20 years Apple released the iMac which did away with SCSI, ADB, RJ232 etc in favour of USB.
What they have done now with the MacBook Pro is exactly the same thing. They are trying to establish USB-C as the one port to rule them all just like they successful did with USB-A.
Yes change can be hard and some people like yourself clearly struggle more than others. But change is needed sometimes to push the industry forward.
Unifying to one standard port is kind of cool, except for the fact that not even Apple's other devices use that type of connection and users will have to buy dongles for almost everything. That represents a concrete step backwards in user experience.
There is a time to be bold and throw your weight behind a better standard, but there's also a time when doing so makes things inconvenient with little to no benefit.
That wouldn't be so bad if the Macbook were significantly more powerful but here we have a machine with the same max RAM as the Macbook they sold 4 years ago while PC laptops are shipping with 4 times as much.
It just seems like Apple is focusing on making a sleek and visually pleasing device, rather than a device that will be most useful to those who want to work on MacOS.
The next iPhone will likely have a USB-C port. They couldn't have changed the lightening port on the iPhone after only being on the iPhone for a single generation.
You think they're going to ditch lightning after everyone buys a bunch of accessories? They could, but I doubt it. What would switching to USB C do for Apple?
They're not about to switch to USB-C on mobile. They've been doubling down on Lightning recently with the Apple TV remote and the new Magic peripherals.
If you're going to piss people off by removing the headphone jack, you don't do it again by changing ports next year. You tear the bandage off in one go.
Yes, I mean it exactly like that. Apple could and would switch if it provided them significant benefit (smaller, more robust connector, ability to make the phone thinner, new capabilities). I don't see that USB-C provides them with anything except a loss of control over the connector and a bunch of annoyed customers.
The original iMac was a new product for a new market at a relatively low price.
The new MacBook Pro is an update to an existing product, with a large base of current users who already have expectations about what the product should do for them, at a relatively high price.
That's a big difference, and it's the main reason people are so peeved about the total switch to USB-C. Apple should have added USB-C ports to the existing slate of MacBook Pro ports for at least a generation, to help everyone bridge the gap. Nobody cares about the 2 or 3 mm that Apple shaved off the thickness by discarding all those ports for this generation of the product, and anybody who does can go buy the little MacBook instead.
What they have done now with the MacBook Pro is exactly the same thing. They are trying to establish USB-C as the one port to rule them all just like they successful did with USB-A.
Yes change can be hard and some people like yourself clearly struggle more than others. But change is needed sometimes to push the industry forward.