Here's The Problem With Apple Getting Rid Of Its Magnetic Charger

Travis Isaacs via Flickr

Apple is rumored to be replacing its MagSafe charging port with a USB Type-C port on this year's MacBook Air.

Ditching MagSafe would allow Apple's engineers to make the laptop thinner.

USB Type-C would serve as both a charging port and a data transfer port, which hasn't been possible with previous models of USB.

But ditching MagSafe would be a bad idea for at least one reason, as John Gruber points out: the new connector wouldn't be magnetic.

That means when you inevitably trip over your charging cord, your laptop could come crashing to the ground. Plugging and unplugging it all the time could make the cord wear out sooner, too.

That's a great argument for Apple holding onto MagSafe. No one wants to come into the Apple Store and sheepishly explain how they destroyed their laptop by being clumsy.

The next MacBook Air is expected to come out early this year. We'll have to wait until then to see if Apple ditches MagSafe, and whether they've devised a solution to this painful problem in USB Type-C.