Yes. And well... I think this is another case of people misunderstanding what a thing is. Not everything is made for you. I love me some cars. I’ve had quite a few. Quite a few $50,000+ cars didn’t (and even now may not) come with cup holders, in the case of some of my sports cars the RADIO was something you had to pay extra for. A $50,000+ car (30 odd years ago) that didn’t come with a radio unless you spent an extra coupe hundred on top (a lot more than that sounds when adjusted for inflation.) Because... and this may shock you.... the core of that vehicles design philosophy wasn’t cup holders. That’s not what the designers had in mind. Now- it’s your product. You can do whatever you want with it when you own it (unless it’s a Ferrari or something- they’ll sue you. That’s another story...) and sometimes the maker even figures- “this isn’t what we designed the thing for, but people will want it. We will give them the option.” But not always.
Yes. And well... I think this is another case of people misunderstanding what a thing is. Not everything is made for you. I love me some cars. I’ve had quite a few. Quite a few $50,000+ cars didn’t (and even now may not) come with cup holders, in the case of some of my sports cars the RADIO was something you had to pay extra for. A $50,000+ car (30 odd years ago) that didn’t come with a radio unless you spent an extra coupe hundred on top (a lot more than that sounds when adjusted for inflation.) Because... and this may shock you.... the core of that vehicles design philosophy wasn’t cup holders. That’s not what the designers had in mind. Now- it’s your product. You can do whatever you want with it when you own it (unless it’s a Ferrari or something- they’ll sue you. That’s another story...) and sometimes the maker even figures- “this isn’t what we designed the thing for, but people will want it. We will give them the option.” But not always.
Apple laptops are designed around a certain form, sleek, slim, many are sold on how “clean” and how slim and light and compact they are. So yes, for probably like $2 they could have put 10 USB ports on it, a freaking VGA port in case anyone wanted to dust off their old monitor and plug it right in, some AV Jacks, a printer serial port too. And it would be a monster of design compared to what they made. That’s not what apple wanted to make. They dumped the headphone jack on phones before others did too- they wanted sleeker designs, the (tiny) advantages of no jack, and they are aiming at a customer base and to foster an eco system that uses wireless accessories.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m not too long apple dumped charger ports entirely and one of the up coming generation phones didn’t have wireless charging ONLY. that’s their philosophy. I’m not a huge fan. I like wired headphones and wired peripherals. I don’t like wired less charging or face idea or their ecosystem that stresses storing everything in the cloud instead of on the device or an external memory card. But that’s their design choice. They have a tightly controlled ecosystem. They have very little security risks and very few compatibility issues or bugs- because of how they run things.
It’s not for everyone. No ecosystem is 100% perfect for everyone even if they prefer one over the other, there will be things they don’t like. But if you don’t like it or don’t understand it- they probably didn’t make it for you. You aren’t their target customer. The fact that they are not just one of the worlds biggest tech companies, but one of the biggest companies period, shows you that unless you’re so arrogant that you just think that many people are complete fools, including technology experts and industry leaders, their products reach exactly the audience they are made for most of the time.
The computer is meant to be used primarily with wireless accessories for that “clean and safe” apple experience. I mean- if you buy a 3 ft folding ladder and then try and use it to paint a 4 story building... is the ladder maker an idiot for making the wrong ladder for you, or are you an idiot for buying the wrong ladder? Considering the dock for my Lenovo is several hundred dollars to allow me to have connection ports- $20, even $70 doesn’t seem that bad if you just want a USB port.
I’ll be honest, I’m not crazy about the only usb-c ports thing. But it’s not a big deal. I bought the adapter on the same ticket with the machine because I knew I would want it. And, I sorta love the part where I can plug the charger in on either side. And this machine weighs less than half the one it replaced (which was 10 years old).
Yeah. I’m with you on that. The newer macs almost always have a cool thing and a thing that you miss. Lol. I mean- it makes sense the design choices based on their logic and how they envision the thing being used. I can’t say it’s a stupid design. It’s not the perfect design for me. I like my wired peripherals and external storage mediums. But I mean... cd drives are uncommon enough on newer hardware. Sheeet. Fancy laptops used to have a disk drive and a cd drive. People like me were upset they dumped the disk drive. It made them smaller though, and the tech industry was moving off disks. Cd was the future- then DVD. Then they pretty much dropped dvd drives on most laptops (especially “compact” models.) now they’re dumping SD and peripheral slots. It’s the future. It comes wether we are ready or not I guess.
A laptop is portable. They generally make poor substitutes as sole or primary workstations for most people who would get a desktop. They tend to cost more for less capabilities. Sometimes laptops are issued or spec’d as primary work stations where high horsepower isn’t needed or versatility and mobility are prized (leaving out the whole backend simplification some places use by issuing one model of computer to all employees and how that simplifies procurement and inventory and support etc.)
If a laptop is chosen as a primary or sole work station- it’s pretty much always supplied with a dock. Few laptops have ports and support for dual monitors, and all the other connections it’s very nice to have on a workstation- and basically everyone I know that isn’t running a single giant curved set up is running duals or more for monitors. So those who have never used a dock- the dock goes on your desk, it hooks up to your monitors and printers and phone and or any other wired devices and connections you want to have, like USB and serial and other ports as well
As SD slots and all that. The laptop connects to the dock, and then anything plugged in to the dock is communicating with the laptop. When you want to take your laptop home or on site or whatever- you snap it out without needing to unplug anything. One tug and you’re off. Easy,
Convenient, better than having to unplug
Everything before moving the laptop.
When you’re moving the laptop- you want it to be small and easy to move and carry. Why would you buy a laptop if you planes to take your entire desktop and cables with you everywhere you went? That’s a pain. Especially important- why would you buy a laptop touted for its light weight and thin profile and then carry it around with 2-3x its bulk and weight in cables and peripherals and junk?
The thing is supposed to be easy to move around. That’s why you don’t buy a desktop- because you want something portable. If you want the desktop capabilities you’re meant to plug it in to a dock. More and more computers and peripherals are moving to wireless, but more and more data is moving to the “cloud.” Things like SD cards and CD’s and floppy disks and external hard drives- there trying to phase those out. What’s the point anyway when so much of our work is collaborative nowadays across great distances- so much of our recreational use too.
What are you going to do, take your computer on the bus, make sure to copy files from your other desktop to an SD card or external drive, then plug those in to your lap top so that you can transfer them to the laptop and then what? Have to email them to a friend or colleague? “Google docs” or if you’re more serious about it “Box” or something? All those steps and pieces of hardware to move data from my computer to yours- when I could have crated the stats in the cloud and then shared it across all the computers I want all over the globe? And unlike an external physical storage device, you can’t misplace it (you can forget a file oath though...) and you can’t say “oops. I left the sd card with that data in the car/at home etc.” it’s in the cloud. Wherever whenever (in theory.. when it works...)
Same goes for peripherals. You’ve got a laptop. It’s made to be portable. The assumption is you’re moving around. You’re riding the train- and apple doesn’t envision that Twain ride involving you, a sleek sexy laptop, 20 Ft of loose USB wires, and a bunch of devices splayed about. At the very least they’d see that vision without all the wires to deal with. Bluetooth, WiFi enabled peripherals, etc.
So I mean- I’m not there yet. I like my good old reliable wired peripherals and I dislike the volatile and somewhat loose nature of the cloud compared to local files. But- the decisions make sense. You can see the logic if you take a second to go beyond “they just want to sell you stuff!”
As SD slots and all that. The laptop connects to the dock, and then anything plugged in to the dock is communicating with the laptop. When you want to take your laptop home or on site or whatever- you snap it out without needing to unplug anything. One tug and you’re off. Easy,
Convenient, better than having to unplug
Everything before moving the laptop.