“I travel. I enjoy it. When I do I take my iPhone and iPad with me. I sometimes also carry a second phone which I put a local SIM card inside, and when I know I might need it I’ll also travel with my Mac,” Jonny Evans writes for Apple Must. “And I’m wearing my Apple Watch the whole time, too.”
“That’s a lot of great technology. Each one of those things is the best in breed: the best smartphone, tablet, notebook and smartwatch, each from the same company and equipped with fantastic features like Continuity that lets you easily work between all those platforms,” Evans writes. “A fantastic user focused experience. Brilliant tools to stay productive, entertained, connected wherever you happen to be.”
“Just so long as you remember to bring your power supply. And not just one supply, either, you need one for your Mac, and one for your Watch and one each for your iOS devices. That’s not just cables, either, that’s the cable and the brick,” Evans writes. “Why? Because Apple doesn’t sell a USB charger you can carry with you to power all the devices you use.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Boy, it sure would be nice to ditch our rather heavy, bulky bag of various cables and bricks (for our MacBook Air units, iPhones, and iPads) and be able to pack more lightly!
When I travel, I bring my Mac power supply, my Apple Watch charging cord, a bunch of USB-to-Lightning cables, and a power strip that has 4 AC outlets and 4 2.4-amp USB ports. I also bring a single Apple high-power AC/USB adapter just in case.
No problem.
I use the same MacBook USB-C charger bricks for MacBook, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch and headphones.
I have tiny adaptors that convert the USB-C cable end to Lightening and Micro USB for phones, tablets and headphones.
Another tiny cable end adapter converts the old school USB end of the wireless Apple Watch charger to fit the USB-C brick.
It still a lot of objects, but much more compact as only one kind of brick and two kinds of cables (USB-C and watch cable).
Apple had the chance to adopt USB-C for all its devices, Mac and iOs. It sits on the USB committee. But instead of working on converging industry standards, once again Apple chose to go it alone. Apple put its resources behind a proprietary Lightning before the USB-C hardware spec was finalized.
Hell, before that Apple chose to implement a relatively crappy proprietary 30-pin connector that was a huge step backwards from Firewire, another great industry standard that just worked.
For all the talk about user experience, Apple’s history of thumbing its nose at connectivity standards and refusal to attempt to minimize dongles and adapters says otherwise.
But let’s be clear: minimizing the number of cables is useful ONLY if compatibility with legacy equipment isn’t intentionally crippled.
Most people don’t know that a MacBook Pro 3.5mm audio jack includes in it a mini Toslink digital fiber optic audio output. For a pro musician, this is a godsend and that port needs to remain.
Most people prefer MagSafe II power cables over any other means of charging, including USB-C.
And the video standards have evolved into a complete mess. Apple has no choice on a pro machine but to offer ports that support DisplayPort and HDMI standards at a minimum, both of which are derivatives of DVI now complicated by warring licensing factions, HDMI being the one pushing digital content protection schemes the hardest. The question is, how many adapters is it going to to take the user to connect a video device to a complicated new audio+video port? If Apple still sold a Thunderbolt display, it would be easy. Instead now the user cable decision is needlessly complicated.
I’ve never known of Apple “thumbing its nose at connectivity standards.” Instead, Apple has consistently pushed ahead of slow standardization in order to provide superior technology. That’s ended up with a variety of results, including Apple helping to establish the standard while everyone else sits around doing literally nothing. Hint: USB).
Now that the USB-C standard is finished and Apple is (presumably) putting a focus on Macs again, let’s see what happens this time.
But note that it’s all still wires. One less wire is nice. But it’s all still wires.
It is very nice being wireless and all that. The future getting wireless and wearable.
Only the catch is that they still uses centuries-old chemical batteries.
Need to wait for a new revolutionary, game-changing type of battery
Based on the title I was hoping for a piece about AirPods, now that’s really cutting the cables, can’t wait until “late October”
I was hoping Apple would introduce wireless/contactless charging in the iPhones and Watch this year. I think the AirPods are setting us up for that … not by removing wires, but by introducing us to the concept of having to pay for “add-ons”.
I can envision Apple adding wireless/contactless charging to all of it’s devices next year – iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, Watches, AppleTV remote, AirPods, keyboards, touchpads, etc. – then NOT including the device to accomplish the wireless/contactless charging with any of those devices. They would continue to include the power cubes and cables with everything – realistically those devices are very cheap to manufacture and to continue including in the box. They would then sell a new device, that you would mount say behind your night stand, and it would charge over the air any device placed within say 3 feet of it. And of course, you’d have to shell out $150 (like AirPods) to get the new tech.
I proffer this with no disgust or irritation – I think that would be brilliant! Provide the continuing way to charge for free, if you want a better/easier solution, it will cost you an extra $150.
My Apple stock, will thank all of you when you buy this magical device I’m envisioning …
Bring your Mac brick, and plug everything else into USB ports in the Mac to charge. Unless you have he single port Mac, then you are truly f’d
I wish everyone would use lightning – so that the cable ends wouldn’t get crushed – I have had several USB ends get bent and crushed – have you ever looked inside the USB connector? looks like an afterthought.
Wireless charging for a phone is great. Use it for my iP6S.
Not practical for a Mac though.
USB-C is the best approach and I expect the next MBP models will get those. If the charger was smarter it could adjust the power needed for different devices. Plus you could use battery power to boost a Mac on the fly.
Then add a USB-C lightning adapter you could have a single charger for all devices.
That’s probably where Apple are going.