Be that as it may, a damaged computer (not to mention a crashed hard drive with unrecoverable data) is significantly more expensive to repair/replace than a frayed power adapter plug (and, based on a few comments here, Apple will sometimes do it for free).

To me, the logic implies that it is better to risk fraying the power cord than to have a flying laptop.

Let us hope that the plug has a more rugged strain relief sleeve.

I will say, I do not relate to the tripping over the cord argument . I can think of two times in the time MagSafe has been around where my cord would be a trip hazard. Both times I was alone in a wiring closet. At work, the adapters are in carts or tucked under and behind desks. I have replaced DOZENS AND DOZENS of adapters, have yet to replace a computer that was pulled off of something.

Seems to me the pulled by cord would be the rarer of the problems.

Interesting discussion…

We did a video call on the weekend for a ceremony we couldn’t be there for, it was moderately noisy and my brother and his girlfriend couldn’t hear anything we said clearly until he put the bottom of the iPad to his ear, meaning he wasn’t looking at us, and he had to move the iPad back in order to talk into the mic. Think about how silly that looked, and the impression this gives to others around him who see this. It’s a problem with the iPhone, and worse on the iPad because of its size.

And no, the noisy environment is not an excuse. He heard fine when the speaker was pointed to him, so it follows that the same speaker, facing forward, wouldn’t have this problem..

Tradeoffs sometime have to be made for usability. Apple usually understands this when others don’t, like not including features just to meet a buzzword bingo. In this case style compromised usability.

One option: speaker slits on part of top and bottom edges of the glass. The Blackberry Playbook does this, it’s noticeable but just barely. Yes, it’ll break up the nice minimalistic design. Oh well. Don’t like it? Apple can come up with a better idea, they have lots of highly paid industrial designers and materials engineers. They made a power indicator that glows through solid metal, after all.

Looks to me like a manufacturing cock-up somewhere, not a design problem. Then again, it’s also a sample of precisely two devices…

Anyone else able to see anything similar?

The second version could pull a MacBook Pro off a table before it would let good.

I was using my 2006 MB with the T-plug, and just got the 2012 MBP with the “old” L-plug.

The T plug I found much easier to manually put in and take out, since it had a better grip area. People were just stupid and pulling on the cord all the time–you aren’t supposed to do that for wall plugs, why do it for a computer plug?

The L plug I always have to roll between my fingers to get it in, and taking it out properly I need to lever it out from the back, and my normal home setup doesn’t make that as easy as removing a T-plug.

I don’t really care about it protruding out–normally I have it plugged into an external monitor and keyboard, so the adapter and USB plug juts out far more than the power cord ever does.

As for frayed cable at the connector, I hope this design is more rugged than the original. We’ll find out over time.

Nope. There’s no way anyone could put enough strain on the connector/cable junction to cause the fraying. The fraying is caused by twisting the rectangular connector/cable connection. The one thing the connector can’t do is allow for twists in the cable. The constant strain from a twisted cable eventually destroys the connection. If you’re careful about that you will never have a problem. My teenager isn’t careful about that and destroys one every few months.

The silver barrel version is more likely to pull a MacBook off the table if it’s pulled straight back. With the machines getting lighter and lighter, it could start becoming a problem.

If you’re about to change a file and want to preserve the original, duplicate it. There. Save-as all done.

The original (and now the new) MagSafe adapter could (and still can) be plugged in either way, and it is actually better than the barrel-shaped one, as it does NOT block any port regardless of orientation (whereas the barrel-shaped one will block at least two adjacent ports if you can’t run the cable from behind).

With the barrel-shaped MagSafe connector, this feature definitely, positively and certifiably does NOT work consistently (as experienced by me, thanks to my little daughter). The scenario in which this occurred to me is not in the least far-fetched or unreasonable (which is why MagSafe is one of those typical only-Apple type of ideas that solves a common problem).

The barrel-shaped plug isn’t much better than the traditional angled power plugs. The L-shape solves the problem of users torturing the cable at the point of entry in to the T-shaped plug to the point of breaking, but it makes MagSafe feature unreliable, and therefore pointless. Sooner or later, some idiot was going to sue Apple for damages/losses resulting from a MB(P) flying off to the floor when pulled by the L-shaped cable. A cable that was abused to the point of breaking can be easily and cheaply replaced. There is very little consolation from the fact that the power cable looks perfect when the laptop ends up on the floor because somebody tripped on the cable.

My old MB (2007) had a T-shaped cable. My kids (and occasionally, my wife, and even myself) have tripped that MagSafe cable at least 100 times, without consequences. My new (2010) MB came with the L-shaped cable and, after several successful MagSafe disconnects, Murphy’s Law made sure that it would get tripped in such a way to send the computer flying to the floor when an external USB drive was connected to it…

I don’t want to see the barrel-shaped cable on Mac laptops anymore! They were a poor solution to the problem that is all to common (regardless of what BLN may think).

I haven’t noticed the grey…

Save As was not only more efficient in that you could choose the folder into which the file went which duplicate cannot do. And why would I want to duplicate the file when my intention is to change its contents but save it to a different location.