Last Updated on 11/02/2016 by Anthony Thurston
One of the biggest points that photographers noticed regarding the latest line of Macbook Pro’s that Apple announced last week was the exclusion of an SD card slot. For most people this is a negative because it means no easily expandable storage for the Macbook Pro, but for Photographers, this is incredibly irritating because it means more fuss to get images from your camera to your computer.
In a recent interview with the Independent, Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller took some time to address that complaint/concern to defend the company’s decision to nix the SD card slot. He cites the SD card slot as being ‘cumbersome’ (due to the card sticking out from the laptop when inserted in the slot) and unnecessary due to many camera having wireless transfer capabilities these days.
Yes, that is right… Apple got rid of the SD card slot because it thinks that wireless transferring is to a point now that the SD card slot is not necessary. Let that sink in for a minute. I will give Apple this, wirelessly sending one image here or there, sure, its not a huge hassle. But for a pro, who last time I checked was who this Macbook was designed for, you aren’t transferring just one image here or there – try hundreds, if not thousands… and that doesn’t even consider that you may have used multiple cards at a shoot.
They also cited the SD card slot as being a compromise anyway, since higher end camera owners using CF and XQD type cards had to buy an external reader anyways – so in Apple’s eye, its all fair now and everyone has to buy an external reader because lets get real… no one is going to be wirelessly transferring entire shoots to their new Macbook Pro anytime soon.
I will give Apple credit for at least attempting to defend their decision here… but really, it just makes them getting rid of the slot look that much more stupid.