MacBook Pro connection confusion

Migrating from my old MacBook Air to my new 2016 Macbook Pro has involved some confusion about adapters and accessories. Overall, I like my new Macbook, but there have been a number of annoying things. The biggest is still Apple’s decision to kill the MagSafe power connector. More minor annoyances:

  • Out of the box, the brick used to come with a 3 prong extension in addition to the stubby 2 prong power connection. Now it’s extra.  The longer cable on the brick end is really valuable when you have a bunch of people (e.g. at a conference or students in a class, or even at an airport waiting area) sharing a wall plug or power strip. Fortunately, I can recycle a bunch of these from my old power bricks that don’t work anymore for the new MacBook.
  • If you buy the power brick you now have to buy a separate USB-C charge cable.  As far as I can tell, this should work with a generic USB-C cable. What was annoying here was buying a power supply at an Apple Store and not having the Apple employee ask if I needed the cable.
  • The original Thunderbolt was a superset of MiniDisplayPort, and Thunderbolt 1 and 2 used miniDisplayPort connectors.  There is a Thunderbolt 3/USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 adaptor, but although Thunderbolt 2 is a superset of MiniDisplayPort, the adaptor works for Thunderbolt connections but not for miniDisplayPort-based adaptors. In other words, plugging a Thunderbolt Display (discontinued in 2016, but some of us still have various versions) in works. What doesn’t work is MacBook-Thunderbolt adaptor-miniDisplayPort to VGA or HDMI adaptor-monitor.
  • If you want to sync an iPhone or an iPad to your MacBook Pro, you will need either a USB-C to lightning cable or a USB-C to USB-A adaptor. This means that if you buy a brand new MacBook Pro and a brand new iPad, you can’t connect them right out of the box. The USB-C to Lightning will allow you to use the MacBook power brick to charge an iPhone or iPad with or without the MacBook in the middle, so that could reduce the number of things.