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Robo
Formerly Roboman, still
awesome
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Portland, OR
 
2019-08-15, 18:06

Honestly, I think Apple’s position is going to be that ports of any kind are a “Pro” feature on all of their product lines, like expansion slots once were.

I don’t think we’re there quite yet, but I’m not sure they’re wrong. I’m a pretty “pro” user, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve plugged anything into my MacBook except power. What do “normal folks” use USB for? I think most of the time, it’s for a flash drive – I even hear a lot of less technical people refer to flash drives themselves as “USBs.” But I work at a college now, and I don’t see any of our students using USB drives any more, despite our bookstore’s best efforts to sell them. Everybody just uses Google Docs. Using a thumb drive now feels a little bit like using a floppy disk in 1998.

Like I said, I don’t think we’re there quite yet. But a few years from now, when a larger percentage of smart TVs have built-in support for AirPlay, and the Apple TV is a cheaper streaming stick for the older TVs that don’t? And when MacBooks have built-in cellular connections, enabling connection to Google Docs even when wi-fi is spotty?

It’s pretty clear that Apple views ports of any kind as a compromise, a concession to our lack of progress toward a completely wireless world. And, honestly, they kind of are. Nobody loves having holes on their computer for the sake of having holes, they love what those holes allow them to do, and if there are other ways of doing those tasks that are just as easy without using holes, that’s fine. I think the idea of the user having to plug things into holes on their computer is rapidly going to feel outmoded, like a telephone operator moving cables between holes in a switchboard to move the voices around. Power is honestly the last stand, for many users, and there are ways of delivering power without holes.

I think Apple would love to be able to curve the sides of their wedge-shaped laptops to make them feel even thinner and more elegant, like they did with the original MacBook Air.

I think we’ll have ports on Pro-level hardware for a long while yet (it’ll be one of the distinguishing features). But I wouldn’t be surprised at all if, say, the first ARM MacBook is a portless vision statement successor to the 12-inch MacBook.

and i guess i've known it all along / the truth is, you have to be soft to be strong
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