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JouniS

macrumors 6502a
Nov 22, 2020
638
399
You se, the real problem is the user attitude. We would have reached 100% USB-C adoption years ago if not for users complaining about the A-port on their mouse and manufacturers being too lazy and scared from applying pressure. It’s embarrassing really. That’s why we can’t have good things.
That seems unrealistic. If people typically replace their computers after 3-5 years and many peripherals remain in use for 5-10 years, the USB-C transition will take 10+ years. The only way to speed that up would be manufacturers giving people free replacement devices in massive numbers. Given that the transition started in 2015, it will be late 2020s before there is any chance of "100%" adoption.
 
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Rashy

Suspended
Jan 7, 2020
186
372
MR Mods: hold my beer.
Nah, we're all good. It seems like port discussions simply get a bit more hot-tempered here than e.g. on Apfeltalk or Macusers. Quite fascinating.

I don't care about who uses what connector. The perfect world would be entirely connector-free (minus power supply I guess) anyway, which will happen for sure. Until then I prefer a smooth approach, not that radical like Apple did 2016 by killing everything at once. People should respect/accept that there are plenty of users who are just not d'accord with that and prefer a mixture of port types in their given situations/environment, rather than displaying them as dumb or backward. I am certainly not, I am just pragmatic.

Btw I had been in the US for a few weeks during my world trip 4y ago, it was really nice.
 

Andropov

macrumors 6502a
May 3, 2012
746
990
Spain
Imagine having this “Pro” laptop but you cannot give a client presentation because you forgot your dongles at home, while any normal professional workstation laptop has a HDMI port. ?
And then finding out the projector is VGA-only, which is still common in many places.
 

Stephen.R

Suspended
Nov 2, 2018
4,356
4,747
Thailand
And then finding out the projector is VGA-only, which is still common in many places.

That's Terrible.gif


that would indeed be terrible /s
 

cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
33,474
California
And then finding out the projector is VGA-only, which is still common in many places.

Not that true, but the last time I ran into that, they had a drawerful of adapters to convert hdmi and DisplayPort into vga. I guess they knew people didn’t generally arrive with vga ports on their machines. They did not have a usb-c to vga adapter. (Luckily I brought my bag of dongles)
 

cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
33,474
California
Who knew that all this time Carmen Sandiego was a guy visiting every conference facility and meeting room on the planet to assess and catalogue the types of video ports they use.

Not even sure what that’s supposed to mean. But many of us, as part of our jobs, spend a lot of time travelling with MacBook pros to client sites, courtrooms, hotels, conventions, etc. We see a lot of projectors, monitors, etc.

The good news is that there has been a trend toward supporting airplay and chrome cast, as well as things like Barco wireless dongles (which kind of still suck, because the software never seems to work right for Macs). But almost everywhere I’ve gone, the default seems to be HDMI. Even federal courts, which were stuck on VGA for a long time, seem to have HDMI all across the country.
 

Stephen.R

Suspended
Nov 2, 2018
4,356
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Not even sure what that’s supposed to mean.
Let me make it clearer.

Person A posts some anecdotal evidence to say that port X is "still common in many places". There is no qualification of what types of business/industries, the state, country continent or even hemisphere the person is referring to.


Person B posts their own anecdotal evidence to say "Not that true".



By my calculation Person B must therefore have visited the vast majority of all business meeting rooms, conference centres, hotels, etc that a human person could use a Mac laptop (I must admit I did assume person A uses a Mac laptop. They may not at all)...


The only person I know of who's been around that much is Carmen Sandiego.
 

Kung gu

Suspended
Original poster
Oct 20, 2018
1,379
2,434
The day HDMI dies is when they stop using it for projectors or TVs.

on a side note we can all agree that next gen MacBooks are gonna have jaw-dropping performance compared the previous intel models
It was not the same case in 2016 when the butterfly macs launched, the performance was barely better.

that’s why Apple focused on the design and the thinness mostly that’s why we got the butterfly keyboard and bad thermals.

this time the whole game is different.
 
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cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
33,474
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Let me make it clearer.

Person A posts some anecdotal evidence to say that port X is "still common in many places". There is no qualification of what types of business/industries, the state, country continent or even hemisphere the person is referring to.


Person B posts their own anecdotal evidence to say "Not that true".



By my calculation Person B must therefore have visited the vast majority of all business meeting rooms, conference centres, hotels, etc that a human person could use a Mac laptop (I must admit I did assume person A uses a Mac laptop. They may not at all)...


The only person I know of who's been around that much is Carmen Sandiego.

Whatever. For now on I’ll say “In my experience” before every obviously-anecdotal statement, since you seem to feel the need to police that sort of thing.
 

theluggage

macrumors G3
Jul 29, 2011
8,015
8,450
And then finding out the projector is VGA-only, which is still common in many places.
Or that it would support HDMI if only you’d packed a stepladder and a 20’ HDMI cable, but the cable on the desk is VGA. Just when this was starting to be a thing of the past, Apple dropped HDMI from the MBP. Magical.

...and there’s no dongle to connect my collection of MiniDP-to-VGA dongles to USB-C (n.b. No, a USB-C to MiniDP won’t do it unless it adds DP++ support).

Thing is, we accepted sometime in the 00s that VGA was not only just too big to build into a Mac laptop, but that the low (analogue) quality and resolution was thrashed by DVI, HDMI and DP. Trouble with USB-C is that it’s just the same old DisplayPort - and not even DP++, so you need active adapters - all that USB dongle gets you is back to square one.

Of course, I’m sure that every last data projector/giant video wall on Apple campus has Airplay... and if we endure our cabling trials and dutifully worship the One True Connector at the altar of the Upturned Mouse then we’ll be transported there in the next life.
 
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Kung gu

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Original poster
Oct 20, 2018
1,379
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The day HDMI dies is when they stop using it for projectors or TVs.

on a side note we can all agree that next gen MacBooks are gonna have jaw-dropping performance compared the previous intel models
It was not the same case in 2016 when the butterfly macs launched, the performance was barely better.

that’s why Apple focused on the design and the thinness mostly that’s why we got the butterfly keyboard and bad thermals.

this time the whole game is different.


every flat screen HD tv since 2010 used hdmi and today 4K TVs still use it. Projectors at schools use vga and hdmi. Most office monitors will have hdmi.

hdmi is the dominant interface for connecting displays. It’s offered as a interface on high-end GPUs and no USB-c to be found on gpus.
 

cupcakes2000

macrumors 601
Apr 13, 2010
4,037
5,429
every flat screen HD tv since 2010 used hdmi and today 4K TVs still use it. Projectors at schools use vga and hdmi. Most office monitors will have hdmi.

hdmi is the dominant interface for connecting displays. It’s offered as a interface on high-end GPUs and no USB-c to be found on gpus.
It’s not about whether the usbc is somehow pushing out hdmi to be the input of choice on whichever peripheral.

Nobody is suggesting that - it’s not about usbc replacing anything.

It’s just that a laptop full of usbc/tb ports has the ultimate in flexibility, as each of these ports can turn their hand to almost any task. Single use ports are a little bit redundant when the multi use port is right there next to it.

Sure in some use cases and some people it could be handy to have an hdmi or a usb a or Ethernet port, perhaps.
But forsaking a multi use port for it is backwards thinking when you can choose whichever ports you like with usbc/tb.

I know what ports I need and have the adapters for them. If I need a new port,All is not lost, I don’t need a new computer, I just need a new adapter.
 

cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
33,474
California
It’s not about whether the usbc is somehow pushing out hdmi to be the input of choice on whichever peripheral.

Nobody is suggesting that - it’s not about usbc replacing anything.

It’s just that a laptop full of usbc/tb ports has the ultimate in flexibility, as each of these ports can turn their hand to almost any task. Single use ports are a little bit redundant when the multi use port is right there next to it.

Sure in some use cases and some people it could be handy to have an hdmi or a usb a or Ethernet port, perhaps.
But forsaking a multi use port for it is backwards thinking when you can choose whichever ports you like with usbc/tb.

I know what ports I need and have the adapters for them. If I need a new port,All is not lost, I don’t need a new computer, I just need a new adapter.

repeating: TB only goes to 40Gbps. HDMI goes to 48Gbps. So a laptop full of usb/tb ports doesn’t give you the flexibility to communicate at full speed on HDMI 2.1.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,522
19,679
repeating: TB only goes to 40Gbps. HDMI goes to 48Gbps. So a laptop full of usb/tb ports doesn’t give you the flexibility to communicate at full speed on HDMI 2.1.

But USB-C does not communicate HDMI via TB, does it? That’s what HDMI alt mode is for. And I don’t know whats the speed limit there.

P.S. If I read Wikipedia correctly, USB4 supports DP 2.0 with up to 80Gbps.
 
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Stephen.R

Suspended
Nov 2, 2018
4,356
4,747
Thailand
Whatever. For now on I’ll say “In my experience” before every obviously-anecdotal statement, since you seem to feel the need to police that sort of thing.
Telling someone else, that their own anecdotal statements of experience are "not that true" is not an anecdotal statement.
 

ian87w

macrumors G3
Feb 22, 2020
8,704
12,638
Indonesia
User expectations are the main problem with USB-C. As long as people expect that USB-C ports are fast, computers will only have bandwidth for a handful of them, and USB-A will remain necessary.

In most applications, USB 2 is already fast enough. You can reasonably expect ~30 MB/s transfer speeds, which is comparable to a decent WiFi or a good internet connection. When a device needs a few more ports but it does not have the bandwidth for additional fast ports, the current answer is USB-A. It could also be USB-C, but that would require a way of telling people that not all USB-C ports are fast general-purpose ports.

I once heard an idea that established technologies tend to die in reverse order. The longer something has been around, the longer it will probably remain. I would not be surprised if USB-C died out before USB-A.
USB-C will be alive as majority of Android phones, even mid-range and lower, are now using USB-C port for charging. That by itself will ensure longevity of USB-C. With more and more devices adopting USB-PD, USB-A will fade out slowly as well.

The problem is flash drives, as a ton of them out there are using USB-A.
 

Usernotmaker

macrumors member
Sep 26, 2020
77
69
Just to add my 2c to this busy thread.

When I'm at my desk I connect to my monitor and charge using one USBC/TB3 so have 3 ports for other uses.

When I'm on the road (hotel, office, friends home) I appreciate the flexibility of being able to connect my charger on either the left or the right depending on wherever the power socket might be. So having 1 magnetic port would not be ideal and would require a dedicated cable.

As the Apple Silicon Macs are so powerful, I'd have nothing against other ports being added to thicker & heavier "pro" machines as long as Apple would make a light & thin Air with 4 USBC/TB3 ports!
 

cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
33,474
California
Absolutely no idea.

Me neither. Also don’t know what dongles work with it. But, in theory, if apple supported it and you had an appropriate dongle then, yes, you could get 80Gbps out of the port because the signaling would change.
 

cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
33,474
California
Just to add my 2c to this busy thread.

When I'm at my desk I connect to my monitor and charge using one USBC/TB3 so have 3 ports for other uses.

When I'm on the road (hotel, office, friends home) I appreciate the flexibility of being able to connect my charger on either the left or the right depending on wherever the power socket might be. So having 1 magnetic port would not be ideal and would require a dedicated cable.

As the Apple Silicon Macs are so powerful, I'd have nothing against other ports being added to thicker & heavier "pro" machines as long as Apple would make a light & thin Air with 4 USBC/TB3 ports!

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that you couldn’t continue to use USB-C to charge.
 
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