Why do we have "Laptop Nipples"?

"Laptop Nipples" like this one can be found on most Dell Laptops.

Behold, the lowly "laptop nipple" (officially known as a pointing stick). Nestled in between the G H and B keys of the keyboard this freakish lump has made its home for the past 25 or so years. However in a world with such modern marvels as the trackpad and computer mouse what place is there for a pointing stick in our society, and is there any merit to its place on our keyboards besides messing with it whilst bored at work.

First some backstory for those unfamiliar with a pointing stick. A pointing stick acts like a mouse in that it can be used to move a cursor across a computer screen. It is based on pressure, ie. the harder you press down on a particular side of the nub the faster your cursor will move across the screen. It was created by a man named Ted Selker in 1984 in an attempt to come up with a solution to speed up typists by reducing the time spent moving their hands from the keyboard to a mouse.

Pointing sticks can still be found on modern Dell, HP, and Lenovo Thinkpad laptops. They are noticeably absent from apple products such as the Macbook as the nubs flashy design presumably clashed with the mac's sleek finish. Instead Apple laptops opted for trackpads a feature which can be seen on most laptops nowadays.

Excluding Ultra Compact Laptops most Modern Laptops have an inbuilt Trackpad

So the question remains why do companies continue to place the humble "laptop nipple" on our keyboards when there exist so many alternative input options such as trackpads, computer mice, and touch screen displays. Pointing sticks, as it turns out, serve many functions that although the average person may not use are nevertheless important.

Pointing sticks allow touch typists to move the mouse cursor much faster than they would if they had to stretch their hand to a computer mouse or trackpad. This can greatly increase productivity in professions where typing fast is of great importance. Pointing sticks are also useful due to their small size. They are the smallest input device out of those previously mentioned and as a result are common in ultra compact laptops which forfeit the trackpad to reduce their size.

Ultra Compact Laptop without Trackpad.

For those familiar with the New Nintendo 3DS line and onwards you may be surprised to learn that you have been using a pointing stick this entire time. The small nub located above the A B X Y buttons is another example of a pointing stick used to reduce the size of a device but increase it's functionality.

New 3DS Pointing Stick

Lastly, people just prefer the pointing stick to the trackpad. For companies like Dell and Lenovo the pointing stick is a key selling point of their devices. There is no reason for these companies to remove this small piece of hardware, especially when it isn't expensive to add. After all, if you dislike the pointing stick you can disable it in the system settings of your laptop.