Apple files hint at re-engineered iMac and Mac Pro models, potentially without optical drives - Page 3

Excellent point...Seems obvious now...I thought Apple just liked extra thin things. But the more weight they can shave off the iMac the less avgas is used on the 747's getting them here from china. :)

build to order option!! Those that want it can have it! I'd rather have room for ssd drives!

They may even keep the current iMac with the ODD...and the newest iMac will be thinner sans the ODD. Rather like the MBP? Just say'n

It's just that I keep my MBP at home so much now with the other two devices in my possession. You get so much more for less money it finally makes sense. I predicted this might happen back in 2010 when the iPad came out, but I wasn't sure I'd be one to fall into that category.

Good problems to have! :)

 

I agree, the iPhone, a wifi iPad (7"), iCloud and a big screen ATV....we may just be able to get all that for the price of iMac. And if one can work it out so they don't need a full fledged computer...all the better. 

 

Hard to give up the desire for a beautiful iMac are your desk though! :)

 

L.A. has rolling blackouts at times. Is L.A. considered a "decent" place? :D

The problem with hard drives is that they can go bad sitting on the shelf.  You go to plug it in and - pfftt, nothing.  Not reliable long term storage.  SSD memory can be damaged by Cosmic Rays.  Current day optical is not very long lived either.  That leaves LTO tape which is archival, but prohibitively expensive.

 

Seems like Internet 2 and cloud storage is the way to go.

The Mac Pro has enough room to house a floppy disk. And yet it doesn't have one.

 

I don't think he's talking about a battery that lasts 7 hours. Just one that works for 15 minutes in a 'minimal use' mode. You know, brightness minimal, unused wifi/Blutooth shutdown, automatically stop playing media content, eject disks and other drives and tell the user he has 15 minutes before the computer will power off.

This is ridiculous.   I don't even like the fact that they're removing optical drives from the laptops, but at least in a laptop, there's a rationale:  to make them thinner/lighter or to be able to give more space to the battery.  There is no reason whatsoever to remove optical drives from the iMac or the MacPro.    Space is not an issue.    There are still plenty of reasons for some people to use optical drives (I use them constantly) and they're so inexpensive that it doesn't really add more than a few dollars to the price.

 

And don't tell me I can get an external drive.     Apple is anal about how their computers look, but it's okay to have another stupid box sitting on my table that could have been in the computer the whole time?   This is insanity.     If they don't want to include it in the base configuration, fine, but it needs to be an option.      

 

I was never paranoid about Apple, but this is about forcing people to use iTunes instead of listening/copying CDs or watching DVDs.    An ethical company would still give me the choice.      I could live with Apple not supporting Blu-ray, since if I buy a Blu-ray movie, I want to watch it on a big screen anyway, but I will be really pissed if they do go ahead and remove the optical drive from all their machines.    I do a lot of audio work and it's much more convenient for people to send me the source files on CD than it is for them to use DropBox or whatever.   The uncompressed files are simply too big.   

 

Apple is lucky that Wintel machines are so freaking bad because if they weren't, I would give thought to switching.   And that's after being a Mac user since the very first Mac and an Apple user since around 1979.    That combined with this bug laden release of Mountain Lion is really pissing me off!   I always said that Apple would never turn into Microsoft, but it sure seems to be happening.  

Windows is currently no different that Apple on this.  Even in Windows 7 you must use third party software to watch (commercial) BluRay.  There is finally third party software on the mac that WORKS called "Mac BluRay Player".  The only caveat is that it needs you have to have an internet connection for it to get the initial key to decode it.  I use this and Avatar looks amazing on my Mac.  It's about time that some developer has stepped up.  But, to leave no option for an internal optical drive on the pro might be a mistake.  It's not just about Watching DVD's on a pro machine,  but it's about producing.  While there is still a market for BluRay, Final Cut X does offer the option to author a BluRay as does toast etc..

 

Where BluRay is concerned, Apple has taken a lot of steps in the direction to have hardware compliancy with BluRay standards because these are the same standards set upon iTunes media by the movie studios.  For example all of Apple's current monitors are now HDCP compliant as Mini Display Port and even Thurnderbolt support this standard.  Apple may still do a 180 and write the own software player.  They could sell it as an option in the Mac Store so that those people wanting to pay more money for a software player could do it.  This way if you want to play a BluRay on it, you can, but you don't have too buy the player and pay extra if you don't wan it.  Just my 2 cents.

It'll probably become a BTO option. Desktop systems don't need optical drives anymore unless the system itself is being used to burn media. Apple doesn't sell BD units, and DVD units are no longer standard on anything but the cheapest Windows machines.

 

Hope? Go get an internal one now:

http://fastmac.com/slim_bluray.php

If its technically feasible i would prefer Apple to do some design innovation and use the space available by removing the Superdrive, in providing an ultra efficient active cooling system which will be able to cool down a desktop class Graphics processor. so the new iMac could have a desktop class graphics instead of the current Mobile version which has half the performance of its desktop class GPU. Apple don't have to rely on the stock Desktop GPU design. They can come up with a more space efficient design cooled by the state of the art cooling system designed into the space available by getting rid of the Superdrive.

 

If Apple can manage to include a desktop class GPU in the iMac, they will be a winner hands down.

Because those transcoded movie files take up hard disk space.

Scratch a disc, lose one movie. Scratch a disk, lose all your movies. Woo-hoo/

Steve Jobs made millions on Disney movies on disc so I would doubt he hates optical drives. I am sure he loved optical drives, but he loved getting people to switch to downloads so they could buy the movies again.

Problem is at first I got a 500GB HD for $100, then it ran out of space and I spent another $100 for 1TB HD. Then another $100 for a 2TB HD. Spending a lot just to consolidate movies that I already own.

This forum software really needs to enable us to block not just regular users but also a Global Moderator. Just saying. I've had about enough of this loose cannon.

Yes, definitely my fault if I go the download route. But I just buy the disc and rip to the HD. The disc is the backup and I do not have to pay for the extra HD.

No, I would rather have an HD in my iPhone. So by does the question of wanting an optical drive on my iPhone really apply to whether I want it on my iMac? I mean optical drive won't fit in my pocket protector but I kinda still want it.

Edited by pt123 - 8/9/12 at 10:13pm

That is fine for Apple to remove their optical drive, just as long as people don't whine about internet usage caps. It comes with the territory (downloads).

I guess everyone glossed over the exciting innovation occurring (or soon to occur) with Apple's keyboards. I, for one, am titillated.

If you really believe what you're saying, then I have a bridge I want to sell you.

 

Bingo.  Casual users can occasionally plug in their Apple USB Superdrive.  Families can share a SuperDrive on an older Mac with one built-in.

 

Oh, and for the "pro" whiners who claim they need an internal drive, do you really want to burn out that internal drive?

It's not user-replaceable, on either the iMac or older MacBook Pro.  Costs a whole lot more than $79 to replace.

 

Trust me.  I know.

OK. On a related note, why is there nothing in iOS6 so far that points to 16:9 screen? Or did I miss it?

I'm an old fart and I love hard, physical copies of my media so part of me is dismayed but another part of me sees this as the future of computing - no odd's & everything pretty much available via digital download. Pretty exciting time to be sure. Once again Apple is leading the way while the others follow and play catch-up.

With a bit of luck this re-design to the iMac might fix the glaring design flaw of every new shaped model.

It's not much to ask is it. Sort out your LCD panels and seal them Apple. I think we'll hit over 200 iMac's going back to Apple this year for new screens and glass. A pathetic embarrassment is all the iMac currently is.

If you can't use it without the screen picking up dust waves in it and staining the screen. What's the point? You've only had a few years Apple. You have changed enough of the screens and know about the issue.

For Christ sake sort it out!! It cannot be that difficult. I'd be tempted to get a new one, but I won't pay for something so obviously flawed. There a waste of money.

Until then I will stick to black marking the iMac as flawed and advise people to stay away from it. Especially as a personal purchase. Always buy the APP as well. You'll need it.

There is no way IN HELL that the Mac Pro is losing it's optical drive unless they replace it with something like another PCI bay or just put another SSD there.

I could understand it if they remove the DvD from the imac's, but since the MacPro is a tower I think it should keep the drive. 

 

I agree that imacs picking up dust from the inside of the glass is a design flaw.  My 2009 imac broke 2 times (GPU and HD) and both times the Apple tech were nice to completly clean up the inside side of the glass and the screen. If they wouldnt the glass would now be permanently stain from the inside. In fact a small part the screen is a bit stain despite the cleaning, but it doesnt show up when the screen is on.

 

 

The tech told me that after some time the dust cooks on the screen and stain it. Imo if you have imacs and the apple care you may ask tech support if they can do a clean up free of charge.

Edited by herbapou - 8/10/12 at 5:37am

Not to mention the requirement to burn a full disc at once to get the value out of it, the slow burn times and possibility of failure. Even at the fastest DL speeds (8x), a 50GB Blu-Ray disc will take over 30 minutes to burn and 30 minutes to verify and you'd be lucky to get discs and a burner that runs at 8x. Any failure can be detected during that hour of burn time.

Meanwhile a HDD takes 15 minutes to copy 50GB and an SSD can take as little as 2 minutes.

For cases like video authoring and distribution, optical makes sense and that was the original intention for it - it used to be bundled with the iMac DV machine for iMovie authoring.

For home users, authoring online is more convenient now. Not necessarily Youtube but Kodak, Flickr, Facebook etc.
For personal data backups, HDDs and SSDs are much less frustrating and much faster.
For everything else, external drives are better because you can buy upgrades as new drives become available. If Apple shipped a Blu-Ray drive with the iMac, it would be 4x slot loading and cost $200-300 if you're lucky. You can get a USB 3 12x burner on Amazon for $140.

He was also a member of the Bu-Ray board:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/03/10Blu-ray-Disc-Association-Welcomes-Apple-to-Its-Board-of-Directors.html

but if it's not a viable option, none of that matters. Times change and consumer habits change.

The 5.25" bay takes up a lot of space and adds to the internal cabling mess. External optical drives are the better option as Apple isn't adding costs to users who don't need them. I think people would be happier the Mac Pro drops in price by at least $100.

 

 

I agree I use both the DVD player and burner on my desk top Mac. Further, I use the CD player. I think the move would be bad unless Apple offered an updated current model. 

 

Internal cabling mess? I haven't looked inside a Mac Pro for a few months, but as I recall, "Mac Pro" and "cabling mess" are contradictory terms. I also don't think $100 matters a bit to someone buying a Mac Pro. On the other hand, as long as you can tuck your own into the case, it hardly matters.

 

But, although I don't use the optical drive on my iMac that often, I'd prefer that it be there for my occasional use, even with the extra cost, than to have to hook up an external drive. The whole point of the iMac is not to have to have cables running all over the place.

 

And, I don't really think the optical drive is at all analogous to the floppy drive. Floppy drives were small, files were getting larger, to the point where the floppy drive was becoming somewhat useless. Optical disks can still hold a significant amount of data, even by today's standards, and, unlike floppy disks, they have uses that go beyond personal data storage. While it makes sense to remove them from laptops, for weight and battery considerations, I think there are still quite a few years ahead where a good number of people will want to pop an optical disk into their computers to rip or watch it, and they'd be happier not having it as an external device.

 

If it could be made a BTO option, that would be fine, but I think the optical drive, as a desirable internal device for desktop systems, still has about 5 years of life left in it.