A Compliment on the 2015 Apple Mac Book

For anyone that knows me, one thing is made abruptly clear almost immediately. I do not like Apple Products, I will never buy one and I will never own one. In fact, I have been known to publicly ridicule anyone who owns an Apple Product. This post may come as a shock but I will actually be giving Apple a compliment today, yes you read that correctly and no, I have not been kidnapped by the Coupertino mafia.

Before I begin, a little back-story is in order: This hatred is actually because of two primary reasons (there are actually a lot more that don’t pertain to this article) ; Apple is a company who rarely confirms with Industry Standards, rather choosing to adopt their own and their relentless abuse of the worldwide patent system in their attempt to stipple innovation and as part of their “thermonuclear war” on Android. In a world dominated by MicroUSB, Apple felt compelled to invent a new “Lightning” port and in true Apple fashion, locked down the cable to prevent non “Apple Certified” cables from being used. Furthermore, in 2012, when Android started gaining momentum on the salesroom floor, outselling iPhones for the first time; Apple choose to move the battle from the consumer market to the courtroom utilizing questionable patents such as the “rubber band” snap effect on the screen. Needless to say, as a die hard Android user, I was not pleased and my resentment for Apple products was burned in for life.

Yesterday, Apple announced their latest Mac Book which was met with mixed reactions. I will admit that the unit is incredibly thin however it is only thin for the sake of being thin as the size serves no other practical purpose. The Mac Book is so thin in fact that the normal selection of USB Ports, SD Card, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc have been removed with the exception of a single “Type C” USB Port and a Headphone/Mic Combo port. A person who purchases this machine will need to cough out an additional $80.00 just to be able to use the basic set of ports that are standard on any other machine at a lower price point.

The one thing that shocked me about this machine (in a good way) is that I (and many others) expected Apple to use a Thunderbolt Port in place of the Type C USB Port. Apple has FINALLY adopted a standard rather then doing their own thing!!! Good Job Apple! The Specification for Type C USB Ports was actually proposed in 2013 and finalized a bit later. This port is completely reversible and has other advantages over the older Type A and Type B USB Ports. Devices with Type C USB Ports are expected to come out in 2015 however I never expected Apple to be the first.

For the record, I would never buy such a laptop as Apple made some serious design flaws to keep the laptop that thin. If they simply put a normal USB 3.0 port and a Display Port on the unit it would have gone a long way. The Intel M processor, while impressive, is underwhelming for a “flagship” device and the fact that Apple is using an embedded Intel HD GPU to drive a high resolution screen is a bit disappointing. Graphic Artists and those who edit video will likely be disappointed by this device. The keyboard was “re-invented” and will likely be very disappointing due to the lack of key travel.

Apple’s marketing team however was hard at work to cover up these deficiencies with cleaver names to call these flaws “features”. Unfortunately the marketing team stopped short of calling the 2015 Mac Book what it really is, a very expensive netbook with only one redeeming feature, the Type C USB port.