Will Apple's Decision To Ditch USB End Digital Djing?

Apple’s new MacBook Pros don’t have standard USB ports. How will this affect musicians and DJs?

Yesterday, Apple announced that the two trusty USB ports you’ve come to love on every high-end Apple laptop will become four. Four Thunderbolt ports, that is. Yes, Apple is ditching the standard USB port, and that could be a pretty big thorn in the side of most djs. While on the surface this may seem like another step in the regimented march towards “productivity,” “efficiency” and “performance”, famed dance music journalist, DJ and contributing editor at Pitchfork, Philip Sherburne, has written an article full of his reservations.

Writing for Pitchfork, Sherburne penned a piece called, “Apple Losing USB is a Loss for Music.” In it, he argues that losing the USB port could damage digital DJing as we’ve come to know it: “if you’re a Mac user planning to upgrade to the new MacBook Pro, you should probably prepare for the fact that you’re going to need to be carrying around a lot of dongles for the foreseeable future. And this spells bad news for musicians, DJs, photographers, videographers, designers and virtually every other creative producer who uses a computer.” Given how ubiquitous USBs have become in all forms of digital creative arts, we can only wonder what exactly the design team at Apple has been smoking.

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