Apple is no stranger to having to do away with old technology. In fact, the original iMac eliminated not only Apple’s legacy ports, but also pioneered the elimination of the floppy drive.
In other areas, the company has been more aggressive with the transition to solid-state storage and integration of Retina-quality displays, with little to no qualms about aging hardware being replaced.
Thus, it seems that the company does not normally pay attention to nostalgic aspects when it comes to shelving technologies that once became cutting-edge. Recently, rumors point to another feature that could be in the spotlight: the Lightning connector.
the lightning connector
This connector debuted on the iPhone 5 in 2012, with which more than 10 years have passed since its arrival on the market. Rumors suggest that it would be replaced by the USB-C connector, something that has already happened in several of the iPad models, in addition to being the connector of modern Macs.
Although the transition would cause some degree of consternation among the fan community, any progress requires a wise decision. As the slogan of one of the Star Wars movies says: let the past die. Kill him if you have to.
With that in mind, here are a few more features that can still be found in today’s Apple products, but for which everything points to reaching their end of life sooner rather than later.
Touch Bar or touch bar
In some corner of Cupertino, there’s almost certainly a lab with an unholy experiment: a MacBook whose entire keyboard has been replaced with a featureless slab of glass.
But in public, Apple’s latest attempt to bring its touchscreen technology to the Mac is frankly not a success. Yes, indeed it is time to end the touch-bar and not let him continue to suffer.
To be fair, it is already in the process of being discontinued. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 chip is the only product left in Apple’s portfolio that still ships with the touch-sensitive button strip instead of the function keys.
Most likely, when the versions of computers with M2 processors arrive, the touch bar will pass to a better life. This is not to say that the idea of ​​using touch technology on the Mac is bad, but the way the touch-bar does not seem the most appropriate.
It is true that it promised a higher degree of customization and flexibility than static buttons, but its lack of tactile feedback, or even the fact that it could not be used without looking, made it more cumbersome than useful.
Combined with the fact that Apple seemed to believe that it would never need any more updates in the area of ​​hardware and software, it has meant that the Touch Bar died sooner than expected, and frankly it is time to finally shelve this functionality on Macs. .
1080p webcam
Is there any new Mac feature that has caused as much consternation as the measly webcam? What was once more or less a late feature on Apple laptops has been catapulted to the peak of interest in the latest models due to video calling in the pandemic.
Only the newer Macs ditched the use of the 720p webcam in favor of the somewhat disappointing 1080p. It’s an area where Apple should have taken a giant leap long ago.
Forget 1080p, that’s very 2010. Why not a 4K webcam? After all, there has been no question of including cameras of that quality in iPhones and iPads: the latest iPhones have front and rear cameras capable of recording video at 4K resolution.
It’s certainly a more expensive proposition, but when you consider that most people who buy a Mac with a built-in webcam are spending at least $1,200 (and probably a lot more), adding a single 4K-capable camera doesn’t seem like much. That is too much to ask.
So as much as Apple doesn’t want to admit it, remote work isn’t going to end any time soon. And it’s not that Apple doesn’t benefit from this as well, but FaceTime looks much better today on an iPhone or iPad than it does on a Mac.
SIM cards
We are in 2022, at the gates of Apple launching its new iPhone 14and everything indicates that the most advanced mobiles that you can buy still have a SIM card slot to insert the one associated with the operator.
There is the argument of backwards compatibility and there are certainly countries around the world where a physical SIM card is even more common (even in the US).
But with the announcement of the eSIM mode, everything is much easier to manage cellular connections and to manage through an application, than having to deal with tiny chips that can easily be lost or damaged.
The benefits for Apple are clear: removing the SIM slot frees up valuable space inside the iPhone, making it more watertight against liquids and dust. In addition, the need to include the SIM removal clip in all boxes is omitted.
And although SIM cards have been useful when you want to have two different phone plans (for example, when traveling outside your country), the latest iPhone and iPad already support dual eSIM. This is clearly the line to follow in the future.
SIM cards are out of fashion; they’ve been getting smaller and smaller over the last two decades and it’s time for them to finally go away and join floppy disks, SCSI connectors and dot matrix printers wherever they may be.
Original article made by Dan Moren and published in PC World US.
