MacBook Pro is the perfect realization of “Naked Robotic Core” theory applied to Mac

The 2016 MacBook Pro debuted with an array of solely Thunderbolt 3 ports, and that left a lot of people angry, for some reason. This is, however, the best thing to happen to the Mac line so far.

Scrape that surprised look of your face.

I’m serious, dropping down to a reasonable number of extremely fast, powerful, and versatile ports is how you establish the computer of the future (or, in this case, the computer that holds us over to the much more inevitable future of mobile computing).

There is a concept that exists, and is popular amongst the Apple tech space in particular, called the Naked Robotic Core principle. This idea has been largely used to explain the progression of the iPhone (and iPad, to some degree) in design through the years. The core principal is that you boil the main device down to as small and simple of a form factor as you can, so that users can add only what they need, if/when they need it. It’s precisely the opposite of the throw everything at the wall because something might stick theory.

As such, the 2016 MacBook Pro represents a Mac stripped of everything that isn’t necessary for function. It’s also a device slimmed down to its thinnest, lightest, most portable form factor, so that it’s best for most people.

But, true to the naked robotic core principal, it is infinitely extendable to support all sorts of legacy (old, non-USB-C ports), battery, and power-user functions. For example, it’s possible to add an external GPU via Thunderbolt to enable better graphics performance during video editing or gaming. Yes, a better internal graphics card would also enable this, but it would make the machine bulky and unwieldy for the 99% of the time you don’t need that power, and too bulky for the 99.99% of people who will never need that power.

Poor marketing choices aside, a perfect example of this theory in practice is the yet-to-ship “dock” from OWC that expands legacy ports and batteries of the MacBook Pro. Hardly anybody is going to need this (let alone want this, I mean, just look at it). But, if it’s something you need, it’s available, which is not something that’s been true for any previous MacBook. The beauty is that for normal users, Apple shaved away this unnecessary part.

Thunderbolt 3 also allows output of 5k display, which means that the MacBook Pro can be extended to a desktop setup, for the few people who need or want that. Apple even advertised this in their keynote, so don’t tell me that they don’t appreciate pros.

And again, critically, this extra display doesn’t bulk up the computer for normal users who will never need any additional display to the one that comes with the machine.

Of course, the other thing that we need to accept is that there is less and less need for extremely powerful computers at the consumer and prosumer levels at all. Take for instance this article from PCWorld about gaming on an un-altered, un-assisted MacBook Air. This isn’t from an “Apple apologist” website, this is from PC World. Granted, this is accomplished via servers doing the heavy lifting, but I’m not arguing that servers don’t serve a function, the same as essentially zero people are arguing that Apple should still be selling XServer machines.

If you look at the timeline of computers, yes, you will see that computer power has been growing the whole time. But you will also see that more recently, the trend points to people being able to increasingly get more done with less computer power (at least on their local machine). This will make the naked robotic core principal even more important as time goes on, not less.

And I, for one, look forward to our wireless, mobile future.