Phil Schiller explains controversial subjects behind new MacBook Pro
There’s been a lot of talk about the new MacBook Pro. While the newly announced MacBook has a lot of new things to offer, the piece of Apple hardware has become quite controversial. Aside from a headphone jack, the new MacBook Pro pretty much only has USB-C ports. Unlike last generation you won’t find other ports like an SD card slot and Phil Schiller is now explaining why.
There were a few topics discussed by Apple executive Phil Schiller. To begin, Schiller explains why there is a lack of an SD card reader:
“Because of a couple of things. One, it’s a bit of a cumbersome slot. You’ve got this thing sticking halfway out. Then there are very fine and fast USB card readers, and then you can use CompactFlash as well as SD. So we could never really resolve this – we picked SD because more consumer cameras have SD but you can only pick one.”
The Apple executive mentioned that there are a number of ever-growing cameras that already support built-in wireless transfer. He also claims that “We [Apple] think there’s a path forward where you can use a physical adapter if you want, or do wireless transfer.”
We now arrive to the next touchy subject; the headphone jack. When Apple debuted its latest and greatest iPhone 7 the 3.5mm headphone jack was unsurprisingly missing. Fast forward a month later and you will still find that jack on the MacBook, but it was questioned as to why Apple decided to include it. Apparently that is because “these are pro machines” and many pros use studio monitors, amps and other audio gear “that do not have wireless solutions and need the 3.5mm jack.”
One last interesting thing Schiller mentioned was that Apple could have brought Siri to the Mac earlier, but ultimately decided against the idea until it could do some Mac-specific functions such as search your files.
“We care about what they love and what they’re worried about. And it’s our job to help people through these changes. We know we made good decisions about what to build into the new Pro and that the result is the best notebook ever made, but it might not be right for everyone on day one. That’s OK, some people felt that way about the first iMac and that turned out pretty good.”