Apple made waves this year by ditching the headphone jack on the iPhone 7 and abandoning ports with the MacBook Pro (save for the Thunderbolt 3). The latter was arguably the more significant alteration, because creative professionals (graphic designers, musicians, photographers) now need adaptive dongles to connect any of their existing devices. Heck, you can’t even charge your new iPhone 7 with your new MacBook Pro without an adaptor.
The Thunderbolt 3 ports do come with some advantages: they connect at 40Gbps — the fastest connection available to date — and can transfer data, output video and charge the MacBook Pro all from a single port. Fortunately, for many the new MacBook Pros — a GP100 award winner — will be worth the minor inconvenience of having to use dongles. Also, change takes time, and Apple has recognized that. Since announcing the MacBook Pro, Apple has cut costs on most of their USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 dongles until the end of 2016. Here are 10 of the most important ones you’ll need and why.
Editor’s Note: As Mac users, we believe that if you have the option to buy first-party dongles, use it. Apple also endorses some trusted third-party manufacturers, like Belkin and SanDisk. For a full list of USB-C accessories, go here.
USB-C to Lightning Cable by Apple $19
Connect any Lightning-equipped iPhone, iPad or iPod directly into your MacBook Pro.
USB-C to USB Adapter by Apple $9
Connect any standard USB accessories to your MacBook Pro. This includes digital cameras, wireless headphone chargers, thumb drives or your current iPhone charger.
