Controversial opinion, but I think adding Magsafe back (along with the other ports) was a step backward for the industry.

Apple pushed the whole industry to standardize on one connector for everything. If anyone really needed those other ports, a small $30 portable hub would add them all back.

Magsafe 3 is just another connector that will add more e-waste and proprietary cables to the mix. It's nice that they kept the USB-C charging, but now non-2021+ Macbook users can't reuse the charging cables.

Agreed. I'm a fan of function over form, but Apple standardizing on a single port pushed a lot of accessories and other manufacturers towards USB-C. I use my (USB-C) mac charger for my phone all the time, simply because it's there and the cable is longer.

I didn't really find Magsafe that useful anyway, as I'm pretty much always hooked up to a monitor via USB-C (which charges as well).

I guess it's nice for those that miss it, but we were starting to finally get to a world with a one-size-fits-all cable. Remember back in the day when old-style cell phones/laptops all had proprietary chargers?

But it seems the momentum for USB-C is there, so hopefully consolidation continues. Anyway, the EU and maybe others seem to be moving towards legislation to consolidate I/O types anyway.

I'm guessing the HDMI is partially due to bandwidth limitations of USB-C, though I forget the specifics.

I would need to look it up and and of course it depends on the version, but afaik HDMI usually lags behind DisplayPort in terms of bandwidth and features.

The SD-Card slot I can understand; for Magsafe I feels the same as you that I didn't really care for it, but HDMI... they might as well could have put a VGA port on there haha

I guess it’s for TVs and conference room projectors, these never support the DP, and thus it’s very much a real ‘pro’ feature for office work.

So, SD for pro photo/video (and they are very right about full-size SDs here), HDMI for pro office, USB3 for everything else, seems legit.

> I didn't really find Magsafe that useful anyway

Its like insurance, you dont need to for most part but then when luck is not on your side that is when you need it the most.

It is function over form though. The number of times I thought I plugged in the charger and didn't do it properly and the number of times I tripped on the cable when working on the couch alone makes it worth it. The simple indicator light on the magsafe makes it so much easier to see and confirm that it's charging or it's fully charged.

It almost never gets commented on but you can sneeze on the usb-C ports on the MacBook Pro and they will unseat enough to stop charging. It’s a shame the standard didn’t get notches like lightning cable which can easily hold the weight of a dangling iPhone pro max.

> I didn't really find Magsafe that useful anyway, as I'm pretty much always hooked up to a monitor via USB-C (which charges as well).

I’m the complete opposite. I have to buy USB-C cables solely for MacBook Pro since nothing else I have uses it. I have plenty of HDMI and DP cables but literally only use USB-C on my laptop because I was forced to. Reverting back is a welcome change. USB-C only works as the only standard if you’re only buying relatively new tech products otherwise its the XKCD meme about an 11th standard.

My tv doesn’t have usbc, my monitors don’t have usbc, my headphones and microphone still use a jack, my phone is no usbc, etc…

Yeah, but mac standardization was pushing all of those devices towards USB-C. I'm sure we'll get there eventually anyway, but it's a nice push towards standardization.

It does create more friction in the short term though.

I don't see any reason we shouldn't move towards a single standard for all I/O, whether it's USB-C or otherwise. Maybe there are technical limitations to supporting so many things in one spec, I'm not that deep into the weeds.

Otherwise it's just incredibly wasteful to have all these different connectors, and it's anti-consumer. I mean I used to have a bag with 100 different cord types I'd have to rummage through every once in awhile to find what I needed. That shouldn't have to be a thing.

Fortunately we're down to like 4-5 standards now...

The e-waste from chargers is a non-issue. Our oceans aren't filling up with dongles, nor are our landfills.

Also the whole point of magsafe was to save laptops from smashing when someone trips on the cable. They likely reduce ewaste in total.

> Controversial opinion, but I think adding Magsafe back (along with the other ports) was a step backward for the industry.

It's too useful not to add back. Every laptop should have something like this; it prevents accidents and damage.

And that tiny little light is so very useful when you're plugging it in just to charge it...

I agree with this. The mag connection should have been at the power brick and keep the USB-C on the device.

That doesn’t prevent the kind of accidents that mag on machine does.

You can still use your old type-c cable, I don't see any issues with it.

Reusing charging cables is only a big deal in online arguments.

At least it is a USB-C terminated on the charger end. That means you can reuse existing USB-PD chargers while only needing to replace the cable.

>Apple pushed the whole industry to standardize on one connector for everything.

Because people actually want one cable for everything.

USB-C only guarantee 60W charging. Instead of telling user to use USB-C PD 2.1 Cable with Thunderbolt 4 support and this logo with x. Apple now tells its user if you want it to work at maximum speed and charging please use Magsafe.

> Because people actually want one cable for everything.

The problem is that the "industry" gave us one port for everything while giving us a confusing mess of mixed capability cables that use that port.

> USB-C only guarantee 60W charging.

The original PD 1.0 spec went up to 100W (20V/5A). Newest PD spec (3.1) can do up to 240W. And I think apple's magsafe cable terminates in a male usb type C, so it still uses PD internally at least.

More than 3A on PD requires tagged cables, I'm not even sure I have any 5A capable cables here. I do have tagged cables as tagging is required for USB3 over USBC which is negotiated with the aid of PD. Magsafe does make it rather somewhat simpler for the end user and I never really liked that the main cable for a portable could be so easily damaged, I liked magsafe and the magnetic connector on the Surface laptops quite a bit.

Precisely. Not all USB-C Cable are PD cable. Telling the story again.

I was trying to help a lawyer out and trying to explain why the $5.00 USB-C cable he'd bought from Amazon wasn't delivering 4K video to his expensive monitor AND powering his laptop too.

Me: OK: so its a USB-C cable, but its not a high data rate USB-C cable.

Him: But, its a USB-C Cable.

Me: but, no, not all USB-C cables are high speed cables. And some of them can't do high speed and power delivery

Him: but... its a USB-C cable: it plugs into the port.

Me: Um... just because it plugs in, doesn't mean its going to work. You can have USB-C cables that are actually slower than the old USB ports.

Him: but.... shouldn't it just work?

And so on. For... 15? more minutes? maybe 30? I finally got him to buy a "proper" belkin USB-C cable . Which was bought from a company that should be anonymous, but lets just say that a "refurbished" cable was shipped, which, surprise, surprise ,didn't work, for ANYTHING. This basically sums up everything that is wrong with Tech thinking vs User Thinking.

It's tricky because the good part of that port is you can plug anything into it, thunderbolt, usb, etc. But the bad part of that port is that you can plug anything into it and its hard to tell why it might not be working as expected.

Finally this dongle hell is over. It was so cringe worthy to see all Apple users carrying around a bag of dongles. Reminded me of the old LAN party cable fun…

Who was carrying around a bag of dongles? Any sane person would just get a tiny hub that fits in your pocket and has USB-A, HDMI, DP, SD, and whatever else you need.

Which is honestly a much better solution than adding SD and HDMI back to the Macbook. I know it's a controversial opinion around these parts, but I never understood the dongle-gate fiasco. A $30 portable hub will add those parts back to anyone that needs them. I sure as hell don't.

It starts like that, then you have some ports fail on that $30 hub then you are buying more junk you wouldn't have needed in the first place if apple had more sense.

I don't know. I have my MacBook Pro since 2016 along with it's HDMI/USB-A Dongle and while the macbook screen failed on me (twice!) I still have the same dongle.

But to be honest I don't need it suuuper often. Just for my USB-A microphone and the occasional projector somewhere. I live in the USB-C future Apple is turning away from haha

USB A. Ethernet. Dongles are here to stay.

I can't remember the last time I've needed USB-A when not at my desk at home, except in the weird cases where I left my Yubikey 5C on my other laptop and needed to plug in my Yubikey A. Generally, when I actually need USB-A, I need a _lot_ of it, so hubs/dongles are a necessity regardless.

And if I'm going to use a hub, I might as well get HDMI, Ethernet, charging, etc. out of it.

The addition of HDMI has eliminated at least 90% of the cases where I've needed to take a dongle somewhere with me.

I need to use usb-a every day to charge my 2020 iphone with the cable that came with it

The iPhone 12? You must have gotten a bad shipment because they’re supposed to include a USB-C to lightning cable.

Second gen iPhone SE.

I bought a USB-C lightning cable for my older iPhone X, but went magnetic wireless charging after so hardly ever use it.

I have a wireless charger, but I will opt for the cable most of the time since its so much faster.

It's a trade off: wired is faster at charging, wireless is faster at setting up the charging session. If you are going to bed anyways, wireless wins since you just plop the phone down and it is charged when you wake up in the morning.

Even then I take wired charging. It takes all of one second to plug in a lightning cable to the phone. I've plopped my phone down on my charging pad on the other hand, and walked back to find that I had just missed my mark, and the phone was sitting there for hours not charging at all. Happens pretty often and now I need to spend an extra second to confirm that the phone is getting charge while on the pad, vs with lightning when its obvious and just works.

> I've plopped my phone down on my charging pad on the other hand, and walked back to find that I had just missed my mark, and the phone was sitting there for hours not charging at all.

Yes, this is why Apple is including magnetic guided wireless charging in its new iPhones. Lacking that, I had to carefully choose my charging pad to avoid these kinds of problems.

Fishing around for the lightning chord and then trying to line it up with the charging port on the phone is annoying, especially at 5AM in the morning when I'm half awake. Not sure this would be a win for everyone, but it is for me.

Mouse, external keyboard, headset... They all use USB A only.

If they were carrying around a bag full of dongles they'll still need most of them, as this just adds an HDMI port.

And SD card, for photographers and 3D printers

This was my biggest concern. Having the option to use MagSafe is much better than always being required to carry around yet another charger.

Same here. I want to use MagSafe at home and the office, not carry around a bulky bespoke charger just for one device while traveling.

From what I can tell, the charging brick is the same either way. The new MagSafe is just a different USB-C cable that has the MagSafe connector on the end.

Ah, awesome, that was actually something I was hoping they would do (and probably suggested once or twice in some HN threads). If I can just plug the MagSafe cable into any old USB brick, that's way more convenient.

This was my biggest concern too, that my £300 dock would be rendered instantly obsolete. It’s nice that I could still plug these new pros into a dock with a single usb-c cable and have charging, multiple displays and usb connectivity all with one cable.

EDIT: Never mind

MagSafe cable does indeed ship standard - see https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/specs/.

The MagSafe Cable + relevant USB-C Adapter is present in the box, per the site.

It’s listed as “in the box” on the product page.

It is shipped with USB-C -> Magsafe cable in every configuration I see.