4I consider that a bad decision as well, yanking the ports/utility from a machine with “pro” in its name. Use the Air platform for any streamlining, minimalism fetishes. At $999, those customers aren’t doing heavy-lifting work in fields - video, photography, music, etc. - where the lack of ports/functionality matters on the day-to-day. In theory that's the reason they bought an Air...they knew they didn't need all that power and capability for their basic, modest needs. Give the Air
one Thunderbolt port and I'll wager $50 nobody cares or squawks.
That's the model you can get away with that stuff on.
The MacBook Pro re-gaining that stuff is, to me, another positive sign that “okay, we might’ve gone too far with the sleek minimalism on a model that really doesn’t benefit from it.” Painting the pro-level Macs, desktop and portable, into corners (thermal, functionality, etc.) via questionable design decisions doesn't help, or impress, anyone in the long run/big picture.
It’s just unfortunate we spend years headed down unasked-for, wrong-headed rabbit holes before things get corrected. I’m hoping to see less of that wasted time in the future. Because a lot of users and journalists/reviewers could've saved Apple some upfront hassle/effort by saying "hey, don't get
too cute with the MacBook Pro...it is what it is, try to respect that. Make it look nice, of course, but
nobody is expecting, or even asking for, Air-level minimalism or sleekness...certainly not at the expense of power and utility. And not for the $1,799 entry price. So tell that Jony guy to maybe try and get a #%@!& grip...".
There's "daring innovation", and sometimes there's "solutions in search of a problem" (or, worse, creating problems where none existed). Apple seems to blur those lines at times and dabbles in the latter a bit. And, for the reasons chucker cites, it takes years to undo/return from them. That butterfly keyboard was an issue from the get-go, but because such importance was placed on thinness, they weren't going to go back on that anytime soon. I promise you, everyone who was affected by that (repairs, returns, replacements, less-than usability) would've been okay with another few millimeters of thickness if it meant a reliable, solid keyboard as they've known for years. A repair or replacement isn't going to necessarily fix the issue if the overall design itself (almighty thinness over all else) is part of the contributing factor that helped lead to this new, less-reliable keyboard being developed. Or they should've worked a little harder on it. It didn't fail in the labs and testing stages? That's tough to buy.
Having the "Thinnest [fill-in-the-blank] on the Planet." doesn't mean anything if the trade-offs are real-world hassles/aggravation. At that point, you're just doing it for bragging rights and design accolades. Users forking over this kind of money couldn't care less about either of those things. And, to me, you're disrespecting your customers for less-than-noble pursuits. Customers/users want reliability and functionality; none of them are sitting there, daily, with a micrometer and calling their friends about the resulting numbers.
"Hey, my keyboard isn't working worth a shit,
but my laptop is .84mm thinner than that lame HP you have! Just wanted to let you know again, okay? Hahahahahaha!"
Nobody does this. The biggest spec-whore mental patient in the world doesn't do this, and, brother...I know a bunch.
All the above is my opinion, yes. But if this rumor is legit and pans out, then it would appear Apple themselves are thinking/realizing the same sort of thing after years of...not. Better late than never.