Apple has a dongle problem
the MacBook Pro MacBook Air iPhone and
iPad use just two types of cords
remember 30-pin now we have lightning
remember USBA that's gone too and of
course there's the headphone jack unless
you're using the Mac Mini or an iMac if
you want to connect something that isn't
USB C or lightning you're out of luck
enter the dongle in 2018 the
best-selling Apple products at Best Buy
wear ear pods and the Lightning -
three-and-a-half millimeter dongle both
of these products exist because Apple
got rid of the headphone jack here's the
problem with dongles they'll never be as
simple or as effortless as just having
the port in the first place and Apple's
dongles can be really expensive if you
want to connect any of Apple's laptops
to an HDMI monitor you need to spend $50
on an adapter and dongles like this $70
multi-port adapter and unnecessary bulk
to devices that are supposed to be thin
and portable Apple still ships the
iPhone with a USB a to lightning cable
but if you want to connect your Apple
iPhone to your Apple laptop you have to
buy a dongle and there's always a chance
that you might lose that $20.00 USB C to
lightning cable you just bought it's one
more thing you need to carry around or
forget at home if you're thinking that
you can find cheaper dongles on Amazon
you're right Apple's first party dongles
are notorious for being more expensive
than third party options but not all
adapters are created equal cheaper
dongles might not work as well as
premium options and many people like the
confidence of buying their accessories
directly from Apple once you spend a ton
of money and a massive collection of
lightning and Thunderbolt 3 dongles
you're locked into the Apple ecosystem
even more but why do we have this
horrible dongle issue in the first place
in 2016 Apple released the iPhone 7
without a headphone jack
it only had the Lightning port most
people weren't ready for this
so Apple bundled a dongle in the box but
with the iPhone 10 s and 10 R they've
stopped including that dongle if you buy
a brand new iPhone you have to spend
more money to be able to use your wired
headphones and if you do want to use
wired headphones you can't charge your
phone and listen to music at the same
time unless of course you buy a bulky
dongle and that cost $40 by the way and
yes Bluetooth is always an option but
bluetooth isn't perfect Bluetooth
headphones are usually more expensive
compared to Wired earbuds and the
pairing process can be frustrating if
you're using your headphones with
multiple devices unless you're willing
to pay a premium for something like ear
pods Bluetooth just isn't as seamless as
wired headphones but it's not just Apple
many companies have followed suit and
gotten rid of the headphone jack or even
USB a port on their laptops but Apple
made the switch very abruptly they got
rid of things like the SD card reader
which a lot of people still use for
importing photos or videos and yes
Thunderbolt 3 does have a huge bandwidth
and tons of features but a lot of
devices still use other ports most
monitors are HDMI and devices like mice
card readers and hard drives still use
usb a ports not every laptop owner needs
all of these ports but for each one you
do need you have to buy a dongle or an
adapter if you wanted to use your new
macbook for everything you did with your
old one you would need to spend a
hundred and fifty eight dollars to get
your ports back and if you don't buy all
the dongles your old accessories are now
obsolete Apple has created an ecosystem
where you have to pay more to add back
in functionality but there is a good
side to all these dongles it's good to
have the option to connect to older
devices Apple's DVI or firewire dongles
can be really useful if you need to
connect to older displays or hard drives
but no one wants to spend more money on
dongles after buying an expensive device
Apple has always pushed devices forward
to the next generation of ports one day
all devices might use USB C but we're
not there yet and it's caused a lot of
fragmentation over the
few years Apple needs to come up with a
better option for users like bundling
multiple cables with a device one day
we'll be able to put our dongles in a
drawer with all our other outdated
cables not wanting to throw them out
just in case we need them someday well
the reason to move on I'm gonna give you
three of them but it really comes down
to one word courage