“Today, Apple finally pulled the 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro from its store. This marks the end of the dongle-free MacBook Pro, and now only the super-outdated MacBook Air, which you shouldn’t buy anyways, still has ports besides USB-C. Headphone jacks aside, Apple just moved one step closer to being a USB-C only laptop shop,” Alex Cranz writes for Gizmodo. “And I, for one, am stoked.”
“I use a lot of different laptops—among them many Windows 10 and Chrome OS devices,” Cranz writes. “So do not chalk this up to Apple fandom. Instead, chalk this up to my growing love of the dongle.”
“Consider this: The dongle is just a really affordable gadget,” Cranz writes. “When they’re not in use I have a clean-looking and light machine that’s thinner than if I had Ethernet or HDMI on board. And when it’s time to get to work, I can reach into my bag, select the right tool, and feel like someone with a much cooler profession—like a doctor, or a machinist, or maybe an assassin.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Each one of our Crumpler backpacks contains a BUBM “dongle bag,” too. (Also contians Anker chargers and cords.) We’re not sure we love that bag as much as Alex loves his, but we don’t hate it, either.
Good, then you should buy as many as you can make up all happy. There are actually junk though.
Let me know when Apple makes MagSafe USB-C connectors.
Yea, and a dongle for FireWire!
Plenty of other people make them, T-boi
Just buy one of those at shaddupski
Tripple “LOL!” The man has a bag full of dongles and tangled wires.
Isn’t that what you have in your underpants, Dongler?
That’s the artists’ impression I get
John Multi-Dongler, artist’s impression
I thought a ‘Dongle” was what you got when you crossed a donkey with a Google.
Each to his own, I guess.
Peripherals will catch up with USB-C over the next few years, just as they did with USB-A following the release of the Bondi Blue iMac in 1998. People griped back then, too. It seems to be a fairly consistent profession.
I really like USB-C. I have a few dongles. They work fine. My advice…don’t sweat the small stuff. People on this forum often get worked up about trivial issues and ignore the more important ones.
So the supreme Apple apologist is telling us to enjoy getting shafted by Apple AGAIN. Pay more and get less. Carrying around a bag of expensive dongles when in the past that was not necessary. Oh, and wait years, YEARS, for the industry to catch up because Apple screwed the pooch! You are the most pathetic fanboy on MDN by FAR …
So the supreme Apple hateologist is telling us to enjoy him hating on Apple AGAIN. Hate more and get less. Carrying around a bag of expensive dongles when in the past that was not necessary even though Apple was making dongles great again. Oh, and wait years, YEARS, for the industry to catch up because Apple saw the future and grasped it while PC idiyotes faffed around with old plugs! You are the most pathetic hateboy on MDN by FAR … GoeBack to where you came from, Windroid lover!
Banned Citizen X changing his screen name several times a day to avoid MDN detection. PATHETIC NOTHING …
I still have a drawer full of USB-A dongles I had to buy after I got an early Bondi Blue iMac. I was annoyed, but even at the time I could see that the other connectors were dead ends.
I have an entire room full of obsolete electronics, dongle city. Every few years I have to cull the detritus to make room for future flotsam. This room of mine serves as a constant reminder that change happens to machines as much, or more, than to people. What exactly is this strange, petulant philosophy that demands technology be frozen for the convenience of users? For all my career, technology’s inexorable evolution has been a necessary cost of doing business, but one always outweighed by benefits. Some people just can’t abide progress, as if it’s somehow immoral.
Ultimately there will be less connection hassles downstream.
Given the high price of a MacBook Pro, being asked to pay tens of dollars extra (to buy expensive dongles) just to make it useful is highway robbery. Apple used to ‘delight customers’. Now they just burn them.
Well you know the solution. It’s sooooo simple. Go somewhere else where they won’t burn you.
Or instead of just letting Apple get worse and worse, keep pressuring them to do the right thing and start designing to delight rather than to be like every other company who put profits over adding value. Keep pressuring Apple to stop their policy of forced obsolescence, thinness at the price of usefulness, making it almost impossible for customers to add RAM/replace hard drives, overpricing, removing useful ports and connectivity.
Given all those “problems” that you state, Bluelobe… why is Apple the biggest company on the planet?
I don’t think your “pressure” is going have much effect on them to change things.
“Given all those “problems” that you state, Bluelobe… why is Apple the biggest company on the planet?”
Clueless caretaker CEO riding first class on the iPhone gravy train. Any other questions? And yes, Apple has tons of problems like never before. Get a grip, fanboy…
Because of mobile as they’ve let their desktop product fade out with the exception of the iMac and MacBook.
Ah, the ol’ “if you don’t like it, get out”. The last argument of a man with nothing to actually contribute.
You got that right! …
Dongles only kept me from buying a new MBP, I would have, I stock an office for 20 years with macs, Dongles were the deal breaker, went with older model. The brand new MBP still doesn’t interest me. SD card slot is essential. Plus you can get a flush sd card that adds an instant 256gb space, more. but no, Apple went with thin. And I’ll add, Nobody, and I mean Nobody gets 8 hours of use out of any Apple product on batter life. Stop pretending. So thin sucks. Dongles Suck, Keyboards with no travel suck, Lack of a 17inch screen sucks.
But the now top of line MBP is over $6699.00
plus $30 for the dongle!
I bought and still have a working PowerBook 3400c 180MHz.
Upped the ram to 144MB
It was a great machine in its day. Base price was $4,500 and $6,500 for the 200MHz model. Think of what you are getting compared to that old PowerBook. Geez people will whine over anything.
Yes I had a huge SCSI cable that went everywhere with me. AppleTalk and Ethernet cables. Monitor dongles etc. printer cables.
What we are getting today blows away anything we grew up with for less money.
Exactly.
Jr shows he or she really is Jr
the part the dongle apologists don’t get is
sometimes you’re at a conference and need to transfer some files
or you’re at a gig and need to transfer some files
or you’re doing sound for the art gallery presentation and someone’s laptop won’t connect to the projector
these are reasons why working people who do things with their computers other than surf porn, facebook, and instagram want ports and flexibility
not dongles that you didn’t know you needed until you needed them
ports
and this is why Apple has jumped the shark
and why I just bought a 15″ Dell XPS…
So instead of just friggin’ buying the dongle – you can get them with every port known to Man and Woman these days, cheap – you decided not to buy a $20, $30, $50 or $100 dongle depending on the ports you needed, and bought a Dell 15-inch for thousands more!
This is the very definition of DUMB, and a great reason by Ballmer stopped being CEO of one of the world’s biggest tech companies to become the CEO of a crapsketball team.
You can’t make this stuff up! Only an idiyote of the highest order decides to buy a machine for thousands of dollars rather than a simple dongle that solves all problems, and keeps the machine thin and light for the 99.99999% rest of the time that the dongle isn’t used.
You can’t help some people, you just have to give them enough rope, and the fools hang themselves, from Ballmer to GoeBallmer to tamponista applecynic.
The dumb just gets dumber and dumberer and these people want us to take them seriously… what a joke!
Banned Citizen X — you have ZERO credibility …
Truth is USB-C is no closer to take of now than it was 2 years ago, for a host interface it’s probably a dead end. It’s just too fragile compared to the USB-A connector. As a device connector, sure as long as the cables are cheap. Just as Micro-USB or lightning. So don’t hold your breath of getting rid of the adapters.
You’ve done a real job on USB-C falsely pretending it is as weak as micro USB
Weak argument. Not even close, and certainly no cigar for you, Monica
I think its a little bit better, but still an extremely failure prone design.
I’ve got a usb-c port failing on a motorola android device I do testing on, started with needing to push the power cord in hard and then not bumping anything, been there so many times with micro usb, I guess this one lasted awhile but its still dying in less than 2 years.
Maybe we need a trans, non-cisgender USB port.
Lightning is male, and plugs into the female port. Lightning ports seem extremely solid.
USB-C is a female/male hybrid design, plugging into a port but in reality, having something in that port plug into the USB-C
Maybe USB-C a trans port rather than a true female port
I think Lightning is better and USB-C hasn’t been all we would have hoped. Sadly.
I really dislike USB. Seems like the least reliable connector around.
The main selling points of USB-C are faster transfer speeds and slimmer laptops. Neither are must-haves for most consumers because transfer speeds are fine for most of our needs as they are and slimmer laptops mean less battery life. There is little added practicality with the latest gen Macbook Pros for the majority of people who will buy them, but many compromises.
If Apple upgraded the Macbook Air with a retina screen, latest gen processor and and space grey color, it would become their best-selling laptop overnight. I hope my 2013 Air lasts me a while yet, otherwise I have access to a 2015 13” Pro with 16GB of RAM (bought new this year for $1250!) and all the ports I need.
Who cares how sleek and elegant your laptop is when it is sitting in your bag! These things turn into an octopus mess whenever you try to USE them! It’s like they have optimized the macs for looking good in an ad, rather then being used.
Amen …
I have never, ever, used a laptop, only desktop workstations. – The 2013 Mac Pro however was portable. I started taking it in a tote-bag on the airplane; at my destination I could connect it to arbitrary keyboards, monitors, servers, sensors. For a consultant like me it was a felicitous development.. such a pity Apple abandoned that design, but I understand everyone’s requirements don’t resemble mine, so I bear no resentment.
So, one might wonder, how I kept up on work during the flight without a laptop? Duh. I watched the in-flight movie instead. Workaholism can kill you.
“feel like someone with a much cooler profession—… maybe an assassin.”
Should have stopped after the second “s”.
White plastic adapters are the universal worldwide symbol for bad design and poor coordination with the rest of the industry.
Who needs a dongle when you can dock?
OWC dock has even Firewire
Satechi hub has all but firewire in a nifty gadget
“OWC dock has even Firewire.”
What is OWC? …
I have one hub/dongle. It accepts everything I might ever need in the way of legacy ports. Weighs a couple ounces. Not sure what all the fuss is about. As for the “octopus” comment. Whether you have 5 legacy ports or 1 dongle with 5 legacy ports, if you are using them all, it’s an octopus either way. No fault of the dongle. Much ado about nothing. Moving on…
Model and manufacturer, please …