I understand Apple’s push toward streamlining and simplifying their products but getting rid of ports for the sake of thinness puzzles me. Pushing style over functionality is ok, but not when you’re severely hobbling the usability of a product for the sake of saving off a few millimeters and grams off a tablet or laptop.
I’m not sure why anyone not made of money buys first gen versions of products (esp, but not exclusively Apple ones).
When my MBP needs replacing, I do like the look of the MB, but I’m hoping for a MBA-style leap in improvement.
I thought that at first, but several months down the line, I find I haven’t actually missed them. I had the same reaction the first time I got a laptop with no optical drive - shocking until you realise you already aren’t using it…
edit: I didn’t mean this to be a direct reply to you, must have fat-fingered something…
The 12" MacBook is a really good machine: it’s practically as light and portable as an iPad, but runs real apps, has a real keyboard… even non-4k video editing on it with Adobe Premiere Pro is just fine so long as you like waiting hours for export to finish.
It just needs another USB-C port or two, really.
Particularly since HP manages to make a comparable laptop, with all those ports, which manages to be thinner.
In fact, I have to ditch the 12" MacBook not because of its shortcomings, but because I’m finding that it destroyed the last vestiges I have of work-life balance. A smartphone at least meaningfully limits the kind of work you can do. With the advent of the “one-handed laptop”, I can do practically any kind of work on the go 
I was using 11" MBAs for years beforehand – they don’t quite make it there, for some reason. The 12" MacBook passes some threshold of portability and quality the Air never did.
My MBP has six things plugged into it. I could eliminate the Ethernet cable and the mouse (and possibly the speakers) could use Bluetooth, but the rest are there for a reason.
It’s time for Apple to make some thicker computers.
I could never get over the crappy screen on the MBA. That’s why I’ve bought 13" MBPs instead.
It’s not the thinness, it’s the Apple industrial designers’ wet dream: a totally insular device, with no need to physically interface with anything else, ever. File transfers through Bluetooth or NFC. Charging via induction. If there were better wireless display tech, they’d be using that already.
I think that’s it. the 12" MB was rumored as a “retina MBA” up until launch, after all.
Goshdarnit I’m not going to sit and listen to you talk trash about the MacBook.
Wait, you ARE talking trash about it, right? Now I’m confused.
I bought the first generation Prius because somebody had to provide an incentive for Toyota to keep making them. I didn’t expect it to be a great car (although it was!).
But in a sense I’m agreeing with you; I was in the enviable position of having 20 grand available to me at the time to spend on social engineering. Since I’ve got kids now those days are just a sweet memory…
I thought it had one of those “chiclet” keyboards. Real keyboards have keys that are as tall as their faces are wide.
A year and a half ago, I bought a 13" unibody MacBook Pro. It was already 2 years out of date (Late 2012 introduction). But I used build-to-order to give it a Core i7, then stuffed in 16GB of aftermarket RAM. I don’t get a retina display, but whatever, I’ve got PORTS. And that DVD-drive? Maybe one day I’ll rip it out and replace it with a drive-adapter and an SSD.
It’s as light as I’ll ever need a MacBook to be, and it has all the ports I want, and I can upgrade or replace the hard drive if I desire. In my opinion, it’s the last great MacBook Pro.
They’re still selling them, though you have to scroll to the bottom of the Macbook Pro page of the Apple Store.
I don’t understand why apple didn’t do the blindingly obvious thing and make the macbook’s power transformer double as a simple usb/ethernet/video dock
Then they couldn’t sell a dongle to you later.
Traveling with it is a PITA, but I am hanging onto my 17 inch MacBook Pro for as long as I can.
I don’t mind the directly reply 
Getting rid of the optical drive was never much of a problem, even back in the day i hardly ever had the need to use it often but this isn’t the case with ports. When you have a single port on a laptop and that single port is ALSO your charging the device then that is pushing the boundary of usability. I can see getting rid of HDMI and other display ports and using just USB… but a single one? Come on man. I think even just bringing it down to two would’ve sufficed.
That’s true - at the very least, if there’s clearance for one, then theres room for another one on the opposite side of the chassis.
Once the beautiful, pristine clamshell you fought so hard for needs a to have an ugly hub sticking out of it 24/7, you’ve lost the battle really, haven’t you?
