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Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by chrisseaton on Sunday July 15, 2018 @07:36PM (#17537728)
> You can't even plug a USB stick into it.

I don't think I've used, or seen anyone else use, a USB stick in about a decade. We can't just keep these legacy ports around forever, cluttering up our devices.

Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by TheOtherHobbes on Sunday July 15, 2018 @07:54PM (#17537789)
USB dongles are absolutely standard in pro audio. Products made by Steinberg, Avid, and many plug-in shops will not work without a USB dongle.

Aside from a few high-end audio interfaces, most music hardware - including licensing dongles - is USB-A.

Of course you can buy the inevitable wart-on-a-cable adaptor from Apple. But it's both fragile and ugly, and when you have an iLok with thousands of dollars of software on it, you really don't want fragile.

Edit: to be fair, some of these licensing schemes are moving to cloud licensing. But that has issues of its own - and not all are.

Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by sjwright on Sunday July 15, 2018 @08:45PM (#17537962)
The USB-C adapter is fragile and ugly? Ugly is debatable, but fragile seems misplaced. Having an iLok on the end of a short flexible wire seems far safer than having it rigidly protrude from the side of a laptop.

As for high end audio interfaces, replacing the included USB-A cable with a USB-C cable seems a trivial matter. And sooner or later they'll be included in the box.

Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by monetus on Sunday July 15, 2018 @09:29PM (#17538131)
Thanks for saying this. Every producer/Dj I know needs USB-A. It will be decades before that equipment is phased out.
Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by wilsonnb2 on Monday July 16, 2018 @03:24PM (#17544209)
They just need a cable that goes from their device to a USB-C port. That's it. Most of the time, the device in question has a USB B port on it so all they need to do is buy a USB B to USB C cable and they're good to go.

Sure, sometimes they need to plug in a dongle and will need an adapter until USB C dongles become commonplace but that is hardly an issue at all.

Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by s73v3r_ on Sunday July 15, 2018 @09:19PM (#17538083)
"USB dongles are absolutely standard in pro audio"

Ok. I don't work in pro audio. So that doesn't mean much to me.

Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by sumedh on Sunday July 15, 2018 @08:58PM (#17538015)
> USB dongles are absolutely standard in pro audio.

That is like saying everyone is using floppy disks, why did Apple remove floppy disk drive. You will need to use dongle for a while but everyone moving to USB C/wireless is a good thing.

Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by monetus on Sunday July 15, 2018 @09:33PM (#17538142)
Mac is highly supported for pro audio, so you can hope. I'm certain that until pioneer, m-audio, etc. jump on board, they will lose consumers.
Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by sumedh on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:04AM (#17538691)
> I'm certain that until pioneer, m-audio, etc. jump on board, they will lose consumers.

I am sure Apple must have thought of that before pulling the plug on USB A. The point is this is classic Apple move to let go old tech and embrace new.

Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by josephg on Sunday July 15, 2018 @07:50PM (#17537777)
I use USB sticks semi regularly and I have a USB-c MacBook Pro. I picked up a few USB sticks with dual A and C plugs on them. They work a treat.
Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by sumedh on Sunday July 15, 2018 @09:00PM (#17538025)
> I use USB sticks semi regularly

What do you use it for, is it something dropbox or others cannot do?

Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by likeclockwork on Sunday July 15, 2018 @10:03PM (#17538259)
When did the sneakernet become a foreign concept to hackers?
Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by kalleboo on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:50AM (#17538841)
I had stopped using floppy disks completely by high school. The reliability of floppies of that era was so poor that despite only having 56K at home, I'd start an FTP upload of my documents to my free 20 MB dialup ISP space when I left for school and by the time I arrived they were all safely there.
Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by copperx on Sunday July 15, 2018 @11:47PM (#17538611)
Around 1990.
Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by mirimir on Sunday July 15, 2018 @09:47PM (#17538199)
Bandwidth is much greater.
Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by sumedh on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:11AM (#17538719)
Yes but I am pretty sure there very few people who need so much bandwidth and you can always buy a usb c flash drive.
Re:2018 MacBook Pro Review by mirimir on Monday July 16, 2018 @12:47AM (#17538835)
True, I guess. And I'm one of them. Sometimes I use numerous Linux, Windows or macOS VMs for testing stuff. At 5-10GB per VM, that's way too much for my system array. So I use LUKS-encrypted HDDs and SSDs via USB. With my pitiful uplink, cloud storage for hundreds of GB would be unworkable.

And yes, I could use USB-C.