[tachyonbeam]

Well, this is supposed to be a professional desktop machine. I don't want to run my work machine off of wifi that could randomly disconnect in the middle of meetings though. I know I'm not the only one. They could have spent the 3 dollars per machine it would cost them to add an ethernet jack, but instead they're going to have you spend $20 on some adapter dongle.

As for USB-A, there are tons of peripherals still in existence out there. Maybe you're fucking loaded and you don't care about just buying everything USB-C, but that's definitely not the case for everyone. Suppose I have a nice USB-A optical mouse and mechanical keyboard that I like for example, or a really nice $200 audio interface. I guess I need to buy yet more dongles, or throw them away and replace everything with USB-C peripherals because some 20yo on HN says that USB-A is legacy. Thanks Apple. You definitely value user experience above all else.

[websites2323]

>I guess I need to buy yet more dongles, or throw them away and replace everything with USB-C peripherals because some 20yo on HN says that USB-A is legacy.

The concern about dongles is so overblown. Let's take your examples each in turn.

>Suppose I have a nice USB-A optical mouse

You buy a USB-C to USB-A adapter and it lives on the mouse's USB-A connector, never being taken off, forever. And then... it's one piece. Are you taking the mouse with you? The dongle comes with it. You don't gotta think about it.

>mechanical keyboard

Same deal. Lots of keyboards even have USB-A ports on them -- which means you only need 1 dongle. One for the keyboard. That lives on the end of the USB-A connector. You have now converted your legacy USB-A device to USB-C and can forget about it forever, for the cost of $5 from Monoprice.

>a really nice $200 audio interface

If you really, for some reason just cannot stand to add a $5 add-on piece to get the latest gear from Apple, many of these devices have detactable cables. So, you can just.. buy a different cable. Let's take the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, which matches your use case at $200. A replacement cable from MonoPrice is... $5.29. And you can put away the old cable and just... have this one.

At the very, very worst case, you're talking about a $1200 machine and an additional cash outlay of approximately $15. For adapters which attach to the thing you want to use, forever, and don't have to be thought of again.

And somehow this is a travesty against the user? Worth of a scrap-and-redesign of the $1200+ machine?

[karlshea]

Or get one of the tiny USB C hubs with four USB A ports on them. A hub like I have now anyways, for an iMac that still has USB A ports, because I needed to plug in more shit.

[diroussel]

The Ethernet port is included. It’s just on the power adapter rather than the back of the screen.

[reaperducer]

Well, this is supposed to be a professional desktop machine.

No, it's not. It's a consumer-grade machine. And clearly aimed at that market.

[alwillis]

Consumers don't need Wide color P3 displays or the ability to attach a $5000 6K display. Clearly this machine can do professional level tasks, as demonstrated during the keynote.

I wrote about this further up in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26883718

[alwillis]

I know I'm not the only one. They could have spent the 3 dollars per machine it would cost them to add an ethernet jack

It's too thin to support a standard RJ45 port in the back like previous Macs.

macOS has supported Thunderbolt Ethernet/USB-A dongles for years if you want to go that route instead of using the Ethernet built-in to the power adapter.

[billyhoffman]

> because some 20yo on HN says that USB-A is legacy

This is not helpful