Such an irony. The beauty of laptops is their portability and ease to use anywhere. Having to include external items such as hubs to make the laptop fully functional on the road is just plain sad.
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What ports should make a return to the 2021 Macbook Pro?
- Thread starter senttoschool
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4 ports are generally there on the large ones only, not the smaller ones. I was very pleased with the performance of the 13 inch Air fanless. Fanless is cool thing. I recently opened by Macbook pro and blew out all the dirt, the performance almost doubled in cinebench and it doesn't throttle too, gives sustained performance. But cant buy Air as it has just 2 ports. I just hope they haveone model in fanless version in 16 inch or 14 inch version too.
My guess is the relative number of people who use/need SD slots is quite low. Aside from photography whats the major use cases these days? File transfer is better wirelessly, networked or using thumb drives for non-camera users for example.
I’d be shocked if the SD slot returns at this point.
This is the most accurate post I have seen in a long time.
I remember back when the forums were mostly people who LIKED Apple products. Those were good times.
No, they don’t. Aside from not being a representative sample of even MacRumors readers (voluntary, non-randomized polls are totally non-scientific) let alone the general public, the only port that a majority (and a slim one at that) want back is the mag safe charging. None of the other options got above 40%. That means most poll takers DONT agree with you about adding back multiple ports.
Personally… I would slap one of those half-sized ones in there and use it for Time Machine.
Personally, I would have preferred one out of my 4 USB-C ports be a SD card slot; and one a regular sized HDMI port.
Edit: I do semi-regularly use SD cards; as I professionally play around with Raspberry Pis (svanstrom.com).
“Projectors in random meeting rooms” still often has VGA instead of HDMI.
All this talk of ‘needing’ hdmi because of all the meetings attended etc. Well. I’m absolutely sure non of you who value your careers, integrity and professionalism turn up to ANY meeting where you’re required to give a presentation, with just your MacBook.
At the very least you’ll have a replacement hdmi cable ‘just in case’ the 20 year old one in the random meeting room doesn’t work well. More likely you’ll have adapters and cables for every eventuality. So to suggest that carrying a tiny usb c adapter in the bag is some sort of hinderance is an obvious and terrible argument.
All the ‘pro’ photographers whinging about the lack of SD card slot is the other thing. Most professional dslrs don’t use SD cards. If they do they’re part of a two card system and the SD is for redundancy. On top of that I dont know any photographer that does it for a living that hasn’t invested in a couple of fast external readers. Internal readers are rarely good even when they exist on the machine. The single biggest annoyance after a full shoot is the time it takes to get the photos from the card to the computer. If said posters were anywhere near to being the pro photographers they claim, they would know this.
This thread is laughably full of people that claim to do something, but clearly don’t know anything about it.
At the very least you’ll have a replacement hdmi cable ‘just in case’ the 20 year old one in the random meeting room doesn’t work well. More likely you’ll have adapters and cables for every eventuality. So to suggest that carrying a tiny usb c adapter in the bag is some sort of hinderance is an obvious and terrible argument.
All the ‘pro’ photographers whinging about the lack of SD card slot is the other thing. Most professional dslrs don’t use SD cards. If they do they’re part of a two card system and the SD is for redundancy. On top of that I dont know any photographer that does it for a living that hasn’t invested in a couple of fast external readers. Internal readers are rarely good even when they exist on the machine. The single biggest annoyance after a full shoot is the time it takes to get the photos from the card to the computer. If said posters were anywhere near to being the pro photographers they claim, they would know this.
This thread is laughably full of people that claim to do something, but clearly don’t know anything about it.
Just because we do carry extra stuff that doesn't mean that we want to have to continue carrying extra stuff.
Besides, I'd never ever go to a professional meeting expecting to have to replace their old equipment; at least not if I'm not the one actually arranging the whole thing. I expect there to be an HDMI cable there, and the rest is on me.
And, I don't run around with every possible adapter and cable on me all the time just in case I might randomly need them; but it does happen every now and then that it would have been nice to simply hook my computer up to a TV to spontaneously show a group of people something that I'm working on.
I really, absolutely don't get the desire for a dedicated MagSafe port. This functionality can be built into the cable with no drawback and the benefit of not requiring a dedicated port. I literally see no advantage to having it built in to the port.
Meeting rooms are generally out of your control. If you like being ill prepared for important situations then that’s up to you. Most don’t though.
Have you ever seen an HDMI to USBC adapter? It’s minuscule. As if it’s a problem to take with your laptop anywhere.
In your argument the pros of having a dedicated port do not outweigh the pros of having a multipurpose port which can offer the same functionality.
Absolutely, I could arrive to one just to find a dozen ninjas fighting to take over the local castle; but if I'm dealing with professionals that actually value my professional time, then I don't expect such double bookings, and I do expect an HDMI cable.
Well you conduct yourself differently to me then. I prefer to ensure I have what I need and would never assume the meeting room had foolproof good quality infallible cables.
So I just put one in the bag.
This is not an either-or situation. There is easily enough room for 4 USB-C ports, 4 USB-A ports, and a HDMI port on a redesigned MBP 16". Apple simply has to choose whether it wants to make good user-friendly laptops or continue with the minimalistic form-over-function design.
Maybe, but it's not like they've left the current one half empty: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+16-Inch+2019+Teardown/128106.
To be fair, with less problem with heat Apple should be able to get a bit more fun in there, though.
If I'm arranging something I will absolutely go out of my way and be humble and try to fix anything and everything for the invited person; and if I set up a room I'll bring every cable and adapter that I have.
But… I've just found that if I'm the one there to professionally help other people, and they don't even care about the most basic stuff; then I'm wasting my time even trying to work with them, or they need a rude awakening to get things going right.
Out of context my attitude might seem absolutely wrong here, but I've learned the hard way that either people respect your time/professionalism; or you don't even yourself when you try to work with people that don't. And I'll happily die on that first hill about a silly HDMI-cable than waste my time on people that couldn't give a **** when they prepared for people to come to them.
hehe ya , last year meeting err vga ? til my mind thinking maybe i need to buy own projector when meeting
One USB-A and one HDMI is not going to make a difference inside a 16" Macbook Pro - especially when Apple Silicon will decrease the need for a beefy cooling solution and a large battery size. I would think that they can also shrink the size of the motherboard considerably given that Apple Silicon are SoCs so no need extra space for a Radeon GPU or a T2 chip.
The decision to not include USB-A/HDMI won't be engineering related.
And for this exact reason I would never attend a professional presentation without a backup hub. While I've observed a big increase in presentation rooms being stocked with a bunch of adapters, more and more often supporting USB-C, I've seen more than enough awful adapter daisy chains, often damaged, leading to technical issues to dare not bringing my own equipment.
This one is great, tiny, looks good, has HDMI and VGA for presentations, USB-A in case I need to use a borrowed presenter or a USB key and has an ethernet port, which has saved me before in hotels with awful WiFi. Even has a USB-C port. Even if Apple were to include HDMI and USB-A (which it won't), I'd definitely still bring it with me for the peace of mind and the Ethernet and VGA ports.
I don't miss the magsafe. Very good reason that you brought up, for the most part I've had to buy one replacement magsafe per macbook pro which was not cheap. USB-C cables are much cheaper to replace and I don't see myself replacing the power brick, that's pretty sturdy.
This is an extremely simplistic view only superficially considering physical space constraints (and not even accounting for any thickness issues with the ports and a new design) and ignores all actual engineering issues involved.
Apple users don't know how good you had it with up to 4 TB3 ports across all TB3 models not only supporting the complete TB3 spec, but also the future TB4 spec which is only being introduced now on other devices. No other TB3 laptop has supported plugging in one of the new TB4 docks and just working or plugging in the charger or monitors in any desired combination of the TB3 ports and everything just working. There have been SO MANY issues with PC laptops with a mix of TB and other ports, for example supporting only 1 monitor per TB3 ports and the other monitor needing to be plugged into HDMI, or some TB3 ports supporting only data and having issues with charging or with some TB3 ports not supporting the full spec, etc.
You might say that that's simply because other OEMs lack the engineering talent or attention to detail, but the reality is that ports, especially high-bandwidth, are really difficult to get right. Especially with a limited number of PCIe lanes, where everything comes with a cost. And don't even get me started on lane switching chips. To inspire even less confidence, Apple has done quite badly ever since switching from Intel regarding ports, with 2 simple TB ports on the M1 Macs clearly not correctly supporting the full TB3/4 spec, with lacking external display support, completely broken high-speed USB device support and issues with supporting full functionality on TB3 devices like docks with known good TB implementations, like the CalDigit TS3+.
Considering the amount of issues right now, I'd really like Apple to focus on first getting their TB implementation right. Expecting 4 TB3 ports in the new MBPs, I wonder how long it will take Apple to get their TB controller to the level of Intel's across last 3 gens of mobile chips, where (in addition to being fully functional) it can flexibly select any pair of 2 ports and give them full 2 port bandwidth, even on the same side of the laptop, rather being forced to use ports on the opposite sides like in MBP16 and older.
Nonetheless, Apple committing to an SoC approach and completely dropping dGPUs from their whole consumer lineup might mean that some extra PCIe lanes could be available for extra ports. But even in that case, I'd personally prefer allocating that bandwidth to the way more flexible TB ports by making all of the independently full speed.
That's like asking why you need an external display besides having a larger second screen; those are the primary reasons. Secondarily it makes plugging in the laptop easier because you don't have to be as precise with your alignment or even actually insert the cable into a port; just hold it near the port and the magnets snap it into place. It's just a hugely convenient feature.
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...and a lot of people would find a VGA connector on their MacBook useful for precisely that reason.
But you have to draw the line somewhere:
VGA is an obsolete standard, VGA connectors are far too bulky for a modern laptop, have limited resolution and fuzzy analogue quality and we've done without them on Macs since forever.
HDMI is a current and ongoing standard, is the standard for modern AV equipment, is common on data projectors bought today or in the last 5 years or so, it is ubiquitous on large-screen TVs and good enough to run 4k computer displays. A VGA port would be tantamount to a dedicated "cheap/old data projector" port.
Lots of people here are saying that they'd find HDMI (and/or USB-A, Magsafe) useful - I really don't understand why some people find it necessary to deride that. Every computer I've ever owned has had at least one port that I never/rarely used but others relied on - apparently that seems to "trigger" some people.
The one thing Apple are not going to do is drop USB-C/Thunderbolt from new MacBooks... and if the M1X/M2/whatever in the higher-end MacBook Pros doesn't have better multiple display support than the M1 (2 displays only is acceptable for an Air but makes the HDMI on the M1 Mini a bit of a compromise) it is going to get shredded.
I'd take these rumours of the return of USB-A, HDMI etc. with a pinch of salt (and wouldn't be surprised if Magsafe turns out to be some sort of wireless charging) - but don't forget that the I/O architecture has changed significantly with Apple Silicon and the M1X/M2 is an opportunity for Apple to tailor the SoC's I/O and graphics capabilities to the exact needs of their laptops, rather than accepting what Intel offered - so they don't have to steal bandwidth from Thunderbolt to restore the other ports.