It\u2019s an acknowledgement that Apple\u2019s pro users aren\u2019t exactly thrilled with the latest offering from the company considered to offer the gold standard in laptops.<\/p>\n
The bigger issue here, and one that was expertly discussed in a Medium post by technology journalist Owen Williams, is what many see as a muddle at the heart of Apple\u2019s newest products.<\/p>\n
For a company that rightly prides itself on creating products that \u201cjust work\u201d, it\u2019s literally descended into something of a tangled mess.<\/p>\n
Apple has, Mr Williams argued, created computers that lack a core selling point. For pro users, the types that use their Macs for graphic design and video editing, the new range only serves to take away functionality existing Macbooks provide.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not a pro user, that\u2019s fine. But along with Apple\u2019s announcement of new hardware came the news that the prices were going up. Dramatically so, if you\u2019re living in Brexit Britain. (Though Apple certainly isn\u2019t alone there. Marmite, anyone?)<\/p>\n Those factors combined mean the dongle issue, one Apple might have got away with in the past, has caused added frustration to the faithful who had been waiting for a serious Macbook upgrade for some time.<\/p>\n Dongles get lost, forgotten and broken. They\u2019re an added source of vulnerability when it comes to things accidentally being pulled out when uploading some data, corrupting the lot.<\/p>\n The Macbook future, at least for a short while, is a rag-tag spaghetti junction of dongles strewn across a desk or stuffed into a bag. In offices around the world, inboxes will fill with passive aggressive requests for \u201cwhoever took my iPhone dongle\u201d to \u201cplease put it back where you found it, no questions asked\u201d.<\/p>\n And when something doesn\u2019t work, you\u2019ll now need to ascertain: is it the device that\u2019s broken? Or the cable? Or the port? Or the dongle?<\/p>\n Competitors moving in<\/strong><\/p>\n But hold up. Apple has form here, and history mostly proves them right. Where Apple goes, others normally follow.<\/p>\n Earlier Macbook models already did away with ethernet ports and the CD\/DVD drive – a move which seemed absurd at the time, but I\u2019d argue Apple was ultimately exonerated. When was the last time you put a CD into your computer?<\/p>\n So in time, the accessories we use every day will become USB-C as standard, no question about that, and the dongles will no longer be needed.<\/p>\n But in the short term, Apple is left with a product that that no longer caters to either end of the market. Data suggests schools, parents and bosses are looking to Google\u2019s cheaper Chromebooks, which this year began outselling MacBooks.<\/p>\n And if we\u2019re looking at MacBooks as being as part of the bigger Apple planet, we\u2019re left with a company that appears to be behind in many areas. Its iPhone is still king, but sales have been in decline.<\/p>\n Apple doesn\u2019t have any virtual reality hardware. It doesn\u2019t have any augmented reality hardware. Or a car – autonomous, electric or otherwise. In artificial intelligence, Apple’s Siri is considered to be the least smart of the mainstream smart assistants, and unlike Google and Amazon, it can\u2019t yet be found in a family-friendly home device.<\/p>\n Tim Cook appears to be throwing money at the problem(s). Spending on research and development has ballooned in the past three years, though Mr Cook is staying typically mum about what exactly the company is working on – only to tell worried investors that his company has the “strongest pipeline that we’ve ever had and we’re really confident about the things in it\u201d.<\/p>\n Only an idiot would write off Apple and its future. I don\u2019t intend to be that idiot. Apple wasn\u2019t the first to market with the smartphone, not even close, but it went on to define the industry and produce the most profitable piece of technology ever made. It could do that again and again in these new areas.<\/p>\n As the world\u2019s richest company, it has time and resources on its side. But with that in mind, couldn\u2019t it afford to pop a dongle or two in the box to make its present-day customers a little happier?<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A tweet posted shortly after Apple\u2019s recent Macbook launch event underlined the absurdity: Apple now sells 17 different types of dongle. In its ever-escalating war against connectivity ports, Apple\u2019s latest computers do away with the SD card port, a full-size USB port, and the HDMI port. Instead, you\u2019ll need a dongle to convert those \u201clegacy\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":265409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"A](\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/FE54\/production\/_92280156_whatsubject.jpg\")
<\/span><\/figure>\n