February 2022 • Macworld 111Apple changed the MacBook Pro’s design for the better.haven’t yet seen what the guidelines
require) and it’s clear that the main
impetus was to avoid more scrutiny
by regulators, it’s still a positive
change that will end up benefiting
developers and users alike. And it’s
proof that action by the government
can indeed force Apple, which is
financially larger than many countries
(fave.co/3pzoD8J), to alter the way it
does business. With looming antitrust
threats from the US government and
the European Union, it does at least
lend hope that the company can be
nudged to improve itself.
PORTS IN A STORM
That pressure doesn’t have to come
from governments, either. Take the
new MacBook Pro
as an example.
After several
years of lacklustre
models that drew
fire for abandoning
‘legacy’ ports
and featuring
problematic
keyboards, Apple
rolled out brand
new pro laptop
models that
seems to return
those features
and address almost all of the
aforementioned complaints. It’s
almost like the past several years of
MacBook Pros didn’t even happen.
While the cynical viewpoint might
argue that Apple took all these things
away just to be able to turn around
and sell them back to us, I’d be a little
more charitable: the growing pressure
from pro users made the company
realize that the product they were
making wasn’t the one that most of its
customers wanted.
Or, in other words, they hit Apple
right in the pocketbook. Not that
MacBook Pro sales are a huge part
of the company’s bottom line, but
the ultimate question is: could they
be selling more if they did bring