In 1998 the iMac dropped most other ports. Admittedly, maybe a bit less severe because it still had an ethernet port, and a couple FireWire. But it did drop the ports that were commonly used for peripherals and devices, which is the similarity. People used those, every day. In the exact same model, they also dropped floppy drives. A _lot_ of stuff people used frequently was no longer supported in that device.

I'm not sure that this time it will work out for them, that's not what I'm saying at all. Personally, I think HDMI is useful still. And I'm hugely sad to see the MagSafe go. I guess all I'm saying is it's not totally uncharted territory, or even that uncharacteristic of Apple.