I understand Apple's reasoning in dropping the ExpressCard slot in 15" MBPs. One percent is a small number.
However, in using said reasoning, they dismiss an important factor that this particular consumer takes into consideration when shopping: how expandable is the computer?
Laptops, in general, don't have PCI slots, and have only 2 RAM slots. The one, general purpose facility laptops have for incorporating current or future technology is a laptop expansion slot, be it yesterday's PCMCIA or today's EC/nn.
As a buyer, this is important to me. I may not know what I want to use an expansion slot for, but I like knowing that it's there. For the first couple of years with my current laptop, I had no PCMCIA cards, so I would have counted in the 99+% of people who were not using it if I had been surveyed at the time. Even so, I would not have bought the laptop if it hadn't come with such a slot.
Today, I have several cards that I use with this laptop: A firewire port; USB 2.0 ports; wireless/N and wireless/G adapters; and a multi-card reader. Other than USB 1.1, none of these features were available on the original laptop. I probably extended the life of this laptop by several years, precisely because I was able to add to its capabilities through an expansion slot.
I didn't know what turns technology would take when I bought the laptop, and I didn't begin using the expansion slot right away. Nevertheless, the availability of such a slot, that is, the possibility of general expansion, was, and remains, extremely important to me.
Apple asked users "How many of you use your EC slot today?", and got results, they say, of less than one percent. If Apple were to do another survey, and ask users and potential buyers "How many of you value the possibility of future expansion?", I'd bet they would get a much larger number of positive responses.
However, in using said reasoning, they dismiss an important factor that this particular consumer takes into consideration when shopping: how expandable is the computer?
Laptops, in general, don't have PCI slots, and have only 2 RAM slots. The one, general purpose facility laptops have for incorporating current or future technology is a laptop expansion slot, be it yesterday's PCMCIA or today's EC/nn.
As a buyer, this is important to me. I may not know what I want to use an expansion slot for, but I like knowing that it's there. For the first couple of years with my current laptop, I had no PCMCIA cards, so I would have counted in the 99+% of people who were not using it if I had been surveyed at the time. Even so, I would not have bought the laptop if it hadn't come with such a slot.
Today, I have several cards that I use with this laptop: A firewire port; USB 2.0 ports; wireless/N and wireless/G adapters; and a multi-card reader. Other than USB 1.1, none of these features were available on the original laptop. I probably extended the life of this laptop by several years, precisely because I was able to add to its capabilities through an expansion slot.
I didn't know what turns technology would take when I bought the laptop, and I didn't begin using the expansion slot right away. Nevertheless, the availability of such a slot, that is, the possibility of general expansion, was, and remains, extremely important to me.
Apple asked users "How many of you use your EC slot today?", and got results, they say, of less than one percent. If Apple were to do another survey, and ask users and potential buyers "How many of you value the possibility of future expansion?", I'd bet they would get a much larger number of positive responses.
