The increasingly long lives of old Macs

Re:The increasingly long lives of old Macs by rsync on Monday August 17, 2015 @12:16PM (#10074029)

I have an almost daily use-case of USB modem and AC power simultaneously.

AFAIK there are not any USB modems in the new USB form factor. I haven't looked at what the adaptor chain looks like for "old USB and power at the same time" ... what does that look like ?

I think a single USB port on the new 12" is designed to be flawed. Apple knows these things last 5+ years so the second release of the 12" will have a second USB port on the other side and X% of folks will re-buy that to remove the original flaw. That's one way to combat hardware that lasts "too long".

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Re:The increasingly long lives of old Macs by ggreer on Monday August 17, 2015 @12:38PM (#10074229)

I have a 12" MacBook and I don't think Apple will ever add a second USB-C port to it. There simply isn't space. From my review[1]:

> Remember, the keyboard abuts the side. The only areas where ports wouldn’t intersect with the keyboard are already taken: USB-C on the left, headphone jack on the right. Adding another USB-C port would require sacrificing the headphone jack. I doubt that will happen any time soon.

Apple's solution is to sell an adapter that lets you charge and use USB[2]. Not pretty, but fewer peripherals need wires these days. Heck, I use the MacBook as my primary dev machine and the only adapter I use is for my Yubikey.

1. http://geoff.greer.fm/2015/04/19/2015-macbook-review/

2. http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av...

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Re:The increasingly long lives of old Macs by rsync on Monday August 17, 2015 @01:22PM (#10074594)

Thanks for your answer, but I don't understand ...

The keyboard appears to abut both sides equally ... so while there may be an internal component in the current iteration that takes up internal space, it's not the external footprint of the keyboard that is determining port or no-port.

Perhaps I am missing something ? Genuinely curious...

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Re:The increasingly long lives of old Macs by ggreer on Monday August 17, 2015 @11:14PM (#10077436)

The keyboard has depth from mechanical linkages, sensors, and a frame to mount everything on. It's also recessed so it doesn't touch the screen when closed. See a teardown for the exact details. Since the keyboard can't be made any thinner, the only way to add more ports would be to make the laptop wider or thicker. Neither is going to happen.

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Re:The increasingly long lives of old Macs by rsync on Tuesday August 18, 2015 @12:42AM (#10077628)

Then how do they have the port on the left hand side ?

What I am saying is, the laptop (and the keyboard) are symmetrical left to right ... so if they can squeeze the port in on the left side, they should be able to squeeze an identical port in on the right side.

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Re:The increasingly long lives of old Macs by ggreer on Tuesday August 18, 2015 @01:20AM (#10077701)

The headphone port is on the right. With the current form factor, there isn't room for both a headphone port and a USB-C port on one side. I said as much originally:

> Adding another USB-C port would require sacrificing the headphone jack.

Have you seen a MacBook in person? As soon as I did, I found this quite apparent.

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