|
I'm about as heavily invested in MagSafe as a single person can semi-reasonably be, but I have pretty strongly mixed feelings about dropping MagSafe, so when I hear that people are upset (and I admittedly presume that those individual people can't possibly be more deeply invested in continuing with MagSafe than I am (although I make no claims about people making decisions for groups of people, like IT staff)), I see an opportunity to point out that there's at least some merit to this. I want to be clear upfront that I'm not saying it's a landslide in favor of Type C, but that there is at worst a silver lining and perhaps at best this is a net win. First, it's a good thing that we're converging on a standard. Standards mean not only that we can safely buy components from third parties (for instance, buying reputable, reliable USB Type C cables from places like Monoprice or whomever), but that we can borrow charging cables from others relatively easily. We've had a taste of that thanks to MagSafe's ubiquity, but a USB-based spec potentially broadens that. Second, USB battery packs (admittedly a slightly niche product category, but one that's been growing rapidly in the past few years) could potentially be made to charge Macbook Pros now. There are some battery packs out there that support MagSafe today, but my sense from shopping around every few months is that the best option continues to be to buy a battery pack that has a standard electrical outlet, and carrying that big bulky MagSafe AC adapter with me. Transitioning to a USB spec (should) permanently open the door to portable battery packs, third party AC adapters, etc... Third, USB power hubs (again a slightly niche product category, depending on whom you ask) can consolidate all of the AC adapter functions that devices need for charging. I'm already nearly there --- my tablet, battery pack, bike lights, phone, and watch all charge by USB (heck, I have a charger for my DSLR's batteries that uses Micro USB), and a single AC adapter for those devices is both tidier and easier to pack and travel with. I agree that MagSafe's really nice and I'll be sad to see some of the benefits go, but particularly with MagSafe 2 they've overcorrected in my opinion by making the threshold strength necessary to break away too low, and it's caused me to seriously reconsider whether the frustration of all these inadvertent disconnections is worth the benefit. I see at least a few reasons to be glad that the next laptop I buy (maybe in a year, certainly in three) will probably be able to charge via the same (reasonably priced!) AC adapters and battery packs that I'll own for my peripherals, and that if I'm really up a creek it'll be more likely that I find someone with a compatible charging cable, since USB is (and will continue to be) pretty much ubiquitous. |
I'm assuming that they will do this with USB-C.