It's this devotion that allows Apple to enjoy the margins that they do versus the rest of the PC market," Mainelli said. "Somebody has to go first, and I would argue that it's design decisions like this that drives the level of devotion that Apple enjoys. From a business perspective, Apple's willingness to push for that progress ultimately wins out - at the expense of rivals. "Yes, many will complain, but that's the cost of progress," said IDC analyst Tom Mainelli. Road warriors who need to load a presentation from a thumb drive and show it on a projector will need "dongles" like Apple's $79 USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter. Power users who want to use a reliable Ethernet adapter while charging and backing up data to an external drive will be out of luck. Professionals who need to connect lots of devices, including those using the high-speed Thunderbolt ports that Apple has pushed for years, will want to look elsewhere.
Apple's $79 USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter lets MacBook owners charge their machines while connecting to an HDMI display and the Type A USB connectors common on today's PCs. Left in the lurchĬhange can be painful for longtime customers, and the new MacBook design won't be for everybody, even leaving aside the $1,299 starting price. But for now, consumers will have to deal with a single-port reality or pick some other new laptop. Those moves are suited to the increasingly normal world of app downloads and Netflix over Wi-Fi.Īpple could reverse itself and add more ports to future versions of the MacBook - as it did when revising its original MacBook Air. When the original MacBook Air arrived in 2008, Apple excised the CD drive and Ethernet port, a choice it carried over to the higher-end MacBook Pro. Nowadays, ADB connectors are a historical footnote and floppies are dead. With the 1998 all-in-one iMac, it ditched its old Apple Desktop Bus connector in favor of USB for keyboards and mice, and more controversially, ditched the floppy disk drive, too. In Apple's debut of the laptop Monday, Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said of the single-port design, "The only intelligent vision for the future of the notebook is one without wires, where you don't have to plug up cables to connect to things."Īpple has a history of cutting off old technology it sees as doomed. "They're as usual ahead of the curve," Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay said of the pared-down ports and pumped-up wireless abilities on Apple's latest laptop.Īpple, one of the world's largest smartphone and tablet makers, would like you to look ahead. It also underscores the unique position Apple enjoys, one where it can make drastic changes to transform the computing industry because, well, it can get away with it. The awkward transition highlights the privilege and pain that comes with being an Apple customer.
You'd better get used to it, because the new MacBook hints at the direction the industry is headed as it relies increasingly on wireless technology.
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