What Apple “killed” with the arrival of the new MacBooks Pro

The Apple is in a crusade. On the iPhone 7, she decided to file the analog audio connector – which caused quite a stir among users. Less bad than this century-old beauty remains intact in other products like iPads, iPods and Macs. Speaking of Macs, today Apple introduced the new MacBooks Pro and decided to kill some more technologies and resources that we, the users, have learned to love.

Let’s go to the list:

MagSafe

https://youtu.be/e8rmsSYqBvA?t=1h23m14s

The MagSafe technology is incredible, and when it was introduced to the world by Steve Jobs (at Macworld 2006), it received deserved applause from the public. It is a magnetic connector that attaches to the notebook in a very simple and intuitive way. If someone happens to hit the wire, you don’t risk seeing your Mac kiss the floor.

Of course, the four new Thunderbolt 3 ports on MacBooks Pro are cool and deserve praise, especially the fact that you are not stuck to a port on the left side of the Mac to recharge it (now any of the four Thunderbolt ports can be used for power the machine’s battery). But that obviously comes at a price. The price of MagSafe. The price of beauty and the benefits of magnetism.

The 12 ″ MacBook was the first recent Mac to abandon technology. But it is an almost conceptual computer. There was hope, at least for some, to see the return (or survival) of MagSafe on Apple’s professional notebook.

In 1999 Apple released the PowerBook G3, the first notebook with the company’s glossy logo on the cover. Time passed and this illuminated logo became an icon.

PowerBook G3

In 2015, however, due to the very thin screen of the 12 ″ MacBook, Jony Ive was “forced” to discard this idea, starting to use a flat logo (without any backlight). And now, with the arrival of the new MacBooks Pro, it seems that we are facing a trend.

New closed space gray MacBook Pro viewed from above

As soon as the MacBook Air is buried for good (the 11 ″ model is gone, the 13 ″ is now missing), the illuminated Apple logo will also die.

11 ″ MacBook Air

As I mentioned above, the 11 ″ MacBook Air has been discontinued. And the 13 ″ was not just for a simple reason: Apple wants to continue offering a relatively affordable machine (below $ 1,000) to anyone who doesn’t want to shell out $ 1,299 for a 12 ″ MacBook or $ 1,499 for a MacBook Pro of 13 ″.

New 11 and 13 inch MacBooks Air tilted sideways

I have no doubt that a year from now – ok, maybe two or three, after all, the pace of Apple Mac updates is quite slow – when Apple manages to reduce the cost of producing the 12 ″ MacBook and new ones MacBooks Pro and lower their prices, the 13 ″ MacBook Air will also be buried.

13 ″ MacBook Pro with optical drive

I know that many of you have this machine (including our editor Bruno Santana). In 2012, when it was released, it was an incredible thing; in 2013 it was still a beautiful machine; in 2014, not so much; in 2015 we could already consider it not advisable to purchase; in 2016, my friend, it doesn’t make any sense for a company that claims to be cutting edge, brave enough to remove the analog audio connector from the iPhone 7, to keep such a machine for sale at an exorbitant price.

13-inch MacBook Pro

It took a while, but this 13 ″ MacBook Pro died and now Apple has definitely buried the optical drive – at least the ones built into the Macs, as it still markets the SuperDrive USB accessory.

Slot for SD cards

There’s something that always fails on my Mac but I love the idea of ​​having it available: a slot for SD memory cards.

MacBook Pro Retina

Is there anything more practical than taking a card from your camera and plugging it directly into your computer? Or use the card to do a clean installation of the Mac operating system? Well, say goodbye to those benefits and say hello to some adapter.

Physical function keys

The arrival of the Touch Bar can be seen in several ways. On the one hand, the benefits are undeniable: being contextual, the possibility of personalization, support for multi-touch gestures … these are items that obviously weigh a lot in favor of the Touch Bar; on the other hand, losing the physical Esc key and not always having some others on hand (like brightness and volume control) is definitely something that weighs against. Yes, it is true that if you press the Fn key on the keyboard, the Touch Bar automatically returns to the default even if we are in an application that is using it. Still, you * need * to press a key for this to happen.

New MacBook keyboard

This is the future that Apple drew. It remains to be seen how long the physical function keys will still live on Macs – even though Apple introduced this novelty, it also launched a MacBook Pro without it just to make the product cheaper / more competitive.

USB-A, HDMI, DisplayPort …

We have four ports on the new MacBook Pro, regardless of the notebook size (13 ″ or 15 ″). And they are all the same: Thunderbolt 3.

The truth is that Thunderbolt 3 is the most versatile technology that exists today. It has twice the bandwidth of the Thunderbolt 2, combines data transfer, video playback and power recharging in a single, compact connector. And the integration of the USB-C port undoubtedly adds convenience and speed, resulting in a truly universal port.

New 13 and 15 inch MacBooks Pro diagonally opened

Only we are not in the future yet. And today virtually any peripheral you have uses a USB-A, HDMI, DisplayPort, among other technologies. You’ll hardly ever pick up the accessories you have (or even any new ones you buy now) and plug them into your beautiful new MacBook Pro without a headache. Now, if you buy an iPhone 7 you will not be able to plug in the MBP, unless you also purchase an adapter or a Lightning cable for USB-C.

Ironically, if you purchase a Pixel smartphone (from Google), you can plug it in without a problem on your Mac. ?

Apple decided to “kill” these ports and put everything together in just one. Makes sense. The only problem is that the world – of peripherals – is not yet prepared for such a drastic change. Apple itself is not, since all of its products (iPhones, iPads, iPods …) are currently sold with USB-A cables.

In the world of technology, we are always going through some transition. But I really don’t remember any like that, where you just have to use adapters to [quase] all.