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Dongle Madness

Posted by AbeCollins (A) on November 4, 2016 at 14:10:08

In Reply to: Regards the 'butterfly' keyboard... posted by Ivan303 on November 4, 2016 at 07:10:21:

The reviewer you linked to seems to like the keyboard. I too learned on a manual typewriter and grew up on the clicky IBM keyboards but try fitting any of those on a laptop! I tend to adapt to whatever keyboard I'm on fairly quickly as many others do.

The entry 13" MacBook Pro that omits the touch bar has the usual 'ESC' key in place. And at Apple's own launch event they stated that it is probably the best choice for those upgrading from the 13" MacBook Air. It is significantly more powerful with a much better display. The MacBook Air display was way past it's prime. No, you probably wouldn't want to run Photoshop on it.

I would miss the SD slot if camera SD cards were still somewhat low capacity and I needed to transfer my photos to my laptop in the field. The reality is, I never fill up my current 32GB SD cards in my cameras. I upload my photos to my laptop (or desktop) at home where I have a multimedia reader hub or just an SD adapter. For many mainstream consumers, their photos from an iPhone get uploaded to iCloud anyway and are immediately and automatically shared among other iDevices or Macs that they own. Fact of the matter is, dedicated cameras have been on the decline for years since smartphones have come on the scene. I guess Pro photographers may need to carry a dongle.... but Pro photographers are used to carrying a bag full of clunky photo-junk anyway. ;-)

Dongle Madness!


But I agree with the reviewer to some extent. Apple has gone all-in on the USB-C/Thunderbolt port (eliminating the rest) forcing us into the future. But hey, they were either the first or one of the first to ditch floppy drives, DVD drives, serial ports, SCSI, and even spinning disk drives. Apple hasn't had a hard disk based laptop for several years. They clearly prefer to move too fast rather than too slowly when it comes to ditching technologies that may be past their prime.


Dedonglify with a multiport Thunderbolt / USB-C hub







The physical 'ESC' key is out on the models with the touch bar because the bar is a fully programmable touch display strip that can show an 'ESC' key, or any other key. Additionally, macOS has the ability to remap the 'ESC' key to a physical hardware button if you wish.

I could run Photoshop on my MacBook Air, but I don't.

You probably wouldn't want to. The Air has the low power (slow) CPU, low-end integrated graphics processor, and an antiquated low resolution display. However, people run Photoshop all the time on MacBook Pros even with a 'lowly' 16GB of RAM.

For me, the new MacBook Pro line represents little more than an upgrade to the MacBook Air.

For you perhaps this is true but there are huge differences between the MacBook Pro line and the MacBook Air. There always has been. The only MacBook Pro model that represents an upgrade to the MacBook Air is the new entry model 13" MacBook Pro without the touch bar.

The Air defined and dominated the light and thin Ultrabook segment before the term was even coined by Intel. The goal included long battery life but back in the day that meant slower but more power efficient processors. Apple will drop the 13" MacBook Air because the entry model 13" MacBook Pro is significantly better and fills in for the old 13" Air. So it wouldn't make much sense for anyone to buy a new MacBook Air today. For ultimate portability there's the 12" MacBook. Between the 12" MacBook and 13" entry MacBook Pro, the 13" MacBook Air will get squeezed out of existence. They completely dropped the 11" MacBook Air.

Yes, there's an ESC key - or any key you want

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