New Mac Dongle?

New Mac Dongle? a reader asks…

I just got a new Macbook Pro, and it only has the new USB type ports, the small oval-ish shape. The power adapter fits one of them, but there’s no place to put my thumbdrive or external hard drive (the larger rectangular ports), nor a place to plug my Mac into my TV (the hdmi port that’s rectangle with two notches in the bottom corners). Worse, there’s no SD card slot for my camera’s memory cards. Do I have to buy something else?

In a word, yes. Welcome to dongle hell. Apple courageously (sic) took the step to standardize on the newest port type, the USB-C port you see on the sides of your Mac. Gone are all the old types, so you’ll have to buy dongles to convert from USB C to whatever type you need. Here are some various types and Apple’s dongle links (where they have something):

1. USB A (the flat rectangular size for thumbdrives)
2. HDMI (the flat rectangular with notches on the bottom corners for TVs) – see below for the multi-port adapters
3. Thunderbolt 2 or DisplayPort (a small squarish with a corner shaved for Apple and some other external monitors)
4. DVI (a larger rectangle with rounded corners and a lot of pin holes plus a slot for a flat blade)
5. VGA (a medium rectangle with rounded corners with 15 pin holes) – see below for the multi-port adapters
6. SD Card (a wide but very narrow slot for your SD memory cards)
7. Lightning (for connecting iPhones and iPads)

Fortunately, Apple has (at least temporarily) reduced the prices on these dongles, but there’s no telling when they’ll raise them back up. One small ray of sunshine, the new Macbook Pros still have a round headphone jack – although they inexplicably removed that from the iPhone 7, I guess the different divisions don’t talk to each other. Also, Apple does make two different multi-port adapters that connects to a single USB C port and gives you:

1. Multi-port HDMI: an HDMI, a USB A, and a USB C port. It’s $49, so not cheap.
2. Multi-port VGA: a VGA, a USB A, and a USB C port. Also $49.

Check out the complete line of Apple and Belkin cables at http://www.apple.com/shop/mac/mac-accessories/power-cables.

It’s early times yet, so manufacturers are hard at work creating new dongle and adapter types to help us all bridge the gap between Apple’s leap to the future and where we are now. Notably, there’s a Kickstarter project with a forthcoming multi-adapter that has just about anything you’d need. Check it out kickstarter.com – it’s the HyperDrive™ Compact Thunderbolt 3 USB-C Hub for MacBook Pro. This promises to give you just about any kind of connection you need in one sleek device. Be aware though, it uses up both USB C ports on one side of the Macbook Pro, but it does give you two additional USB C ports on the side as well as a bunch of other ports. If you pledge $69 to the project, you will get one Hyperdrive when they become available (estimated March 2017). Pledge $98 and you’ll get two!