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.
Thanks for saying this. Every producer/Dj I know needs USB-A. It will be decades before that equipment is phased out.
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.
"USB dongles are absolutely standard in pro audio"
Ok. I don't work in pro audio. So that doesn't mean much to me.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.