“While rumors of a 12-inch MacBook Air have been merrily percolating these last few months, the most interesting aspect of Apple’s upcoming redesign turns out not to be the size after all,” Brian Barrett reports for Gizmodo. “It’s the apparent abandonment of ports.”
“Where there was once (on the 13-inch MBA) a home for a MagSafe connector, Thunderbolt, SDXC card slot, a headphone jack, and two USB 3.0 ports, the 12-inch MBA has a lone USB Type-C (a reversible version that can also be used for charging) port and an obligatory headphone jack,” Barrett reports. “Instead of hardware connectivity, presumably, you’ll be expected to use a smorgasbord of cloud and wireless connectivity.”
“This seems dramatic, but should it actually come to pass it’s also perfectly fine and good and probably foreshadowed. Apple spent the last year introducing features specifically designed to let you circumvent wires altogether,” Barrett reports. “Handoff, to let you move seamlessly between computer and phone. iCloud Drive, for cloud-based file storage. AirDrop, which has been around even longer, to let you share files among Apple devices with ease. It’s already entirely possible to go weeks without having to hook up your MBA to anything besides the wall.”
“So, sure, sounds good. Except! Except,” Barrett reports. “While on paper the transition to a nearly portless world seems perfectly fine, there’s nothing in Apple’s recent history that suggests it’s ready to put so much weight on its cloud and software offerings.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Lately, when it comes to software and services, Apple needs to do better.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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