I climbed into my son’s car the other day, an older Saab with a fairly decent sound system. I had an iPhone 7 Plus in my pocket, but I didn’t bother fishing it out. I know the phone comes with a Lightning port adapter that lets you use a standard 3.5mm cable to connect up to a car stereo. The adapter is about the size of a walnut, but I normally connect up to my car using Bluetooth and don’t carry the adapter with me. It was a “gotcha” because we really wanted to listen to the new Wilco album.

These “gotchas” are annoying when it comes to technology, which is supposed to enable us and not make things totally unusable. Rumors are flying this week that a new MacBook Pro won’t come with normal USB ports, but we’ve already crossed this threshold. The HP Spectre only has USB-C ports, the smaller ones used for data transfer and power. HP includes an adapter (a cable that’s about four inches long) so you can use older USB devices. I’m pretty sure I’ve already misplaced it.

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