A gold MacBook with just ONE USB port? Apple, you're DRUNK

Because we can

Now compare this to the Watch and the Netbook – ooops, sorry, I meant the new MacBook.

The new laptop continues to "push the envelope" for size and weight, but it comes with some very familiar compromises. The low power chip is a giveaway (and considering the Air and MacBook Pro offer outstanding performance for the same money).

Removing all but a headphone jack and a single USB Type-C port is the real compromise. The Type-C replaces the MagSafe power socket – so you can't plug in a USB mouse and charge the computer at the same time. To do that, you'll need a $79 adapter. You'll need that to use your current accessories while charging.

And if you use VGA and HDMI monitors you'll need both VGA and HDMI flavours of adapter. You'll also need adapters for things you didn't realise you needed. There's no SD card slot on the machine, so budget for one of those. And probably a hub.

Did Apple really need to throw out a dedicated power socket? It's pretty fundamental. It's even more fundamental a couple of years down the line, when the battery holds a fraction of its original charge.

I suspect there wouldn't be half the fuss if it had retained the MagSafe port and used the Type-C to replace its current range of ports. After all, it pulled the same stunt with the iMac in 1998, which replaced ADB. That rendered Mac users' ADB mice redundant, and their SCSI disks and scanners silent.

Not only those, but it also left them unable to print: there was only one printer supported at launch, and it took months for more to appear. So you're not as stuffed now as you were then.

However, this smacks of design for the sake of it. Not increasing convenience, but inconvenience. I can't really identify which part of the market isn't currently served by Airs and MacBook Pros which really need this machine. Maybe that's not the point.

It shares something in common with the Apple Watch in being Electric Perfume. The gold case looks lovely. It's there to be looked at. It's a massive piece of self-indulgence from a design team.

And you'll have seen this coming. Apple adverts were once simple demonstrations of small things in life made easier. Once Ive the Anointed One began to flex his muscles, this changed. The adverts told us Apple was led by a designer, who was a genius. It was all about Ive. This was self-indulgent onanism.

A sure sign that Apple was nervous about the Watch – that it really knew it was a problem looking for a solution – was that it sent the reclusive Sir Jony on a global press mission. The New Yorker spent months with him, yielding a 14,000 word profile with no new insight. The FT was also indulged. This can't have been fun.

With billions sloshing about in the hold, Apple now looks like a vast directionless vessel, making grand and pointless statements. Because it can. ®

Bootnote

*Strictly speaking, Apple is the most valuable publicly held company by market capitalisation. There's a long list of state-owned oil companies ahead of it.