| Oh right, Apple removed USB-A for the betterment of the world. Just like Apple removed HDD support and that's why we all use SSDs now. Or how they removed DVD-ROM and that's why we use portable flash memory. And PS/2 peripherals in favor of USB ones. Oh wait... Seems like I'm wrong, all of those happened organically! Huh... Apple created the problems (USB-A and 3.5mm removals) and sold the solutions (dongles and adapters at a huge premium, and of course their Bluetooth earbuds). Just look at adapter/airpods sales figures and the money Apple made post removal of those. I suppose you think Apple is above such business practices because they're some elegant, high brow company. But they're not, they're just a company. In fact, that slimming of the macbook came back to bite them in the ass due to inappropriate heating for the Intel cpus at the time. All the macbooks between 2018 and the first M1 were just expensive, overheating garbage. You had to put the 2019 macbook pros in the freezer so that they reached their advertised performance. |
Of course the vision behind removing the 3,5mm port was of a wireless future (and after untangling my Earpods for the 100th time I agree). There was a simple dongle sold and you can still buy Earpods with Lightning or USB-C port if you want wired. It's not like you are forced in any way to wear Airpods, other Bluetooth or USB-C headphones work fine. Airpods just happened to be a succesful fashion item. Removing the port allows for a bit more battery (yeah, I know they didn't use the space on the iPhone 7) and simplifies the design a bit (no DA converter needed, one less port that can break, no support calls from people who plug in an old Nokia 3,5mm cable thats wired different). While the gains are mostly for Apple I don't see simplifying something so less things can go wrong as inherently evil. If they really wanted to be evil they would have supported only Airpods.
Ps. I've used the 2019 MacBook pro that liked to spin up its fans but had no real issues with performance. Keyboard was okay too ;)