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Apple adapter bites the dust, Queen guitarist Brian May explodes

"My love for Apple is turning to hatred," the musician writes after his USB-C adapter hits a sour note.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read
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Jordi Vidal, Redferns

Even rock stars have tech gripes.

Famed musician Brian May, who co-founded the band Queen in 1970, published a long, detailed complaint about Apple USB-C connectors to his Instagram account on Wednesday. And just as with his music, May struck a popular chord.

May, who's now being portrayed by Gwilym Lee in the film Bohemian Rhapsody, posted a photo of a bent connector, declaring, "This is one of the reasons my love for Apple is turning to hatred."

Queen may have made the hit song We Are The Champions famous, but May is no Apple champion. He went on to bemoan having to carry multiple adapters around and spend money purchasing new ones, and he decried the replacement of Apple's much loved MagSafe magnetic charging cable.

The adapter in the photo apparently became bent when May simply tried to move his computer to change the adapter from one side to another.

"And if one of these things is plugged into the left-hand side and we roll the computer to the left to insert in into the right-hand side -- THIS happens," he groused. "A bent USB-C connector which is instantly useless." 

Apple didn't respond to a request for comment. A representative for May said he had nothing further to add beyond what was written in the Instagram post.

May's Instagram readers were quick to indicate he's singing a familiar tune. The post earned more than 42,000 likes and hundreds of comments in just two hours. 

Many readers shared similar issues.

"Built-in obsolescence. It grates on me as well," Justin Niemi wrote. 

Some tried to help May with ideas for avoiding the USB-C.

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Wrote Kurt Menezes, "I try to find myself the 2016 MacBooks ... They're still much better than the new ones when it comes to adapters and stuff."

"Moving to Android is the solution, Bri. You won't miss Apple at all," wrote Rossana Rocha.

Yet not everyone saw Android as an ideal answer. 

"Android is the same way Bri," wrote Janis Long. "Actually dealing with that now ... YOU are not alone!"

May's complaint is timely. Apple announced just last month that its iPad Pro had ditched the proprietary Lightning port in favor of USB-C.

While May himself is no USB-C fan, CNET reporter Stephen Shankland recently wrote that in a world jammed full of conflicting connectors, "USB-C offers a path to a simpler, saner future."

"Our world has too many incompatible cables and dongles to bridge the gap between old and new devices," Shankland wrote. 

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