Apple has always been evil like this. The only difference between, say Apple and Microsoft, is that Apple has better designers and marketing. Being cool does not make it any less evil, just helps it go down easier.
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Yeeaahhhā¦ is it not worth mentioning that the Mag-Safe system was introduced in 2006, nearly a decade ago? This is the first change since then.
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There is nothing unique to apple about proprietary chargers.
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USB type C 3.0 is ostensibly a move away from proprietary chargers.
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We have had the standard USB A spec pretty much forever. Itās time to move on.
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Well, in that time-frame Microsoft managed to make Windows stable. So things can change. 
You might have also missed the whole candy-coloured imac thing that did away with all your ports a long long time ago.
Apple still makes other laptops that have a wider selection of ports.
Are you are talking about the old old magsafe, or the old magsafe?
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The beauty of standards is that there are so may to choose fromā¦?
Another day, another new connector. BOHICA.
A torch and a hot-melt glue stick. The translucent, elastic kind. Melt the stick end in a flame, smear it over the cable so a thinning layer is built up. Shape when it is colder but still plastic, flame-polish. Voila, a perfect strain relief. (I often use it together with a firmer, heavier-duty hot-melt glue; the hard one to form bodies of connectors, the soft one for strain relief.)
Wow. A SparcBook?! Who are you? Former Sun Microsystems employee?
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Even allowing for Magsafe 2, Apple has changed their power connector a lot less than most other manufacturers.
Wait, wait. Donāt tell me. You wear thick black-rimmed glasses.
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Citation?
Fair. I did realize I glossed over this after Iād posted.
I recently got myself one of the 2012-model MacBook Pros (which retain the Magsafe 1 adapter). Mostly because I wanted to be able to upgrade my RAM or hard drive if necessary. Which, by the way, is my #1 Apple beefā¦
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I should clarify: the MacBook Air isnāt targeting your demographic. People will buy it despite the lack of ports, just like they bought tablets becauseā¦ Iām not sure why people bought tablets, but if they bought a tablet and a stupid keyboard case, they should love this machine.
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you might want to increase the fstop, kiddo.
Not just Apple too.
Yeah, and having the dead-end interconnects we have now is a good thing?
The original specification for USB 1.1, itās A and B connectors, is insanely limiting. The design has a single differential pair for data, and the data communications must come from the host side (itās half duplexed, this is something a lot of people confuse with USB; the +/- are indicating a normal or inverted end of the differential pair, NOT direction). USB 2.0 redefined the cable itself but kept the connectors and pretty much pushed the interconnect to its max. The D+/- pins in USB 3.0/3.1 are always driven at the 480Mbps max, and it relies on the other pairs (which are full duplex by adding two pairs instead of one); but USB 3.0 added the unbelievably ugly hack of tacking on more pins to the existing connector. I was appalled when I saw the USB 3.0 mini-B connector; Iāve already had two break on me, that thing is horrible.
USB C, though, adds not only taking care of the problems of the USB 3.0 connectors, it adds some security in separating out the channel negotiation and power negotiation from the data communications and it will (when all is said and done) eliminate the need of umpteen different cables. I keep the following cables on hand: USB A-B, A-mini B, A-micro B, OTG A-to-micro B adapter. When the day comes all of this will be replaced with USB C cables. Sure, itāll be one or two full upgrade generations from now, but I welcome that day with open arms and shout āONE MORE CONNECTOR!ā at the top of my lungs.
Besides weāre already in a world of ātoo many connectorsā, and connectors are obsoleted regularly. Do you use a DE-9 connector for RS-232 to communicate with your phone? Do you hook up your printer via a DB-25 parallel connector? There are tons of obsolete connectors no one uses anymore, and I welcome the day USB A and B are thought of as quaintly as DE-9.
Not sure why you quoted me, though, on the cutting of D+/- pins on USB cables and not being able to charge at more than 100mA? Did you have something to say about that?
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Iām not sure what you mean, but Iām guessing that you are rudely saying an image I glommed off a 20-second google search http://www.remixreport.com/7373/fix-mac-power-cord-10/ is ā¦ ā¦ offending your artistic sensibilities because the gamma is off? Or some other photographer-speak nuance like that.
We each have different priorities I guess.
Whether the image illustrated the thing it was meant to illustrate seemed more important at the time. Talking about exposure times or film grain seems off-topic to this discussion.
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Daisychaining, man. Itās the only way to fly.
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I used to admire S. Jobsā¦ his quest for excellenceā¦ yadayadaā¦ For the record, I bought a brand new NeXTdimension cube when I still was at University (thanks momā¦ paid it back since).
After the Apple acquisition (c. 1995), I slowly observed Jobs transiting from a ātechnical artistā to an execrable ācar salesmanā. Apple is publicly owned: share older value first, clients and product excellence second. So yayā¦ fuck them (the clients).
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Yes. My SMS gateway has a MBUS-to-9-pin-COM cable, connected to a USB-serial adapter.
Then there are the same connectors on the serial lines of my server terminals. And the ones on the industrial machines. Some connectors/specs are tougher than cockroaches.
Wanted to mention that it is possible to solder the resistor divider right into the cable. Then noticed you already addressed that, erased my reply, and forgot to erase the quotation. Oops, sorry, the day was long.
For the new stuff. Then there will be several years weāll have to endure until the old stuff dies out. Many years in some cases.
Hope there will be adapters possible for the legacy A/B to C connectionā¦
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In photography, thereās a concept called depth of focus. When a camera is focused on distance x, objects within x-m to x+n are in focus, and objects outside that slice are blurry. The distance m to n depends on a number of factors, including aperture, sensor size, distance from the camera to x, and focal length of the lens. While some photographic techniques (portrait, for instance) use a shallow depth of focus to the direct the viewer to a subject, others such as photojournalism or landscape photography use a deeper to ensure that everthing that the camera sees is in sharp focus-- landscape for artistic reasons, photojournalism because of the need to document the world.
In macro photography, the short camera to subject distance usually means that the depth of focus is shallower than the subject, and stopping down the aperture to f8 or more is necessary. Other techniques such as focus stacking may also be required, as narrow apertures (f11,f16, etc) cause diffraction effects.
The purpose of this photograph was to illustrate the difference between the two magsafe plugs. The viewer of this photograph is entitled to know how many pins each connector has, Unfortunately, that information is not in focus. As a macrophotograph, itās a failure.
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