Technology

I really don't think it's that stupid. Your particular machine has a lot of ports, yeah. But there are plenty of machines out there, like the 12-inch non-pro macbook, that have ONE USB-C PORT and absolutely no other ports. That's clearly limiting. Like, you can connect it to ethernet, if you buy an additional USB-C ethernet adapter, but if you want to be able to ethernet and have it connected to power at the same time, you need to buy a special power brick that combines the two functions, because they didn't include any other ports.

Plus, there are a bunch of things that still use USB-A. I've got a bunch of old thumb drives that work like that, especially for transferring video files to my TV, which only supports USB-A itself. Wireless dongles for mice and game controllers, which still offer a latency advantage over bluetooth, tend to be USB-A as well. I've also got a wearable pulse oximeter that requires a special cable to load data, and the other end of that cable is USB-A only. Again, you can get an adapter dongle, but that's never as convenient as just having the right port in the first place.

I went a bit out of my way to get a laptop with a decent collection of ports (and it's a bit of a less portable laptop as a result, maybe more like a desktop replacement), but even it has for some reason dropped the SD card reader, which I would have used a lot. I had to get a dongle for that. And I had to get one that used USB-C in particular, because my USB-A ports are usually both filled.

Basically the selection of ports used to be something that laptops used as a point of differentiation and pride in a crowded market; but Apple managed to invert this, making the prestige marker having a slimmer laptop with as few ports as possible, and that was a dumb change. I do the the pendulum is swinging back, as with your Pro macbook, but I don't think it's unreasonable to be frustrated with the way this element of the market went in such a consumer-hostile direction for a while.

Agreed, but I do wish there were more USB - C ports

The recent macbooks are heading back in the right direction.

I think a lot of the complants come from wanting a portable computer/setup, and having a hub or a bunch of adapters takes away the portability.

I think the ideal I/O for me would be;

• Power
• 4x USBc (displayport, high speed, etc.)
• 1x USBA (flash drives are still mostly A, and if you have a wireless USB mouse, not needing an adapter or dealing with bluetooth is great)
• 3.5 headphone/mic combo jack
• Ethernet
• HDMI, at least until more monitors have USBC inputs, although having an adapter cable isn't too bad.

This is where I like framework approach with the customizable IO, but I think they need to shrink the blocks to give 6-8 ports. 4 is simply not enough, with one used up for power.

Exactly, I’m looking at these pics and don’t even have cables to fit any of these other than a USBC anymore. And I love that I can charge with a regular cable and don’t have to bring a charging brick anywhere. Just a phone charger works