I don't think the issue is the inclusion of USB-C -- in fact, USB-C offers a lot.

I think the issue is only having one connector on the entire laptop. What happens if that port fails or beaks? Your laptop stops working...

I'm not a fan of their single-port decision either, but in fairness: Every laptop stops working when the charging port breaks. No matter how many other ports it may have.

That is true, however if you are using the same port for a multitude of things (plugging/unplugging USB sticks, monitors, etc...) it's going to get a lot more use, and therefore increases the likelihood of something breaking.

I've broken USB ports before on laptops, usually by crushing the floating center plastic thing (USB cable gets ripped out weirdly or something), but I have other USB ports so life goes on. USB-C has the same center floating plastic bit -- just waiting for it to get broken off.

DC ports tend to be pretty robust, but do break from time-to-time. Apple's solution to this was the Magsafe connector, which avoided the issue for the most part. Seems like a step backwards for laptops to now rely on a single, potentially fragile port for everything.

By design it allows at least 10000 cycles of insertion/removal. Using it 8 times a day every single day you'd need about 3.5 years to end them. It's probably ok for most workloads.

Magsafe has prevented a costly fall or other here.

Now I wouldn't buy the new Macbook for my main editing rig, but I might buy it to use when traveling and consulting. I don't understand people complaining about a product that was obviously not designed for their use.

Some of the anger seems to stem from confusion about what the new MacBook is. It's clearly a smaller version of the Air, not a replacement for the Pro.

I.e. the one with "Pro" in the name.

Just because Apple has an iPad doesn't mean you can't buy a Mac Pro, you know?

Forget about using a mouse a these laptops.

Even now, this is sort of like saying 'Forget about watching a movie on these laptops' about it since it doesn't have a DVD drive! (I was going to say 'in a little while', but really, wireless mice are so common now)

> [...] wireless mice are so common now)

I never made any mention of a non-wireless mouse. All highend mice come with USB dongles, regrettably.

You're right that this is classic Apple, but I wouldn't call any of those decisions obviously right. And there have been plenty of bad calls along the way - remember when Apple tried to get you to use Firewire hard drives rather than USB? Remember PERCH? Remember those magnetic ethernet cables? Having fun adaptering back and forth between DisplayPort and Thunderbolt?

Aside from not relying on outside technologies for their success, eliminating cables has basically been Apple's central theme since (and before) their comeback. At least it's based on a standard this time.

However, every day at work, I plug my MacBook Retina into two monitors, plug in my USB 3.0 drive, sometimes my iPhone to charge or do dev stuffs, and charger, and frequently use my SD card slot as a 3rd HDD. Apple now is in the business of offloading the problem of I/O to the user, they haven't fixed it. It wouldn't have hurt the MacBook to include 2-4 ports, all USB3c

And it actually would hurt the Macbook to include more ports. The current port is above the keyboard, likely because it can't fit under the keyboard. Adding more ports would mean increasing one of the dimensions. Given the versatility of the USB3C port, I think it's the best possible tradeoff. If you absolutely use lots of ports day to day, and can't use a hub, then this really isn't the computer for you, and Apple will even sell you one of those.

Optical drives and floppy discs were obvious, they were never used on a daily basis when they were removed and that they remained so long in laptops (macs included) is just astounding. But something like Ethernet is just ludicrous. Unfortunately, if you want a slim laptop Ethernet will have to go - but it sure as hell will be missed in the coming decade.

Non-replacable batteries... Another milestone? No one was stupid enough to come up with that before apple, and thanks to that we all have to throw away all of our devices after a few years. But who cares, right?

Am I the only one who still remembers PCMCIA cards (thinner than most slim laptops) with Ethernet ports?

Here, an example from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:XJACK_network_card_extend...

I've only seen those that have either a large RJ45 connector extruding from the card, like: http://www.automation-drive.com/EX/05-13-21/a88fa.jpg

Or where you'd needed an adapter dongle that connected to the PCMCIA card.

I know there was a laptop or at least a concept of it with something similar to the (parent) XJACK connector, but have never seen it in real life. Would love to see them in ultrabooks.

Yup. It's more than just funny. The number of people I know who are carrying around "our thinnest, lightest macbook yet" with a bagful of adaptors that weigh more than the laptop is HILARIOUS.

As for me, I'm carrying around a 2012 Macbook Pro (the last model with a non-glossy screen). Even though my work involves dealing with iOS projects etc., my next laptop will probably be running Linux and I'll learn to rely on my iMac for iOS specific work.

They would have to carry around somewhere between 30 to 50 adapters to reach 2 pounds. I'm excluding the power adapter since that's a baseline for any laptop.

Yeah, they do. Ask someone whose iPhone has just died (again) if they'd take it being a bit thicker with a bit more battery, and I don't know anyone who wouldn't make the trade.

And I personally still miss living in a world where no matter where you went you were never more than 5 feet from a 30-pin cable.

I'd rather have two USB-C ports though than a pointless little audio jack - they should have put one on either side as Google have on their pixel. People could use bluetooth headphones with it if they really couldn't find some other place for the headphone jack, but I'm sure they could have squeezed it in if they tried hard enough. As it is one port is rather limiting (yes I know it shares data and power).

It'd be nice to be able to charge an iphone and charge the computer at the same time, so on port means many people will require a hub. They should also have sorted out their monitors with a refresh which actually functions as a hub for USB-A and USB-C - perhaps they'll do that before launch or I hope soon after.

Not really. What outrage? Floppy and Optical drives were dropped when they were already old. I remember some people complaining about the lack of USB, but you can get a thunderbolt<->ethernet adapter when you purchase it. Also, an ethernet port itself if thicker than the laptop itself, so it's understandable.

I bemoan that about my work laptop. It's not possible to legally stream all the things I'd like to watch, and for whatever reason building USB boot drives is still more painful than burning ISOs to DVDs or CDs (no good reason for that, but each time it's been the case).

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD824ZM/A/lightning-to-30-...

So at worst you can complain that existing equipment may require an adapter. That seems like a fair price for progress to me.

Standards change, but at least this one hasn't changed very often. I think "once" is an allowable amount of change.

Samsung did it at least twice before Apple switched to Lightning, another time after Lightning and will probably also move to Type C soon. Same for HTC, they switched port choices before Apple did as well, the HTC Dream has a different USB port than the HTC Evo and both came before the iPhone 5, and they're also likely to change to switch to this as well.

So basically Apple is the only choice that comes closest to behaving as you expressed a desire for and instead you shit on them out of complete ignorance. Good job.

Samsung also had USB3 Micro-B (the wide connector) on the Galaxy Note 3, but went back to a regular Micro-B in the Note 4.

Samsung and most other Android manufacturers aren't even guaranteed to maintain physical dimension compatibility between different models of the same exact phone (S6 vs S6 Edge, for example), let alone if you were to just stay with Android as an OS and were switching between manufacturers each upgrade. No way in hell you're keeping any nice-fitting docks or cases around for more than one Android phone purchase.

Their delayed support on NFC arguably killed the user adoption for the tech as well, but i digress.