So, Apple launch a new range of laptops at this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference. Lovely screens, fulsome batteries, lots of beefy hard disk goodness, and… an SD slot.

Oh. Thanks.

Receiving the news that new MacBook Pros will come with SD slots is equal to the news that you’re going to get comedy bri-nylon socks for christmas. We saw it coming, somebody somewhere probably even asked for it, but… oh dear.

PCI Express is gosh-darn fast. You can fill it with FireWire, HiDef video recorders at cinema quality, SxS cards from cool cameras, magic output boxes that plug into huge projectors, and you can even purchase a little SD adaptor for half the cost of any other adaptor your MBP will inevitably need.

So why the feck has Apple pulled the PCI Express slot in favour of putting in an SD card slot? Because (and use your best sing-song voice for this) ‘lots of our customers have digital cameras!’. Yes, and lots of professionals (the ‘pro’ in MacBook Pro) use CF cards, and lots of professionals use SxS and MXO, and AJA Ki Pros, and so on.

So somebody at Apple who had two cups of coffee in the morning ensured that the 17″ MacBook TeaTray retained the PCI slot. I, as a dyed-in-the-wool MacBook TeaTray fan, am glad. But pity the foos that want a small neat 13″ to work with their SxS or their AJA IO or their Compact Flash from their Canon EOS 5d Mk 2. They’re stuck with USB.

This is not a new thing for Apple. IIRC, there was the FireWire debacle a short while back, which suddenly got updated.

Now listen in, Apple: some people need two FireWire slots, one for disks, the other for the camera. That’s what YOU said. You take the PCI Express slot out of the MacBook Pros, and you turn them into MacBook Amateurs. Nothing wrong with that other than losing sight of your key market for these expensive laptops.

When a good friend dedicated to the small neat life feels obliged to purchase a 17″ only because of the PCI Express slot, it’s time to give the Apple Marketing Machine a fiery message. Adobe Premiere is available on PCs…