I got myself a Mac for learning SwiftUi because I want to make an iPhone game. I got myself a used 16/256 M1 Air model that has 2 USB-C ports and that’s it.

This made me create a workstation, where I have a high quality Thunderbolt 3 dock that works with DisplayLink, so I can have up to 4 external displays on windows and 3 on my MacBook Air. On this dock, I have connected 2 monitors, a mouse, a keyboard, a webcam, still have some USB A and C ports free to use. Best thing is that this dock has a micro SD and a regular SD slot!

All this through a single USB-C cable!

I want to connect my work HP Probook to this setup? Just plug the USB-C cable in and all comes to life!

I want to connect my gaming-PC? Just plug the USB-C cable in the Thunderbolt slot of the Graphics card and all comes to life!

Oh, I want to connect my USB-C emulator console, iPad, Tablet, etc. to the monitor, or the USB-stick? Or the Ethernet ? Just plug it in!

Basically I got my single cable workstation, and all that because of Apple removing useful at-home-things from a on-the-go device

  • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Upvote for unpopular. But I really don’t understand this mentality that removing options “for you” is a good thing.

    • Billegh@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      They were saying it isn’t, but it forced then down a path they probably wouldn’t have considered otherwise. And they made something nice despite Apple’s cheaping out in something so important.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Yeah until a peripheral is having weird issues that magically goes away only when you plug in directly to the computer.

    • Jesus_666@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Or the dock randomly decides it doesn’t like one specific computer anymore and falls back to being a USB3 hub. Thunderbolt docks are really cool but I’ve had tons of reliability issues with them over the years.

      I still use one but it’s been relieved from display duty because it didn’t always play nice.

  • Xeroxchasechase@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Sorry to say that, but making the usb a universal serial bus is not an Apple concept. With the C specs, it’s mature enough to be used at any of these instances, even on those wall-e inpired inferior machines. Apple innovation is that for people who still want to use hdmi, headphones, ethernet or other connector they say fuck you 🖕🍎🖕

  • corroded@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    If I want to connect my laptop to a code reader for my car, I just plug my OBD2 reader into one of the USB type A ports. If I want to connect it to a monitor, I have USB-C, DP, and HDMI ports available, depending on what the monitor supports. I want to transfer some movies from my NAS, I can plug the ethernet port right into a switch or a wall jack.

    I use every single port on my laptop, and I don’t have to buy an adapter to connect to anything.