SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A tweet posted shortly after Apple's recent Macbook launch event underlined the absurdity: Apple now sells 17 different types of dongle.
In its ever-escalating war against connectivity ports, Apple's latest computers do away with the SD card port, a full-size USB port, and the HDMI port.
Instead, you'll need a dongle to convert those "legacy" connectors, as Apple put it on Friday, into the new, smaller USB-C port.
"We recognize that many users, especially pros, rely on legacy connectors to get work done today and they face a transition," the company said in a statement, without acknowledging that Apple's newest iPhone, released just last month, is one such "legacy" device - without a dongle (or a different cable, sold separately), you can't connect Apple's new smartphone to Apple's new laptop.
"We want to help them move to the latest technology and peripherals, as well as accelerate the growth of this new ecosystem."
That help will be a decent discount on the price of the dongles - it calls them adapters - until the end of this year.
How long before they release new dongles that must be individually charged?
(Score: 1) by pipedwho on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:08PM
The iPhone 7 comes with a 3mm headphone to Lightning adapter. Mine permanently lives on my earphones. I gave the lightning earphones to my wife to use on her iPhone 6. No idea why people complain about this.
The only drawback is if you listen to music while the phone is charging, then you need an adapter/splitter that lets you do that. Or get some bluetooth headphones/earphones - doesn't have to be from Apple - my Bose wireless ear phones work perfectly - except my son has co-opted them for himself and his iPhone 5.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 08 2016, @10:22PM
It just seems rather stupid and inconvenient to get rid of the jack in the first place. If you're just going to offer an adapter for the same thing...
I don't really understand the whole obsession with making devices thinner either. Given the choice between having an mp3 player 1 mm thinner, or one that works with standardized accessories, that's a no-brainer. And I actually like full-depth keyboards, which are surprisingly hard to find even for PC desktops these days :P
But I'm obviously not Apple's target demographic. I'm supposed to think "OOH SHINY MUST HAVE", not "well that seems rather dumb from an engineering standpoint, and also needlessly expensive."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"