DFU Port on the 16-Inch MacBook Pro

"I don’t know why macOS can’t just report an error when you use the wrong port instead of proceeding to install for an hour and then not report an error but not work, either."

This quote comes around full circle!

This whole situation, including both LocalPolicy and the DFU port, is a perfect microcosm of everything I *hate* about Apple now. Everything is a black box. There are security mechanisms that at best are doing nothing but hindering you and at worst are allowing Apple to dictate how you are allowed to use your own system to their benefit and your detriment. There are also weird restrictions that make no sense. They can't be bothered to tell you about them when you run afoul of them; you just get inscrutable intensely frustrating errors. And on top of that, their documentation is wrong.

@Bri but you can change the background in Messages now! And almost but not quite put icons where you want them! But they’re all squircles and we are very serious about this rule. Truly, we live in an age of wonders.

I think this all started about fifteen years ago now when Microsoft fired all of its testers and started the Windows Insider program. Nobody has time to keep up with the constantly changing interfaces, much less mundane things like which port to use when recovering your Mac. Which of course you should just be taking to a Genius Bar anyway because these are appliances muggles shouldn’t meddle with.

Must just be for the 16 inch. I just go an M4 Pro 14" and it was definitely the leftmost USB-C port when you’re facing the left side of the Mac. I used it to put Mac OS 15 on since the stupid thing shipped with liquid glASS.

> Must just be for the 16 inch. I just go an M4 Pro 14" and it was definitely the leftmost USB-C port when you’re facing the left side of the Mac.

Hi Brad. Another problem is that the doc is ambiguous. It says "14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 or M5 chip," but is that supposed to include the 14-inch model with an M4 Pro chip or just the M4 non-Pro chip?

It's crazy that Apple can't just label the ports on the device, or at least indicate the DFU port in the System Information window. It has the feel of "most users don't need to know this, so we absolutely refuse to tell users in any way."

Days like this are when I REALLY WISH we had the ability to ‘thumbs up’—and DOUBLE thumbs up—comments! @Bri reflects my current frustration with Apple exactly; and @Bart hits the timing dead on. I see a LOT of whinging and moaning about Apple’s failures *as of late*, but, like bankruptcy, this didn’t just happen yesteryear… this problem has been festering for a VERY long time. To those whom were up to their ears in Apple troubleshooting, it was (or should have been) obvious, the examples of lazy, deficient documentation and completely absent QA abounded. And it especially infuriates me that I can’t shake the feeling that a small team of empowered interns—or, for that matter, invited and trusted community ’experts’—could solve >80% of it if Apple would just ALLOW it, embrace it. (e.g. Howard Oakley at Eclectic Light ALONE has done invaluable work. Alone. Unsupported by Apple.) Not that he cares, again “obviously”, but this *IS* going to be Tim Cook’s legacy. Steve Ballmer presided over a massive financial expansion of Microsoft, but that’s not what he’s remembered for. (And for good reason, deservedly, for both of them.)

What @Bri says, Apple holds power-users in contempt. They simply don't care.

I need to document it at some point (probably on TidBITS), but I recently tried cloning my Mac Mini in order to avoid the shitshow for "servers" that is "Migration Assistant", using a two-stage process of asr clones made to an external TB SSD on the source Mini, and from that external SSD to the target Mini. I did everything right, carefully transferring ownership from a fresh installation on the target to the clone I restored, verifying it was all bootable and that all the services ran as expected; indeed it took me a while to notice that I'd inadverdently booted the new system from the internal clone rather than the external, it was *that* good. It all just worked—right up until I deleted the temporary system and data volumes I used to restore the clone from. It was spectacular—paradise lost—until the system restarted and wiped my current system, a clear data loss bug that was somehow tickled, for absolutely no reason that I could see, leaving me with Recovery and nothing else, and forcing me to reinstall from scratch. I ended up going back to my data backup (alas, I'd deleted the clone disk by this stage), and just sucked up the time cost of using Migration Assistant. But I was (and still am, really) very angry about the needless loss of functionality, and Apple's incompetence that lead to my lost time and energy.

It's a stupid refrain that people sometimes reach for, to say that we've never had it so good on this platform, and the real problem is simply that we're ingrates. Screw that. The problems are *fundamental*. The hardware—I could kiss it. But, as it turns out, a great experience isn't down to just the hardware, and is more than wiped out by the frustration of using and dealing with the incompetence and shoddy QC of Apple's software.