Which leads me to the last invention / compromise: the new MacBook has a new port, called USB Type-C. It's also the only port besides the headphone jack. You use it for power and for connecting your phone, monitor, printer, camera, or whatever else you might have. And because it's a brand new kind of plug, you will need adapters for all of those things.
Say you want to charge your computer, plug in your iPhone, and plug in an external monitor. That's a totally natural thing to want to do! To pull it off, you are going to need to have the right dongle — and you’re going to need to buy it, too, since they don’t come in the box. They're just beginning to come on the market now, and I’m hopeful they’ll be both cheap and plentiful, but so far I've only been able to use the basic ones. So, just by way of example, right now I can't plug my Apple MacBook into my Apple Cinema Display because I don’t have a dongle with Display Port on it.
Again, this is an invention and a compromise, and it's one that I'm actually a little torn on. USB Type-C has a legitimate chance of being the One Connector To Rule Them All. Google and Nokia are already using it, other phone and laptop manufacturers are on board, and from a technical standpoint it's a really great plug. It's strong, it’s reversible, it's fast from both a data and power perspective, and it's not proprietary. I charged the new MacBook with Google's power adapter. Heck, I charged the new MacBook off one of those battery bricks that's meant to power an iPad.
Sure, I miss the safety of the MagSafe adapter, but being able to buy any number of chargers and adapters from whomever makes the cheapest or best ones is a big deal — and worth the tradeoff. Or will be, once USB Type-C takes hold.
Apple says that it designed the MacBook with the idea that soon you'll be able to connect everything wirelessly anyway. The iPhone can sync wirelessly or use AirDrop, lots of cameras support Wi-Fi, etc, etc. That all sounds nice, but I can tell you from painful experience that the dream of wireless peripherals is usually more like a waking nightmare of confusing sync settings, delays, and frustration. The MacBook supports Bluetooth 4.0 and an alphabet of Wi-Fi standards, but that's not enough, not yet.
Talking to other Verge staffers about it, I joked that I'm looking forward to "Livin' La Vida Dongle." That's almost true! When it comes down to it, I mostly plug in power and only rarely need to use an SD card reader or plug in some other USB device. But when I need it, I need it, and having to carry a rat's nest of adapters and cables puts a huge damper on the portability of this machine.
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