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Why remove the SD card slot?
- Thread starter jwolf6589
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No one outside of Apple knows for sure, but considering how Apple leverages storage tiers to charge more, the removal of the SD card slot means customers are forced to decide at time of purchase the storage they want/ need.
While SD cards are the preferred external storage for the raspberry pie this is not so much the case for personal computers. If you need external storage get an external drive. SD card slots are good for photographers but you can buy a cheap SD card adapter. You don’t have to buy everything from Apple.
My moms hi end canon I was unable to get it to connect to her computer via WIFI or cable. Thank goodness her 2017 MacBook Air has a built in sd card reader.
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SD Card readers were not my first choice. WIFI or usb cable would have been better. But like I said I am glad the sd card reader was built in.
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You must learn the Way of the Dongle.
Simply put, at least for me, is that I hardly use them and when I do, I can add it in the form of a dongle. I would rather have some weight saved to a point that continually add weight to a card reader that I am probably not going to use that much.
100% this, removing SD slot and soldering SSD forces people to purchase more storage at the time of purchase. It's disgusting and shameful and I wish Apple wouldn't do this.
- Because there's no standard SD card size - there's 3 of them (even with an SD slot, you're playing adapter games - and I've got a number of Sandisk adapters that have the write protect tab slip to write protect mode when inserting into the slot for example. They're trash).
- many people never use it (for the record, I do myself, and have a 2020 air without a built-in reader, but...)
- it takes up internal space that could be used for something every user will benefit from - such as battery
- plug in SD readers are cheap and readily available
- Apple's devices and other new cameras have the ability to be accessed via WIFI or USB, which is included
In contrast to the 2017 design, the 2020 design is upgraded in that it has USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports instead, which can do a lot more than an SD slot, including connection of FAR quicker storage devices.
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It's not as if this was an either/or situation. There's plenty of room there for the USB-C ports, an SD card slot, even a "legacy" USB 3.0 port or two. Other manufacturers include some or all of those on their ultrabooks... Apple just chose to not do it with theirs.
See the other points i made.
You may disagree with them, but there are multiple reasons, and not just “Screw the customer”.
Most people do not upgrade storage on their notebooks, including the majority of mac users who had the ability to do so with the older models.
As far as legacy USB ports go, those USB-As can’t do what USB-C can. USB-C can be turned into USB-A with an adapter in the transition period.
USB-A ports aren’t free and require additional components and space for a backwards looking port - that does not push tech forward. Apple try to push things forward (and be glad they do or we’d still all be using PS2 mice and keyboards on PC).
Its not always 'screw the customer', but if the option for Apple is include a 50¢ SD card slot, or charge the consumer $100 for more onboard storage (or that for an external ports block), you can be pretty sure which way they will go.
Form over function has also long been an issue for Apple - preferring cool looks over practical needs. This sometimes comes to bite them in the ass, but mostly, it ends up being the consumer's that's in the sling.
Reading at the time what the 2018 MacBook Air was going to offer (or, in fact, not offer) was the impetus for me to buy a 2017 to replace an older MacBook - love me all my legacy ports, even if I don't use them every day. Oh, and the standalone MagSafe. Retina screen? Meh. Don't care.
Form over function has also long been an issue for Apple - preferring cool looks over practical needs. This sometimes comes to bite them in the ass, but mostly, it ends up being the consumer's that's in the sling.
Reading at the time what the 2018 MacBook Air was going to offer (or, in fact, not offer) was the impetus for me to buy a 2017 to replace an older MacBook - love me all my legacy ports, even if I don't use them every day. Oh, and the standalone MagSafe. Retina screen? Meh. Don't care.
When I upgraded from my 2013 MBA to a 2018 MBP losing the SD card slot was a bit of a hit. I like having 4 thunderbolt ports which are great for most things but if you're into photography it's a pain because most consumer and prosumer cameras still use SD cards. Also if you want to transfer big files from one computer to another it used to be easier to do with SD, there seem to be a lot more 512GB+ SD cards floating around than flash drives. Of course there are workarounds, it's just annoying to have to find so many workarounds for things that used to be so easy.
Most pro cameras these days don't use SD, and if they have an SD slot it's the backup slot. SD is slow and fragile compared to the more modern cards (XQD, CFast, CFExpress, etc). There's no standard, so no sense in picking one.
For sneakernet applications, USB drives have been the standard for years.
SD went the way of the floppy...
Most serious photographers use separate memory card readers rather than an SD slot in the computer (or printer).... Even though my Macs in the past had a built-in SD card reader, I didn't ever bother with it, always used an external memory card reader for CF cards, SD cards, etc. My current Sony A7R IV, to my surprise, still uses SD cards rather than XQD, CFEXpress or CFast, which is fine with me, as I've got plenty of SD cards and it's easy to swap them around among my cameras rather than have special cards for one camera. When I bought my 2018 MBP it was a simple matter to pick up an Apple USB-C SD card reader, and then later I picked up a USB-C multicard reader which seems to be faster than the Apple one.
I'd look into why the cable connection didn't work. There's no reason it shouldn't have worked fine - unless Canon did something stupid like remove that capability from their cameras. They used to work fine when I was shooting with Canon. Switched to Olympus and direct cable connection works fine - albeit I rarely use it vs. using a card reader.
Does the camera not show up as a removable drive in Finder?
Some cameras you have to tell to present themselves as "mass storage" when connected to USB.
I don't use Photos app for stuff other than my phone so my apologies for being unfamiliar with how it manages imports. I'd expect the camera needs to present itself as removeable storage though, so thus the question about showing up in Finder. Been a while since I shot Canon, but seem to remember this was a setting / choice in the camera menu system - as it is with my current Olympus.
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Then I'd suggest you focus on why the Canon camera isn't showing up in Finder. Clearly the MBA & Photos app will work with other Canon equipment.
Most likely reason is something with a setting in the camera. Since you've not mentioned the model I can't suggest anything specific.
Solve that and it should show up in Finder & Photos.
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...and there's the sound of the USB-C Kool Aid being chugged.
USB-C is no more than good old USB 3, DisplayPort and charging moshed together into a single connector. It may be useful for phones where it is necessary to combine everything into a single port, but on a laptop with plenty of space it just sells dongles and creates all sorts of confusion and complications by having a range of superficially identical ports and cables with different functions. (NB: even USB 3.1 gen 2 can run over USB 3 A connectors - you'll find 10Gbps USB-A ports on some PCs - USB over USB-C is just the same old USB, unless you've seen 20Gbps USB3.2 actually implemented anywhere?). Anyway, 5Gbps US3 is more than fast enough for all but the most expensive external SSDs - but apparently - although nobody wants to plug in the SD card from their dashcam or prosumer DSLR - people are queuing up to connect multi-SSD RAID arrays, high-end A/V racks and 5k displays to their entry-level MacBook Air. Right....
Between them, the MagSafe, TB2/DisplayPort, 2xUSB-A and SD slot on the <=2015 Air could do far more, without dongles/hubs, than the measly two USB-C ports on the new Air. Charging your Air while connecting to a data projector at a meeting when someone hands you a USB stick? Not a problem on the "classic" air and you've still got a spare USB for your pointer thingy or external drive... got the new model? Tough - it's dongles at dawn.
Or even if they'd used the smaller size of USB-C to put 4 ports on the Air and 6 on the Pro (oh, wait, that's not so good because although most modern CPUs have USB to spare, now you either have to find PCIe and DisplayPort lines for those extra USB-C ports or users have to play a game of "guess which port supports what?".
Folks, there's a reason why companies are still launching new multi-function hubs that re-instate the old "legacy" ports whereas you can't get a hub with multiple USB-C ports for love nor money... USB-C is a solution looking for a problem and many, many people just need their USB-A and DisplayPort/HDMI back, whereas a one-to-many USB-C hub that does anything more than just feed USB3.1g1 to the downstream ports is far more complex than a good old USB 3 hub.
Yeah, you can convert USB-C to USB-A with a dongle... but for the vast majority of USB-C peripherals out there, which are still USB3.1 gen 1, you can equally use an adapter to plug them into a USB-A port without loosing an ounce of performance - plus unless you bought the peripheral from Apple it will probably come with the adapter in the box.
Of course, If Apple had taken the sensible route - just replaced the TB2 with a single TB3/USB-C and kept the other so-called "legacy" ports fora few years more (which is what they did with the iMac and the Mini, like most PC laptops) then you'd have the best of both worlds... The nearest that USB-C comes to impressive is its support for one-plug docking (...because two plugs is just impossible) and you only need... let's count... one USB-C port for that.