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Comment by EJTH | Hacker News Reader

I know this is satire, but I really don't get the snark. All the claims are pretty valid imo. Satire or not, but having 15$ adapters for EVERYTHING simply cannot be seen as anything else than a massive fail and nuissance. HDMI is one of the features I use most on my MBP and tbh I would probably have to buy a new HDMI adapter every other month because I would likely loose it on a regular basis.

So all in all I actually agree with everything stated in this article, despite the obvious snarky and satirical tone. Pretty sure that apple is going to kill their laptop game with this MBP bullshit move.

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Apple won't kill it, it'll just become geared towards consumers rather than professionals as Apple has been doing for years with everything they make. Disposable unupgradeable MacBook Pros are just the latest step. There's far more money to be made from average consumers.

But we're heading towards a future where Thunderbolt 3/USB-C can do everything. It's like complaining about HDMI replacing VGA, or USB A replacing an inbuilt CD drive.

Yeah, but why not wait till the day where accessories are actually sold with a USB-C to kill off the alternatives? Why not start out with just a few USB-C ports in 2016, and then when the market is matured enough, you kill off the unused ports?

The only way this move makes sense is in the scheme of apples 'proprietary lock in' strategy where they try to force the user to stay in the apple eco system with bullshit like this.

How is there lock-in? Every new PC sold has USB-C as well.

You don't think that there is even the slightest chance that the decision to use FB3 / USB-C is based on the fact that consumers would have to replace their entire collection of USB accesories?

No , I don't. Nobody would pay 200$ for a new external SSD just to avoid the adaptor. For anything with a cable, you can also just replace the cable.

And, most importantly: Apple barely makes any money from the sale of peripherals. Their own products have mostly moved to bluetooth anyway.

I can understand people who don't like the switch, although I tend to disagree. But the idea that they have a profit motive in doing so I find absurd.

I've also seen it all play out before:

"I'm a professional, I need a floppy drive!", "Amateurs may be ok without a CD-drive, but I'm a professional", "They're just trying to push their WLAN base stations, it'll never catch on. Professionals like me need a real network".

> Apple barely makes any money from the sale of peripherals.

Well that is going to change now, since everyone and their mom now needs a few extra USB adapters + USB SD card reader + HDMI adapters etc.

> "I'm a professional, I need a floppy drive!", "Amateurs may be ok without a CD-drive, but I'm a professional", "They're just trying to push their WLAN base stations, it'll never catch on. Professionals like me need a real network"

You don't think that having to use an adapter for something as generic as a USB thumb drive will kind of be an obstacle in the day to day business of the casual user?

That may be the case but when I rock up to clients offices they have VGA or HDMI for me to plug into.

The the removal of useful fn keys is the future why do we still have CAPS LOCK key?

Apple could have eased the transition, say include a Thunderbolt 2 port so we didn't need to replace all adapters immediately.

But no that's not Apple's way 'cos they know best…

caps lock is like the joker in a deck of cards. We need it so we can remap it to ESC (the ace of spades of keys).

It's not $15 adapters for everything. The HDMI one is $49.

Others are 8$, they recently put them on sale to counter the conspiracy theory that they care about the money from adaptors.

i'm sure apple has done enough user testing to know that the touchbar will be an improvement over the existing keys.

I'd like to try it out first (if they ever actually ship em to the store) before I purchase.

That being said, the $1800 price point is BS. and so is the touchbar-less starting at $1500 for $600 internals. tim cook is being an asshole here. people will still buy it though (me too, but only because I need a new machine)

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