Without an SD card slot, users who need more storage must buy a more expensive model. That money goes to the manufacturer.
With an SD card slot, users can just buy the baseline model and get an SD card from another vendor. That money does not go to the manufacturer.
So manufacturers have an obvious incentive to produce phones without an SD card slot.
Moreover, there is little incentive to produce phones with an SD card slot. A long-time iPhone user isn't going to switch to a non-iPhone just because of the lack of an SD card slot.
Doing it the Apple way isn't free, either. Yes, Apple takes their traditional overly generous markup per memory increase, but there are liabilities in terms of inventory. In a model like the iPhone's it means your 16GB phones are mostly loss-leaders anyway, probably why no one seems to give a shit about issues like the one in the article: because no one actually buys those phones, the inventory is just dead weight to get people in the door.
It's also an extra step in manufacturing of course.
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It's worth noting that the Galaxy S6 / Edge / Active and the Note 5 have no SD slot. Apple definitely isn't alone in looking out of touch.
Without an SD card slot, users who need more storage must buy a more expensive model. That money goes to the manufacturer.
With an SD card slot, users can just buy the baseline model and get an SD card from another vendor. That money does not go to the manufacturer.
So manufacturers have an obvious incentive to produce phones without an SD card slot.
Moreover, there is little incentive to produce phones with an SD card slot. A long-time iPhone user isn't going to switch to a non-iPhone just because of the lack of an SD card slot.
Doing it the Apple way isn't free, either. Yes, Apple takes their traditional overly generous markup per memory increase, but there are liabilities in terms of inventory. In a model like the iPhone's it means your 16GB phones are mostly loss-leaders anyway, probably why no one seems to give a shit about issues like the one in the article: because no one actually buys those phones, the inventory is just dead weight to get people in the door.
It's also an extra step in manufacturing of course.
I stand corrected. I actually thought Samsung had ditched that "feature" a while ago.