The real "need" for an optical drive is still software installs. Hopefully we get the Mac version of the Application store soon so that this becomes irrelevant. That or maybe they will start shipping software on USB drives...
The real "need" for an optical drive is still software installs. Hopefully we get the Mac version of the Application store soon so that this becomes irrelevant. That or maybe they will start shipping software on USB drives...
some apps and games are to big to be download only and with ISP caps people will want a disk. also USB drive cost more then cd's / dvd's.
The real "need" for an optical drive is still software installs. Hopefully we get the Mac version of the Application store soon so that this becomes irrelevant. That or maybe they will start shipping software on USB drives...
An external optical disk is satisfactory for software installation. For many users, remote disk is satisfactory for software installations. Software installation does not justify burdening a laptop with an internal optical disk.
An external optical disk is satisfactory for software installation. For many users, remote disk is satisfactory for software installations. Software installation does not justify burdening a laptop with an internal optical disk.
Yes, that is why users without access to a second computer will need an external optical drive to install software from time to time.
And you don't think that having to buy another $100 item just to install software or import a CD might send more than a few potential users right back to windows?
I don't know... I kinda like that Apple makes top-end computers. (As a complete package... I realize the individual parts are rarely the bleeding edge of technology.)
If I had the $$, I'd drive an Aston Martin too!... And not be upset that they left out the cupholders that Chevy and VW include as standard equipment.
Unless Apple's going to start letting everyone distribute their work on the iTunes Music Store, we still need cheap burnable media for content delivery (not just software but daily work). Also, it sure would be nice to back up those hundreds of thousands of dollars in movie and television purchases onto a nearly-indestructible optical disc; a Blu-Ray burner would be ideal for such a scenario.
The more stuff we purchase and download from the internet, the more we need failsafe backups. As far as I'm concerned people need to be able to burn content to disc now more than ever, unless Apple's going to start letting people redownload their purchases for free if they have a drive failure.
Regarding software distribution, everytime a new version of the Adobe Creative Suite or Apple's Final Cut Studio is released it seems to be several GB's larger than the last version. Final Cut Studio takes something like 40GB now, and I imagine the next version will be even larger. The same can be said for games; the faster graphics cards and processors get the larger textures and sound files become. Movies as well. A 250GB hard drive (the size Apple gives you for $2k) is only good for five high definition games or movies. So how about we stick with delivering content on optical media, so the user doesn't have to figure out where to safely store all that data?
No one has said we need to get rid of optical drives!... Just wondering why we need to lug them around everywhere we take our laptop, when we only use the drive occasionally and an EXTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE sitting on our desk at home/office/kitchen/wherever would work just fine.
Right now our only choice is to make huge sacrifices in performance and buy a MacBook Air. (for $500 more than a more-powerful MacBook)
No one has said we need to get rid of optical drives!... Just wondering why we need to lug them around everywhere we take our laptop, when we only use the drive occasionally and an EXTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE sitting on our desk at home/office/kitchen/wherever would work just fine.
Right now our only choice is to make huge sacrifices in performance and buy a MacBook Air. (for $500 more than a more-powerful MacBook)
If the external optical drive still came with the laptop sure, but knowing Apple they'd charge you an extra $100 for the optical drive, keep the price of the laptop as high as they are now, and remove another USB port while they're at it.
No one has said we need to get rid of optical drives!... Just wondering why we need to lug them around everywhere we take our laptop, when we only use the drive occasionally and an EXTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE sitting on our desk at home/office/kitchen/wherever would work just fine.
Which will cost more because it's another enclosure that needs to be made, as well as adapter & power circuit board. The incremental cost of keeping the notebook slightly larger isn't near the cost of another enclosure.
Frankly, I don't see how the size and weight is such a big deal, optical drives are very thin and light these days.
I agree with some of you that, I never really use the optical drive, aside from software installs and the occasional movie, or music ripping. But this could easily be solved by an external drive.
Someone before me said it; "Optical media is dying but isn't dead yet."
I believe Macs (and others) will be optical free within the next 2-3years, however there is a few things that have to happen for that to become a reality.
1- Internet needs to become more ubiquitous. With WiMax/3g becoming more reliable, this allows for webapps to become easily accessible in more places.
2- WebApps need to become more stable and reliable.
3- Apple needs to develop an App Store for macs. I think it should be separate from iTunes, and apple needs to lay off a little on what they filter through. Obviously filter out the big ones, malicious software, porn, etc. But encourage competition, who cares if i have two calculators on my iPhone. Separating the Mac App Store from iTunes would make it easier on Windows customers who would only see it and not enjoy it in itunes (on second thought that could help drive mac sales.)
4-Optical Drives will always be a necessity to someone so make an external one. Cheap.
Also, I dont see Optical drives coming out of desktops anytime soon.
I don't know... I kinda like that Apple makes top-end computers. (As a complete package... I realize the individual parts are rarely the bleeding edge of technology.)
If I had the $$, I'd drive an Aston Martin too!... And not be upset that they left out the cupholders that Chevy and VW include as standard equipment.
Would you be upset if you paid $250k for that aston martin, and they offered the option for cupholders for an additional $20 ? I think with premium products, something that is useful but not burdensome should always be added for free. It pisses me off that Apple suddenly started charging people for the freaking remotes for their laptops, which since they started making them have been free... WTF?
Would you be upset if you paid $250k for that aston martin, and they offered the option for cupholders for an additional $20 ? I think with premium products, something that is useful but not burdensome should always be added for free. It pisses me off that Apple suddenly started charging people for the freaking remotes for their laptops, which since they started making them have been free... WTF?
I agree with some of you that, I never really use the optical drive, aside from software installs and the occasional movie, or music ripping. But this could easily be solved by an external drive.
Someone before me said it; "Optical media is dying but isn't dead yet."
I believe Macs (and others) will be optical free within the next 2-3years, however there is a few things that have to happen for that to become a reality.
1- Internet needs to become more ubiquitous. With WiMax/3g becoming more reliable, this allows for webapps to become easily accessible in more places.
2- WebApps need to become more stable and reliable.
3- Apple needs to develop an App Store for macs. I think it should be separate from iTunes, and apple needs to lay off a little on what they filter through. Obviously filter out the big ones, malicious software, porn, etc. But encourage competition, who cares if i have two calculators on my iPhone. Separating the Mac App Store from iTunes would make it easier on Windows customers who would only see it and not enjoy it in itunes (on second thought that could help drive mac sales.)
4-Optical Drives will always be a necessity to someone so make an external one. Cheap.
Also, I dont see Optical drives coming out of desktops anytime soon.
This is one area where it gets a little tricky. If Apple gets rid of optical drives, even with a $99 external option, before the market is ready it could have a very negative impact on sales. This is one area where Apple may want to play it safe. Then again, Apple is more bold than smart.
One thing I noticed during the time that floppies were being discontinued and what I think was the biggest part of the problem was that Apple didn't give us anything to get the same functionality.
We still don't have the functionality that a floppy offers built-in on any Mac.
We have no replaceable media that slots into a Mac and acts like a hard drive - Mac superdrives don't support DVD-RAM. USB pens could be an exception here but they aren't as cheap as floppies were. You do have to factor in price vs storage capacity but optical discs alone do not offer a good way to transfer files from one computer to another.
You do get RW discs but they are nowhere near as convenient to use as read/write media as you have to write the disc at once and then erase to use it again. They are also limited to 4.4GB standard. Even assuming you have a DL disc, what do you do if you need to transfer a 20GB HDV capture from one computer to another?
Normally I use either Gig-E or an external hard drive. In the scenario that the computers are separated, only an external hard drive is left.
External drives can be quite large though if you don't have pocket ones.
A 32GB SD card by contrast is about the size of the tip of your thumb. Cost and speed are the big problems with flash cards of course.
Now I would say that it's not a huge problem that flash drives are external on Macs because the need to transfer large amounts of data is fairly infrequent.
I think the same applies to optical discs though. In an office, I'd rather buy one external drive at $99 than 10 internal drives at whatever Apple charge. Even if it's $50 each (which I don't think it is given that Apple charge $100 for a superdrive in a Mac Pro), it's still $500 vs $99.
Some Macs had combo drives (Mini still does) and it's so frustrating being stuck with older technology because those drives actually won't get used if you only burn DVDs but they had to be paid for. You have to use an external with them anyway. When we get Blu-Ray cheap enough, will we wait for Apple to make a move and then use very overpriced slot-loading Blu-Ray drives?
Of course not, just buy the base options (i.e no Apple Blu-Ray option) and then buy 3rd party upgrades. A desktop sized Blu-Ray is faster than anything Apple will offer in laptop form or in the Mini and iMac and is about half the price. I bought a superdrive on my first Mini at home and it was terrible in performance and disc compatibility. My next Mini, I got the base option and I use an external tray-loading burner and it burns and copies discs in half the time. It's quieter, cheaper to replace, more compatible with discs and supports DVD-Ram.
I do like having a spare drive as backup but I barely use the internal. My external isn't used that much either. I burn a DVD backup once every couple of weeks and I keep a copy on an external 500GB hard drive for frequent access.
Due to the Mini form factor, I know that the optical drive makes access to the hard drive more difficult. Without it, open up the top and the hard drive is right there. They could even make the Ram more easily accessible as you don't have to flip over the entire top half of the machine. Just flip the HD up.
Let's say that Apple do take on Blu-Ray and manage to get up to 2x in their consumer machines. What's going to happen when they have 8x slot-loading Blu-Ray? You will either buy a new machine or buy an external anyway. At least if you had an external in the first place, you could sell it and upgrade.
Another point about internal optical drives is if the drive hangs, your computer does too waiting for it to finish. With an external, you just unplug it and your OS will free itself up. This has saved me a reboot on a few occasions. Not a big issue but it's another thing externals are better for.
Nobody thought omitting the floppy drive was a smart move in the original iMac ...
This is a bit different as the CD had replaced the floppy for software. They had also mostly been replaced by zip drives in the rewritable media department. This would be like replacing the floppy before the CD-ROM had been invented. With digital downloads not yet available, they'd had to buy an external device just to install software. You'd also need a high capacity pen drive or something to upgrade the OS. The lack of an optical drive is fine for the business traveler who would buy the MBA, but leaving it out on the other models would absolutely kill Mac sales.
Comments
The real "need" for an optical drive is still software installs. Hopefully we get the Mac version of the Application store soon so that this becomes irrelevant. That or maybe they will start shipping software on USB drives...
some apps and games are to big to be download only and with ISP caps people will want a disk. also USB drive cost more then cd's / dvd's.
The real "need" for an optical drive is still software installs. Hopefully we get the Mac version of the Application store soon so that this becomes irrelevant. That or maybe they will start shipping software on USB drives...
An external optical disk is satisfactory for software installation. For many users, remote disk is satisfactory for software installations. Software installation does not justify burdening a laptop with an internal optical disk.
An external optical disk is satisfactory for software installation. For many users, remote disk is satisfactory for software installations. Software installation does not justify burdening a laptop with an internal optical disk.
Remote disk requires a second computer.
Remote disk requires a second computer.
Yes, that is why users without access to a second computer will need an external optical drive to install software from time to time.
Yes, that is why users without access to a second computer will need an external optical drive to install software from time to time.
And you don't think that having to buy another $100 item just to install software or import a CD might send more than a few potential users right back to windows?
Good riddance?
They take there money with them. Listening to you and your kind is what kept Apple in the red for so long.
If I had the $$, I'd drive an Aston Martin too!... And not be upset that they left out the cupholders that Chevy and VW include as standard equipment.
The more stuff we purchase and download from the internet, the more we need failsafe backups. As far as I'm concerned people need to be able to burn content to disc now more than ever, unless Apple's going to start letting people redownload their purchases for free if they have a drive failure.
Regarding software distribution, everytime a new version of the Adobe Creative Suite or Apple's Final Cut Studio is released it seems to be several GB's larger than the last version. Final Cut Studio takes something like 40GB now, and I imagine the next version will be even larger. The same can be said for games; the faster graphics cards and processors get the larger textures and sound files become. Movies as well. A 250GB hard drive (the size Apple gives you for $2k) is only good for five high definition games or movies. So how about we stick with delivering content on optical media, so the user doesn't have to figure out where to safely store all that data?
No one has said we need to get rid of optical drives!... Just wondering why we need to lug them around everywhere we take our laptop, when we only use the drive occasionally and an EXTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE sitting on our desk at home/office/kitchen/wherever would work just fine.
Right now our only choice is to make huge sacrifices in performance and buy a MacBook Air. (for $500 more than a more-powerful MacBook)
Cory Bauer, et al. ...
No one has said we need to get rid of optical drives!... Just wondering why we need to lug them around everywhere we take our laptop, when we only use the drive occasionally and an EXTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE sitting on our desk at home/office/kitchen/wherever would work just fine.
Right now our only choice is to make huge sacrifices in performance and buy a MacBook Air. (for $500 more than a more-powerful MacBook)
If the external optical drive still came with the laptop sure, but knowing Apple they'd charge you an extra $100 for the optical drive, keep the price of the laptop as high as they are now, and remove another USB port while they're at it.
Cory Bauer, et al. ...
No one has said we need to get rid of optical drives!... Just wondering why we need to lug them around everywhere we take our laptop, when we only use the drive occasionally and an EXTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE sitting on our desk at home/office/kitchen/wherever would work just fine.
Which will cost more because it's another enclosure that needs to be made, as well as adapter & power circuit board. The incremental cost of keeping the notebook slightly larger isn't near the cost of another enclosure.
Frankly, I don't see how the size and weight is such a big deal, optical drives are very thin and light these days.
Someone before me said it; "Optical media is dying but isn't dead yet."
I believe Macs (and others) will be optical free within the next 2-3years, however there is a few things that have to happen for that to become a reality.
1- Internet needs to become more ubiquitous. With WiMax/3g becoming more reliable, this allows for webapps to become easily accessible in more places.
2- WebApps need to become more stable and reliable.
3- Apple needs to develop an App Store for macs. I think it should be separate from iTunes, and apple needs to lay off a little on what they filter through. Obviously filter out the big ones, malicious software, porn, etc. But encourage competition, who cares if i have two calculators on my iPhone. Separating the Mac App Store from iTunes would make it easier on Windows customers who would only see it and not enjoy it in itunes (on second thought that could help drive mac sales.)
4-Optical Drives will always be a necessity to someone so make an external one. Cheap.
Also, I dont see Optical drives coming out of desktops anytime soon.
I don't know... I kinda like that Apple makes top-end computers. (As a complete package... I realize the individual parts are rarely the bleeding edge of technology.)
If I had the $$, I'd drive an Aston Martin too!... And not be upset that they left out the cupholders that Chevy and VW include as standard equipment.
Would you be upset if you paid $250k for that aston martin, and they offered the option for cupholders for an additional $20 ? I think with premium products, something that is useful but not burdensome should always be added for free. It pisses me off that Apple suddenly started charging people for the freaking remotes for their laptops, which since they started making them have been free... WTF?
Would you be upset if you paid $250k for that aston martin, and they offered the option for cupholders for an additional $20 ? I think with premium products, something that is useful but not burdensome should always be added for free. It pisses me off that Apple suddenly started charging people for the freaking remotes for their laptops, which since they started making them have been free... WTF?
+++++
I agree with some of you that, I never really use the optical drive, aside from software installs and the occasional movie, or music ripping. But this could easily be solved by an external drive.
Someone before me said it; "Optical media is dying but isn't dead yet."
I believe Macs (and others) will be optical free within the next 2-3years, however there is a few things that have to happen for that to become a reality.
1- Internet needs to become more ubiquitous. With WiMax/3g becoming more reliable, this allows for webapps to become easily accessible in more places.
2- WebApps need to become more stable and reliable.
3- Apple needs to develop an App Store for macs. I think it should be separate from iTunes, and apple needs to lay off a little on what they filter through. Obviously filter out the big ones, malicious software, porn, etc. But encourage competition, who cares if i have two calculators on my iPhone. Separating the Mac App Store from iTunes would make it easier on Windows customers who would only see it and not enjoy it in itunes (on second thought that could help drive mac sales.)
4-Optical Drives will always be a necessity to someone so make an external one. Cheap.
Also, I dont see Optical drives coming out of desktops anytime soon.
This is one area where it gets a little tricky. If Apple gets rid of optical drives, even with a $99 external option, before the market is ready it could have a very negative impact on sales. This is one area where Apple may want to play it safe. Then again, Apple is more bold than smart.
We still don't have the functionality that a floppy offers built-in on any Mac.
We have no replaceable media that slots into a Mac and acts like a hard drive - Mac superdrives don't support DVD-RAM. USB pens could be an exception here but they aren't as cheap as floppies were. You do have to factor in price vs storage capacity but optical discs alone do not offer a good way to transfer files from one computer to another.
You do get RW discs but they are nowhere near as convenient to use as read/write media as you have to write the disc at once and then erase to use it again. They are also limited to 4.4GB standard. Even assuming you have a DL disc, what do you do if you need to transfer a 20GB HDV capture from one computer to another?
Normally I use either Gig-E or an external hard drive. In the scenario that the computers are separated, only an external hard drive is left.
External drives can be quite large though if you don't have pocket ones.
A 32GB SD card by contrast is about the size of the tip of your thumb. Cost and speed are the big problems with flash cards of course.
Now I would say that it's not a huge problem that flash drives are external on Macs because the need to transfer large amounts of data is fairly infrequent.
I think the same applies to optical discs though. In an office, I'd rather buy one external drive at $99 than 10 internal drives at whatever Apple charge. Even if it's $50 each (which I don't think it is given that Apple charge $100 for a superdrive in a Mac Pro), it's still $500 vs $99.
Some Macs had combo drives (Mini still does) and it's so frustrating being stuck with older technology because those drives actually won't get used if you only burn DVDs but they had to be paid for. You have to use an external with them anyway. When we get Blu-Ray cheap enough, will we wait for Apple to make a move and then use very overpriced slot-loading Blu-Ray drives?
Of course not, just buy the base options (i.e no Apple Blu-Ray option) and then buy 3rd party upgrades. A desktop sized Blu-Ray is faster than anything Apple will offer in laptop form or in the Mini and iMac and is about half the price. I bought a superdrive on my first Mini at home and it was terrible in performance and disc compatibility. My next Mini, I got the base option and I use an external tray-loading burner and it burns and copies discs in half the time. It's quieter, cheaper to replace, more compatible with discs and supports DVD-Ram.
I do like having a spare drive as backup but I barely use the internal. My external isn't used that much either. I burn a DVD backup once every couple of weeks and I keep a copy on an external 500GB hard drive for frequent access.
Due to the Mini form factor, I know that the optical drive makes access to the hard drive more difficult. Without it, open up the top and the hard drive is right there. They could even make the Ram more easily accessible as you don't have to flip over the entire top half of the machine. Just flip the HD up.
Let's say that Apple do take on Blu-Ray and manage to get up to 2x in their consumer machines. What's going to happen when they have 8x slot-loading Blu-Ray? You will either buy a new machine or buy an external anyway. At least if you had an external in the first place, you could sell it and upgrade.
Another point about internal optical drives is if the drive hangs, your computer does too waiting for it to finish. With an external, you just unplug it and your OS will free itself up. This has saved me a reboot on a few occasions. Not a big issue but it's another thing externals are better for.
Nobody thought omitting the floppy drive was a smart move in the original iMac ...
This is a bit different as the CD had replaced the floppy for software. They had also mostly been replaced by zip drives in the rewritable media department. This would be like replacing the floppy before the CD-ROM had been invented. With digital downloads not yet available, they'd had to buy an external device just to install software. You'd also need a high capacity pen drive or something to upgrade the OS. The lack of an optical drive is fine for the business traveler who would buy the MBA, but leaving it out on the other models would absolutely kill Mac sales.