Everybody remember the original 2008 MacBook Air? It had one micro-DVI port, one USB port, one headphone port, and a charging connector. When they did the big refresh in, what, 2011, it got a second USB port and the micro-DVI became DisplayPort and eventually Thunderbolt. They also added an SD slot (but not on the 11" version). Apple's been down this road before. People want more ports.

Predictions:

- The 11" MacBook Air is going to go away. The new MacBook pretty much obsoletes it in every way. If you want maximum portability and you're willing to put up with limited ports, and a bag full of dongles, then you're good to go.

- The rest of the MacBook line will eventually be refreshed with USB-C. In the 13" MacBook Air form factor, they could probably fit three USB-C ports along with the headphone jack and hopefully still the SD slot. That's the machine I'll be waiting for. Presumably, it shouldn't be that hard to charge the device from any of those three ports.

- In a few months, there will be an avalanche of USB-C "docking stations", some color-coordinated to appeal to the new MacBook owners. I would expect some have their own power supplies while others just drain power from the host. When I'm traveling, I'd rather have one brick of a docking station in my bag with all the connectors than the current mess of dongles. (And, you know somebody will integrate a huge lithium-ion battery into a docking station as well.)

- By the end of the year, or into next year, we'll see monitors with USB-C and all sorts of other goodies inside (more ports, Ethernet, etc.). You run one solitary cable from your monitor to your laptop and you're good to go. They may even do something clever like put the GPU inside the monitor. Sadly, I think Apple is getting out of the Cinema display business, which is really too bad, since they had exactly the right idea.