliable.
The MagSafe charging port, a genuine innovation from Apple that was an improvement to what existing to before. On more than one occasion I have accidently pulled the charging cable out of laptop, with the MagSafe cable disconnecting, and saving my laptop from being flung across the room. I don’t even have kids!
The 13” Macbook Pro has 2 ports. Only 2, including the port used to charge the device. Yes, USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 is great because you can daisy-chain devices, but sitting in a hotel room I don’t have a 27” monitor lying around to charge the laptop off. Neither my portable HDD or SD card reader are going to charge anything anytime soon.
Apple tells everyone the future is wireless! That’s why they can drop the audio jack from the iPhone, because everyone should just use Bluetooth earphones. They even sight that more and more cameras have Wi-Fi, but I really don’t think they’ve tried using Wi-Fi on a camera. It isn’t just the use of an ‘App’ with limited functionality it is the insanely slow speed. Downloading photos from my camera to my phone or tablet using the app limits it to just JPGs. Accessing the camera from a ‘real’ computer in a web browser and I can get to the RAW files, but not without effort. There are no links, but you can type in a URL and get a RAW file if you know the filename. It will then download at around 500kbytes/sec, that is to say slowly. The latest Olympus camera has Wi-Fi, but it also has a USB-C port.
What Apple has released is a new and improved Macbook Air, for the cost of a Macbook Pro.
If Apple was to chose a single port to consolidate on, USB-C was the right decision for charging. I am ready to have my laptop, tablet, and phone all charge off USB-C. But just two ports on a Pro laptop, with no dedicated charging port is ludicrous. The laptop needs around $200 worth of cables and dongles to be useful.
The future isn’t wireless, but it is USB-C. I can’t wait to see Apple dump the Lightning port for USB-C. They’ll make a killing on cables and dongles when they do.