And despite the outcry, Apple's online store is taking more orders than "any pro notebook before." That last part isn't completely surprising (Apple has plenty of pent-up demand given an unusually long update cycle), but it does suggest that the new design is alluring to at least some would-be buyers. Kingston maintains a great chart identifying the different terms and icons used to identify SD class and speeds - and which devices/needs each type of card is best suited for. The company has to "help people through these changes" and have confidence that it made a good long-term decision. See this article at Apple's website for a very good overview of Secure Digital card use on the iMac and MacBook Pro: About the Apple SD Card Slot FAQ. Virtually every new Apple product has its "share of early criticism and debate," he says, alluding to the original iMac's lack of legacy ports. In other words: while Schiller isn't promising anything, don't be surprised if Macs get hands-free Siri activation at some point down the road.Īnd while the uproar over the MacBook Pro has been a "bit of a surprise," Schiller is quick to address concerns that Apple made a mistake.
You'd want to use Siri even while the computer is asleep, but current Macs aren't equipped to listen with the system off. It's a combination of "system electronics" with expectations, the exec says. For one, he explains why Macs don't have "hey, Siri" voice activation like iOS devices do. This wasn't Schiller's only answer, as you might guess. This should be less of an issue as time goes on, but it's no small matter today. Also, while it's true that many cameras from recent years have WiFi, not all of them do - and not everyone can justify buying a new camera to complement their new laptop. An SD card sticking out of your laptop isn't that much of a pain, and numerous pro-level cameras use SD storage. The SD card doesnt appear in Finder, Disk Utility, Image Capture or anywhere. The points have some validity, but we suspect that there will still be lots of disagreement from potential customers. My SD card slot on the latest MacBook (Mid 2012) wont mount my SD card. Many newer cameras have built-in wireless transfers, so you may never need to plug something into your laptop. And any slot is less necessary these days, Schiller adds. He also argues that the slot was a compromise, since it forced high-end camera owners (who often use CompactFlash or XQD cards) to get an external reader. It was a "bit of a cumbersome slot," he claims, since your card juts outward. In an interview with the Independent, Senior VP Phil Schiller says there were a few reasons for axing the card reader.
Not every question will be answered, we don’t reply to email, and we cannot provide direct troubleshooting advice.Did you take one glance at the new MacBook Pro and wonder why Apple removed your precious SD card slot? The company isn't about to bring the slot back, but it's at least ready to explain its decision.
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This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Marcella. While this is possible with a Mac laptop, ensuring the drive remains plugged in wherever you’re using may be too stressful. You can clone your startup volume to the external drive, restart, and find your machine has a new lease on life. OWC offers a 1TB Thunderbolt 3 SSD for just under $300.
Rather different.Įven if you can’t swap your internal drive, by the way, for a Mac mini or iMac, you could use an external SSD in a USB 3 or Thunderbolt 3-equipped enclosure. An SSD from Other World Computing that can be installed in place of existing SSDs in the last generations of MacBook Pros with removable drives is $329 for 1TB-and has a rated 3,282 MBps read speed and 2,488 MBps write speed. A high-end 1TB Lexar HD Card that’s labeled 95 megabytes per second (MBps) for reading data and marked Class 10, U3, V30-three measures of performance-for about 30 MBps of writing data is just around $200 street price. SSDs also have a distributed architecture for the flash memory chips that allows far faster speeds than SD Cards.