I remember when I bought my first FireWire Mac. I was so excited at the prospect of having a port that could allow me to record multiple tracks of simultaneous audio without missing a beat. Sure, it meant I had to get a whole new I/O breakout box to take advantage of all that speed. But the possibilities were so enthralling, I couldn’t wait to spend all my money. And all my tech enthusiast friends were right there with me.
Apple left a few legacy ports on the Mac at the time, but I wasn’t about to use them. I bought the new thing so I can take advantage of the new stuff, man. That’s what being a nerd is all about.
Yesterday, Apple announced an all-new MacBook Pro with not one but four Thunderbolt 3 connectors. Thunderbolt 3 is twice as fast as Thunderbolt 2. It allows 40 Gbps of throughput. So this new MacBook is capable of driving two 5k monitors along with its own internal Retina display, and who knows how many other amazing peripherals all at once. I can plug in one cable to my external monitor and get power, display, and whatever other ultra-fast peripherals I choose to plug into the back of the monitor. This is a nerd’s wet dream.
It makes FireWire seem like Flintstones-era technology.
So imagine my surprise when the response from the Apple tech enthusiast community was basically this:
“I HAVE TO BUY A DONGLE. THIS SUCKS!”
I’m not joking. I saw one tweet in my entire timeline yesterday that had anything at all to say about how amazing Thunderbolt 3 is.
@jcieplinski It’s frankly mind-boggling what Thunderbolt 3 can do.
— Greg Pierce (@agiletortoise) October 27, 2016
What happened to the tech community? When did we stop getting excited about tech, and instead spend all our time making “Courage” jokes?
Healthy criticism is necessary and a force for good in society. This is not that. This is mistaking being critical for being intelligent. We’ve glorified those who nitpick and have rewarded them so much that they have no choice but to up their game every year. And as a result, we’ve taken all the fun out of being a nerd.
Whenever I get my next Mac, I’m going to have to do a lot more than buy a few dongles. But I’m not complaining. I got a lot of years out of my old FireWire 400 I/O box, which I adapted to FireWire 800, and then Thunderbolt, with—you guessed it—a series of dongles. But it’s time to move on. Maybe that means waiting another six months until I can save up the funds to make the leap, but so be it. I’m excited about the possibilities.
