[Martian]

Ive mentioned a couple of times that I would love to see Macbook Pros with pointing sticks as well as tackpadsa dual interface.
Those who prefer pointing sticks, like me, should have the choice.
Those who hate pointing sticks can just ignore them. A keytop level stick at the GHB junction absolutely will not interfere with normal typing. Your fingers just dont belong there when you are keying.
Some of the many people who hate trackpads (like me) might even abandon the annoyance of carting a Bluetooth travel mouse with their laptop if they only had the choice.
The Macbook Pro is a premium computer and the very slight additional cost is not a factor. There is no down side.

[Dan Frakes]

Quote:

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There is no down side.

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I agree that it's a personal preference. I personally dislike pointing sticks, but I have friends who love them.
That said, I think it's a bit of hyperbole to say there's "no downside." The obvious disadvantages are that you're adding more circuitry and mechanical parts, which increases costs and the potential for problems. You also need to support the feature in software. Then there's the comfort/annoyance issue; some people may not mind, but when I used a ThinkPad, it bugged me that there was a red "nub" in between H and G that I frequently hit accidentally when typing those characters. (Some people -- a group that likely includes Steve Jobs -- may also find the aesthetic appearance of the nub offensive /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif )
I think it's safe to say you'll never see a pointing stick/nub on a Mac laptop.

[Martian]

Your probably right that Steve One-Button-Mouse Jobs wouldnt allow a dual pointing system. But for "not-invented-here syndrome" ego reasons rather than aesthetic reasons.
Quite a few people who have never seen a pointing stick have used my Dell with its dual system. I tell them try it, you may like it. Those who dont like the pointing stick (or didnt give it a fair chance) still dont mind that it is there, they just ignore itno down side. But I have also heard "wow, this is great".
Perhaps because the ThinkPad doesnt also have a track pad, its larger nub is more obtrusive than in the Dells dual system execution.
As for more circuitry and mechanical parts, I estimate that with all the potential and likely trouble spots on a laptop, the pointing stick would generate 0.0001627% of the malfunctions.

[Naphtali]

For those of us who work primarily with text, who prefer command keys to trackball and trackball to mouse, the pointing teet would be wonderful.
I had an ancient Thinkpad, running Windows 3.11 For Work Groups, above DR/DOS 6.2, running Microsoft Office, and the AppleWorks doppelganger New Deal Office Suite 98. This was stable, usable, USEFUL, and included a lovely pointing teet.
If IBM hadn't sold out to the Red Chinese, AND OS X were usable on the Thinkpads, that's where I'd be today.

[griffman]

I love to type. I despise touching the mouse. Despite that, I despise pointing sticks ("nubs") even more. To me, they're potentially the second worse human input device ever invented (first being the round Apple mouse, of course).
What's wrong with them? There's zero feedback for what you're doing. The nub doesn't move, yet your pointer does. With a mouse or trackpad, I develop a sense for how far a certain finger flick will move something. Not possible with a nub, since it relies on finger pressure, you can't "flick" anything. Add in the fact that they're ugly, and I'm quite happy they never caught on /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif.
But just to make everyone happy, I would accept nubs on Mac laptops if (1) they were completely removable, and (2) if you've done (1), there would be no physical evidence the thing had ever been there in the first place. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
-rob.