gdgt

They have the latest technologies in their laptops...they can't keep legacy ports forever. If they did that we would have Parallels ports for photographies that have expensive old printers. Point is: time moves on and unfortunately companies have to prioritize what they are going to put in them. Fireware 400 is about dead anyway. Nothing really uses it today.

Except that ExpressCard is NOT a legacy port -- it's only been in laptops for about four years (for many manufacturers, even less than that). Its predecessor, PC Cards, was supported in consumer devices for more than a decade.

Part of the expectation with peripherals is that your device is going to continue work for a while to come -- not that you'll be buying it for whichever host devices happen to support it within a narrow 1-2 year window. If you want an example, just look at USB 2.0's lifespan, and how long it's taken Intel to get USB 3.0 out. Although it's occasionally frustrating, the peripheral interconnect space moves slowly for a reason.

Side note: FireWire 800 is backwards compatible with all 400 devices by way of a simple, cheap adapter (which only reinforces my point about the importance of supporting your peripherals).

Exactly. I don't expect them to keep truly old technologies around forever, but when ExpressCard products targeted at professionals are still being developed, it seems a little premature to ditch it.

More importantly though, Apple's veil of secrecy makes it very hard to plan long-term for studio upgrades, when they add/remove stuff with each laptop rev. I made a choice to go with an ExpressCard solution prior to the unibodies, and that's what I'm sticking with for now, Apple or not. Backwards compatibility is paramount for some of us. Heck, look at MIDI - pretty unchanged for nearly 30 years, and yet you won't see a single synthesizer without MIDI ports. Not because it's great (it sucks), but because it's compatible and universal.

And yes... I am using an 800->400 adapter just fine in my studio. So to clarify, I'm still a happy camper with my EC and FW400 gear, but I just have to lug around a slightly bigger machine than I'd have liked.

Fair enough, but what is express card primarily used for these days? Could one not argue that it is unnecessary due to USB support across the board & the wide variety of USB devices that supplement the backwards compatibility of express cards? An express card in the 15" MacBook Pro would be nice, but is it ultimately necessary or a creature comfort?

Depends on who you ask. If you ask myself and sharksandwich, we'd tell you it's a necessary port now since Apple previously communicated to its customers that ExpressCard is something users should expect in their pro-level laptops.

Maybe they will put it back in, but I honestly prefe. The SD-card slot if I had to choose (Granted it's one or the other). Both would be nice, but I prefer the SD card slot for importing photos & video from my digital camera.

I agree, Ryan ... ExpressCard makes a laptop very extensible and upgradable.

amen!!

oh, and I should mention that I've already used the SD card reader on my new MacBook several times. Though, with an 8 GB SD card in my camera, I don't need to copy photo's over nearly as often.

See, the only times I've used a PCMCIA slot or express card slot was to insert a method of getting online...whether it be a 56K modem or AT&T connect card. I think that's what most people used them for and with things like the Mifi and USB air cards the need is diminishing.

the Palm Pre + on verizon does a really nice job of creating a temporary wireless connection when you need it. There are tons of work arounds for doing what you need. I will say the "Pro" should be taken off... Macs are becoming more minimal. Is there a simple way to say minimal or do you just make it say "Macbook" and then change the other one to "Macbook Jr."?

How are Macbook's becoming more minimal? They do just as much as any other laptop. Why include a bunch of flashy ports that are going to be outdated in a year or two?

True they do all the same stuff other laptops do.. There will always be some random piece of machinery that would have connected if only that port still existed. Oh well... I'd have to say the concealed battery was a big direction towards minimalism. The idea of a long lasting battery is great except for those rare occasions if you are out in the field and you wish you had an extra battery. It's happened to me more than once!

There are solutions for that, but for most people they don't have multiple batteries. I would rather have the built-in battery with 7-10 hours of day-to-day use.
I've heard ( I think it was Scott Bourne) that those Hypermac external batteries are great: www.hypershop.com­/HyperMac­-External­-MacBook­-Batter...

Hmm, Thanks! Sounds good. I'll have to give them a shot!

why not just have a BTO option for a 3G/4G data modem with your choice of vendors? It's been available on other platforms for a while. I think it would be great to see this in the MacBook Air for example.