Andrew O’Hara, Apple Insider:
There are two primary issues with the port on the new iPad Pro — one that can be at least partially overlooked, and the other is going to be a show-stopper.
And:
The biggest criticism of the case was the requirement of having a full back cover that added unnecessary bulk and weight on an otherwise slim device. I’d have preferred a two-piece design that allows for a removable keyboard with an optional back cover.
As it stands, you are stuck with both a keyboard and a back cover, or neither. If you wanted to remove the keyboard but keep the back, sorry, that’s too bad.
And:
Second is the poor adoption we’ve seen from outside companies, which the shift will not help. Apple touted at launch that third-parties could make use of the port, and they even reiterated strong support with products in the pipeline just last year. Now that the port has completely moved, anything in the works based on the previous port location is dead-on-arrival.
Tough investment for a peripheral company to deal with a complete redesign of a hardware interface. Not just moving a port/connector, but completely changing the way it works.
And I’d add to this issue the problem of putting any sort of case over the Apple Pencil magnet/charger. You have to find a way to convey that functionality with your case, no easy task. And, given the likelihood that Apple is not done innovating here, it may be some time before the functionality of these ports stabilize.
Wholesale change is tough business for a peripheral maker.
The whole rant is proved moot by the statement, “Second is the poor adoption we’ve seen from outside companies”.
More than likely, Apple determine the placement of the original port was flawed, which is why it wasn’t really adopted and why it was moved.
His last argument, “anything in the works based on the previous port location is dead-on-arrival” also doesn’t hold much water, as there’s still millions of older iPad Pros still in use. Anyone who invested in the old design, still has a viable market to sell in to. Granted, that market isn’t going to grow.
Yes, it was flawed. Read all the reports of people’s Smart Keyboards failing, and even for ones that don’t fail, you have to occasionally disconnect and reconnect it as it gets loose. It seems it’s very hard to get a large enough magnetic surface to align and keep connection reliably on that edge.
Moreover, the author undercuts themselves with this argument: the old location had poor adoption. So, whether or not the location changed, it’d continue to have poor adoption. Might as well move it to accomplish Apple’s product goals and a more reliable solution for the keyboard.
Passing a magnetic field is hard?
“I, a tech writer, know more about product design than the team that does it for a living and is recognized as one of the best in the world!”
That’s not to say that Apple doesn’t make mistakes but they design well and when something doesn’t work out they change it. They also design for what they think will deliver the best product to us, not necessarily what will be easiest or even best for 3rd party accessory vendors. As others here point out, too, the adoption of the previous design was bad and had reliability issues so I wonder why anyone would advocate for it as some standard.
This is a silly article about an unimportant topic. “Apple destroyed” is the tell that this is just nonsense whining.
There are only two third-party products that use the silly Smart Connector. If anyone believes Apple is not going to modify how its I/O works to keep those two products happy, you simply don’t know anything about how Apple operates.
Slow day in the Techie Echo Chamber of Doom, Worry, and Concernt ™, I see….
How do you destroy a peripheral ecosystem that never was?
It’s not like there was a lot uptake on the previous generation of smart connector.