Apple to build 200K 15-in. MacBook Pros in April, 400K 13-in. units in June - Page 3

Tallest Skill says the optical drive is "retro", but I disagree and I hope they keep it in the iMac and MacBook Pro.

The reason the floppy disk went the way of the dodo is because the CD, DVD and Flash Disk killed it. It took three separate bits of media a decade to fully eradicate the Floppy from existence.

It will happen to the Optical Disk, but not now - why? There is currently no replacement for the optical disk when it comes to physical distribution.

I walk into a shop and pick a case up off the shelf and do you know what it will contain? An Optical Disk. Give someone a copy of something they can keep? Optical Disk. Give someone a copy of something without also giving them you entire hard disk or flash drive? Optical Disk. Permanent backup solution? Optical Disk!

I have backup DVDs going all the way back to 2005. I couldn't fit all that data onto my current 2TB setup along side my applications, more frequently used data and operating system. Given the price of Optical Media, its much cheaper to burn older data to disk for archival rather than letting it rot on a sector of a hard disk, taking up valuable space and prompting you to either permanently delete the older data or buy another hard disk.

Yeah, there are online solutions, I use box.com - but the 25GB limit for £60 a year is a joke when a pack of 20 Single-Layer DVDs for £5 gives me 94GBs AND I don't have to wait an eternity for it to download/upload.

The optical disk isn't going anywhere until people start doing the following:
-Distributing media and software on cards akin to the PlayStation Vita.
-Creating and distributing media playback devices that uses these cards as their primary storage format (whilst outselling DVD and Blu-Ray players) and;
-Making these cards as cheap or cheaper than optical media to make them a suitable alternative for backups and disposable copies.

TL;DR
Tape is still used and developed and Vinyl is still selling. Food for thought.

Because physical distribution of software itself is dying. And of course there's a replacement: NAND flash sticks.


Oops, one scratch. Permanently ruined.


And according to whoever it is here (can't remember his name; doesn't really matter anyway), you have three more years before those discs are unreadable.


So… since people are doing exactly that already…


Or doing it digitally. Like Apple.


Because there are legitimate reasons for tape to still be used. What can an optical disc do that removable flash storage and hard drives can't?

"Be scratched" is a valid answer. So's "be the bottleneck of my entire system".

Also, I don't buy this rumor. Splitting the release of the 15" and 13"? KEEPING the 13" around at all?

OH. WAIT. IT'S DIGITIMES.

£9.99 for an 8GB flash stick of £5 for 47GB worth of DVDs.


Disks still work when scratched. Its only when you break through the plastic to the disk underneath that it causes error.

Also: Woops! Dropped the hard disk! Permanently ruined!


People have said that over and over again and its utter tripe. I still have DOS and PS1 games from 1996 that were burned with a 2x CD Writer and they still work like new.


OMG! I CAN GET PHOTOSHOP CS6 AND WORD 15 ON A FLASH CARD? NO WAI!

\


Because everyone in the world has fiber optic internet connections and unlimited data usage.
I'd also love to see a provider that can give me as much data storage as my vast quantity of DVDs for a price that is the same or less than a CD wallet full of DVDs.


What can a tape do that removable flash storage and hard drives can't? Why can't I just use a rugged hard disk for backup of the companies data? Why must we use sequential media that has been obsolete since the 1980s rather than Random Access Hard Disks?

Think long and hard about your answer and how it wont prove a point when "Tape" is replaced with "Disk". If Disks can be replaced with HDDs and Flash, then so can Tape.


It is! But if you've managed to scratch through the surface of an optical disk that badly then you shouldn't be allowed near any form of digital equipment.

But seriously; hard disks can crash, ODs can scratch, Tape can fail, SSDs can be faulty, internet can go down and so on and so forth.


And your internet connection isn't a bottle neck when accessing files? Especially those from online file storage solutions that don't stream media.

Accessing locally will always be faster until Apple releases Tardis enabled Ethernet ports and claim the Doctor stole the patent

The "so" is a non sequitur.

The optical drive is "part of the pro thing" because you "enjoy making your own audio CDs and DVDs"?

Yes, you can. Photoshop can be downloaded online, and Adobe even offers a subscription option, where you can download and use any part of the suite you like.

Probably same thing with the new Word by the time it comes out.

You'll want to read the first part of that sentence.


Not NAND.


Good! I'm glad for another confirmation of this.


1. Why the frick would you want that?
2. Of course you can.
3. Download them like everyone else will. What's the freaking problem? Adobe has had downloads for years.


So stop thinking you can use your cell phone's data plan as your primary and sole source of data.

Everyone else will use their uncapped, wired home Internet for their needs.


You're the one that brought up tape. I assumed you actually knew WHY tape was still used, but I guess not. Go read up about it; it's pretty interesting.


Who the frick said anything about storing applications online?! Who said anything about cloud services at all (wait, you did, for whatever reason)?

You did, I'm well aware you said NAND Flash and physical distribution is dying. But again, £5 for 47GB worth of DVDs or 8.99 for an 8GB Flash Disk? What do you think a publisher is going to go with?


I'm aware you said NAND. I was giving conventional HDDs as an example. But I still wouldn't recommend dropping any form of electrical equipment. NAND or not, you could crack something internally. All this "resistant to shock and bumps" in the media involving flash based solutions is just fodder. If you drop it, you risk breaking it. Circuit boards are flimsy at best.



The more you know ~*


Why would I want Office? No idea.
But seriously, I just pulled two software products off the top of my head as sentence filler.
Yes, I will download them, but then I'll burn the resulting file to disk, OR, I'll just buy it outright on disk rather than downloading. If something goes wrong with the installation or I have a HDD failure, I can just pop a DVD in the drive and install rather than waiting for it to download. It also frees space on the HDD for more important files.


ISPs put data limits on internet connections as well. If your connection has a "Fair Usage Policy" then I would seriously consider reading the fine print. Its typically up to 40GB, then they slow your connection.


Again - Data Limit and Fair usage policy.


Of course I know why its used or else I wouldn't bring it up. I've been working with enterprise level hardware since I was 15 and disaster recovery is first year stuff.

To condense it into a sentence;
Its resilient to shock, dirt and environmental changes, reading and writing sequentially is faster than many modern hard disks, its fully automated (love watching those robotic arms ) and cheap.

But HDD Storage arrays are quickly muscling in on Tape robots. Some hot swap SATA disks and you're golden. They also take up less space. SCSI disks are still horribly expensive in comparison to tape, though.


Please read the posts more carefully. My original posts mentions using Optical Media as a form of offline, long term archival of data in order to free up hard disk space and remain more financially viable when compared to "cloud" services in both time and money.

I also said (which you quoted in your most recent post) "Especially those from online file storage solutions that don't stream media."

I never said anything about running applications from a consumer cloud platform, that was all you putting works into my mouth.

Downloads.


Gosh, people must have a hard time of it. Our ISP is spectacular. No caps, no throttling, full speed all the time.

More servers to hold up with demand then


Awesome! So is mine!


Now go read the fine print. :/

Removal of the internal drive does not equate to an inability to support optical media. What it does mean is $100 saving that Apple will put to better use and the end-user simply has to buy a $30 USB DVD drive or $100-150 Blu-Ray drive.

Optical drives are useful but they are no longer an essential item to include with a machine.

Its Apple. Do you really think they'll lower the price of a machine after removing the ODD?
If ODDs weren't essential for the majority of people, they'd be removed from circulation. nearly every laptop and every desktop tower on the shelf has one.

it was like the floppy disk in the early 2000s. There were obsolete since Flash Disks were bright and shiny and new and CD Writers had become cheap, but they were still included with all new machines because a lot of people still used them. They were finally deemed unnecessary when the majority of people finally stopped using them.

Apple is just trying to make you buy shit from their conveniently placed (built-in) shop by attempting to drill into our minds that Disks are obsolete and no longer used which is quite the opposite. I could see this little tactic a mile away when they announced all boxed software was being removed from their shops.

There are archival grade dvds, but they're way more expensive and I don't know how well they really hold up. Typical off the shelf dvds are only good for about 5 years. After that the chances of them slowly becoming unreadable increase dramatically. I wouldn't use them for long term backups if possible. Commercially produced dvds like they use for movies and cds for music last around 20 years before degradation starts to kick in.



Not everyone is aware of limits and throttling in many countries that can kick in after a few gigabytes per month. That can become an issue when balanced against software updates and new software downloads.


It varies by country/ISP.


In the case of the mini I'm guessing that the part itself and the lack of housing made enough of a difference for them to round down slightly, even when the overall cost of the mini has gone slightly upward over time. It used to start lower. When the unibody macs came out, wasn't that a $200 bump?


I don't think they will. There isn't a reason to do so if the machines will sell anyway. If anything they're probably annoyed that macs do not carry the margins of an ipad.


agreed

I still don't see this apparent "degradation" - especially in the time frame you've mentioned.
Again, I bring up PS1 games burned with a 2x Writer from 1996 that work flawlessly. There is no physical wear on the disk and they ready at full speed in all three of my PlayStations (original, 2 and 3).

Commercially produced CDs and DVDs are pressed like vinyl, not burned. So they will last for far more than 20 years. My family also has loads of CDs from the 1980s, knocking on 30 years old now for some of them (Thriller on CD was 1982 I believe) and they still work and are picked up by the laser instantly.

I'm not denying that they will eventually rot away, but I think it'll be a long time before that happens.

Everyone seems focused on how much space will be saved by dropping the Optical Drive.

Doesn't the rumour state that this "new MBP" will be more like the MBA i.e. thinner?

If this turns out to be the case, then any space "saved" by not including the ODD will go to make the unit thinner, lighter and increase battery life, not to add more features.

If it turns out that it has a HiDPI screen, that will probably necessitate more battery.

If it has dedicated graphics, that will necessitate more battery and cooling.

If it has a spinning HDD, that will necessitate more battery and cooling.

I think these rumours are on the wrong track. I think we will see a 15" addition to the MBA range not a replacement for the 15" MBP.

Of course this is just speculation.

There should be a podcast debate as to why Apple should or should not drop the optical drive. I would be very interested in hearing both sides.

About the only reasonable thing to argue is timing, it is hard to disagree with the slipping value of optical.

I expect them to offer a better value equation.

Note true at all.

And so it is with optical drives.

All Apple would be doing here is removing something of very limited value from inside the machine. There is no performance disadvantage to external CD drives but their is a huge disadvantage for HDDs and SSDs. More so with USB 3 the ports can supply more power to those external opticals.

That is just ignorant, if anything Apple is way behind the times here. The vast majority of the software I use comes off the net. That has been the case well before becoming a Mac user in 2008.

However when it does come time to buy software I by far prefer Mac App store. Mac App store vastly improves system maintenance for the average user. In my case I'm probably a more advanced user, but even here App Store is a significant advantage for me and likely many other users.

In any event I really don't think you will get far bad mouthing a feature very widely accepted by the Mac using community. The world changed to web distribution of software well before it was even a thought at Apple. Times change.

Highly likely the 13" pro will disappear. The only difference in the 13" pro is the faster CPU and the optical drive. Optical is gone on all, so there isn't much left to retain to distinguish it apart from the air.

I just hope the 15" model has a dedicated GPU in addition to the Intel HD.

And the longer battery life.
And the additional RAM option.
And the user-replaceable RAM.
And the higher capacity storage options.
And the potential for a dGPU once the ODD is removed.
And the additional ports.
And the potential for a HiDPI IPS display due to the larger battery and higher performance.

*nods.

Apple is Apple. They'll do what they must.

I see the usual x3 Pro and a probable x3 Air line up. We may well get a 15 inch. Er. Ok.

Hardly rocket science.

Macbook Pros may get slimmer. Er. Ok. About time, perhaps. But they weren't huge to begin with.

Given Apple's emphasis on moving away from the desktop one would expect laptops to arrive 1st given they form 75% of Mac sales. No big surprise.

...and the desktop iMac to trail in after. *(Diplomatic silence on the Mac Pro...)

Lemon Bon Bon.

I'm expecting it to be no more than 3.5nm thinner at its thickest point (so it can still take a 9.5mm 2.5" drive) and to be tapered like the MBA (but following the same angle so that at its thinnest edge at the front it's still thicker than the MBA).

I'm starting too a lot more IPS displays cropping for sale this year. I think I'd prefer a HiDPI display over IPS, but I hope that both are possible. If not, then at least one. That said, there are enough hints in Lion and Mountain Lion that make me think it will happen in the next release... but that could be emotionally fueled wishful thinking.

I think the Mac Pro is toast, but we have seen both the Mac Pro and Mac mini survive after long bouts of being ignored.


PS: Wild prediction: At the ML demo Apple will announce a change in accounting for Macs and will start offering OS X updates for free.

Sounds reasonable Re: tapering. I think it will take design cues from the Air which has been a hot seller. They do look amazing side on in an Apple store. Razor thin...looking.

HiDPI. Wets the appetite. If the retina is in the iPad...it seems doable in the Macbook Air 11 inch..? Will the HiDPI make the cut this round of releases? Or next?

Personally, I think last year was pretty evolutionary for many Apple releases. I'd like something big to put the boot into PC sales while Mac sales are climbing to unprecedented levels. Apple went all out for the screen on iPad. Hopefully, we can see an over due (in my view) boost to computer resolutions. Even TVs have caught up with computer resolutions more or less. Even with the sandbagging and let's get on with the next level of computer resolutions which have been static for some years now. This could be a key differentiator for Apple in the holy vs PC war.

*re Mac Pro. **Looks nervously. The 'pregnant' pause on the Mini a while back suggests hope. They have to refactor it's size and value. I think the artificial price point ABOVE the iMac doesn't help Pro sales. (The top end iMac vs low end Pro offers a stark value contrast. Some people hate the screen. I love it. I can't wait until I'm ready to upgrade my iMac so I can get my hands on that 27 inch screen...)

I think there should be duality. Buy a mini-tower for the same price as the entry iMac. But you sacrifice screen for GPU/CPU boost..to the top end iMac price range you get a top end single cpu tower. Again. You get more cpu/gpu power for the same price but forgo the screen.

(It seems like only yesterday that Jobs boasted of the price range and the gpu power of the old G3 blue and white towers. I guess the iMac has eaten Apple's tower lunch. But when your tower starts a whole 1k more than it used to at Job's return to Apple we can hardly expect sales of Apple towers to be soaring in unit sales...against the back drop of increased AIO power and the move away to laptops.)

Dual processor? The current Maxi tower above 2k seems fine. All dual processor.

For me, not difficult. But I'm not Apple, I guess.

Muses,

Lemon Bon Bon.

Mmm. Mountain Lion for free. That would really help make the Mountain Lion/iOS userbase to keep relative parity as Apple hybridises the development of them.

I didn't upgrade to Lion. (On Snow Leopard.) But I'll happily take Mountain Lion. I'm quite sold on the polish of the iOS eco system ideas making it across. For free? Be a knock out move.

Something else PC buyers will have to factor in when Mac vs PC'ing. :P

Lemon Bon Bon.