In Apple’s never-ending mission to make everything simpler, it’s gone and made them more complicated again. If you want to connect your shiny new iPhone 7 to one of the shiny new MacBook Pros, you’ll need to pay up for a new cable or dongle.
See, the iPhone 7 comes with a lightning to USB Type A cable. The MacBook Pro comes with four USB ports – great! But they’re all Thunderbolt 3, USB Type-C ports. As Engadget notes, that means you’ll have to buy a $20 adapter – or a new cable altogether – to connect your devices, and photographers will need a separate SD card reader too.
While I’m all for USB-C becoming the one and only physical port you’ll ever need, I can’t help but feel it’s a sloppy design move to release a new phone with a cable that isn’t compatible with your own laptop – not to mention new Lightning earbuds you can’t connect either. Even if most things happen in the cloud nowadays, people still connect their iPhones to their Macs for things like managing music and apps with iTunes, or even just charging their phones.
But at least they kept the headphone jack.
Of course, those of you with the 2015 MacBook have been feeling the pain for a while now, and we’ll all benefit from USB-C in the long run For now though, it’s time to pony up for an adapter.
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
Follow all our coverage of Apple’s MacBook event today here.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.