Has Apple fallen out of love with the modern DJ?

Over the past 5 years we guarantee any live DJ performance you will have seen be it in a pub, club or festival you will have seen the world famous Apple logo shining form the DJ box, more than likely a MacBook Pro. This stunning piece of kit generally comes complete with the DJ's very own customisation stickers and rests almost heavenly above the decks on an over engineered stand, I am sure you can picture this run of the mill scene in the modern world of DJ's.

Apple products, mainly the Macbook range have been the number one choice for DJ's of all genres for well over a decade, dare we say they are the industry standard for musicians and DJs alike for more reasons than we care to mention.

No operating system failures, better firewire support, lower processing usage reducing lag and improved audio processing to name only a select few. Oh and not forgetting they look uber cool, almost like a fashion statement. The fantastic marketing ploys of Apple have made owning one a fashion statement in its own right and everybody knows us DJ's love to be "fashionable" especially among the creative's and musicians out there. Rarely will you find a so called professional DJ gloating about their brand new PC addition to the DJ box to anyone but a punter. Macbook's are shiny, clean, professional and out right power houses perfect for the pressures of a working DJ.

Until now......has a war just been declared on the modern DJ or is it simply a misunderstanding?

Any Dj or musician on the go will undoubtedly understand the need to connect your Macbook with multiple devices at once be it midi controllers, DJ controllers or external hard drives not to mention ad hoc sound equipment. All of this kind of goes without saying and something you think would not need explaining especially not to a company such as Apple.

The brand new "Macbook" however has dropped the biggest clanger of all time in the history of DJ friendly laptops!! NO USB PORTS, that's right nothing, zilch!

The Macbook includes only 1 single USB-C port that shares functionality with charging the computer. If you are looking for any expansion beyond this single port then you need to be buying an additional dongle to open up the option for various plugin options. Also, without an USB-A port, all existing flash drives and DJ tools will need an extra adapter. Apple’s USB-C dongle, which they price at just under £60, adapts the single port into another USB-C, an HDMI port, and an USB 3.0 for other devices. We think it's a little insult to the industry that as a whole are great ambassadors for the brand. Imagine turning up to your gig and forgetting the adaptor, nightmare!!!

The next gripe comes from the lack of storage on the new Macbook, with a very small 256GB as standard and an upgraded 512gb available. To most people this will suffice as a day to day machine but for a DJ with thousands of tracks, samples, edits all needed to make your set unique and different this is a small amount of space if not simply too small!! Back this up with the removal of a Thunderbolt port this has to be the clanger of all recent Apple releases.

For years the hardware side of DJ controllers has tried to catch up to Apple's drive of thunderbolt but with the complete removal has the industry spent years going in the wrong direction? Even worse when you realise this is not available in the adaptor meaning this could be the end for the Thudnerbolt connection altogether.

We love better battery and enjoy boasting about the quality of our display graphics but quite frankly this launch of the exciting new "Macbook" tastes of misthought to the industry supporting its very growth. Can we sense an uproar and increase in PC sales over the coming generation of upgrades. Hopefully time will tell and Apple may listen, making this oversimplified laptop something which can still be utilised by the working DJ's, however we won't be holding our breath.

Our verdict - although this has been a rant against the new Macbook I simply cannot walk away from something so reliable, instead I'm packing 2 adaptors going forward just to be extra safe!