My mouth waters at what could replace that space hog optical drive. More drive bays or more external port expansion. 3G and LTO hardware or more space for internal components for better heat dissipation.
I envy your optimism, but if we take the Air as a clue... no optical drive will mean: less ports, non-removable battery, a slow 1.8" HD, but thin... As much as I hate optical drives, if Apple wanted to give us good connectivity options, all laptops would at least have an ExpressCard slot (Sony and IBM can fit these into 10" and 12" sub-notebooks, Sony even together with a BD drive) and/or FW, iMacs would at least have an ExpressCard slot and/or eSATA and the Mini would have a full HDMI-out including audio instead of DVI + Mini-DP. Seems Apple hates ports even more than we hate the Superdrives.
Microsoft was sued for this because it exhibited monopolistic behavior.
I see nothing wrong with what they are doing. MS was not sued for having a monopoly, I don't even if you can exhibit such a behavior. You either a monopoly or you are not one. They were sued for tactics of antitrust where they abused their monopoly position. I see no way that Apple has a monopoly that they are abusing by adding an export option to YouTube.
I envy your optimism, but if we take the Air as a clue... no optical drive will mean: less ports, non-removable battery, a slow 1.8" HD, but thin... As much as I hate optical drives, if Apple wanted to give us good connectivity options, all laptops would at least have an ExpressCard slot (Sony and IBM can fit these into 10" and 12" sub-notebooks, Sony even together with a BD drive) and/or FW, iMacs would at least have an ExpressCard slot and/or eSATA and the Mini would have a full HDMI-out including audio instead of DVI + Mini-DP. Seems Apple hates ports even more than we hate the Superdrives.
The reason the MBA has no optical drive, an ULV CPU, and 1.8" HDD is because the design started with thin. A 9.5mm optical drive, standard C2D CPU with proper cooling, and a 2.5" HDD which is two platters and 9.5mm thick will not fit. The lack of ports is because they tapered it a point that required a hatch. This enhances the thin look and increases the rigidity, but it doesn't appeal to the average consumer, but it wasn't supposed to.
What I and hmurchison are proposing is removing the optical drive to get back that entire side for ports and and all that extra "footprint" space currently used by the optical drive. We are not suggesting that you need to then make it thinner.
The reason the MBA has no optical drive, an ULV CPU, and 1.8" HDD is because the design started with thin.
...
What I and hmurchison are proposing is removing the optical drive to get back that entire side for ports and and all that extra "footprint" space currently used by the optical drive. We are not suggesting that you need to then make it thinner.
??? I did understand that perfectly well. I just said that Apple has never really added ports and their focus is to make everything thinner all the time. Was the white iMac too thick for anybody? Instead of maybe adding a second HD or an ExpressCard slot or at least eSATA, what did they do? Make it thinner. Was the most frequent complaint about the plastic MacBooks that they were too thick? No; people hated cracking cases, discoloration, poor panels. Apple's solution: thinner, less ports. I simply do not see any reason to believe that Apple would give us more ports, if they would remove the SuperDrive from the MacBook (Pro). They would rather shave off 3 mm in thickness and taper both sides than do anything people are asking for.
??? I did understand that perfectly well. I just said that Apple has never really added ports and their focus is to make everything thinner all the time.
The last iMac and Mac Mini added USB ports, the Mac Mini got dual video out and FW800.
Quote:
Instead of maybe adding a second HD or an ExpressCard slot or at least eSATA, what did they do? Make it thinner.
The assumption that they made it thinner instead of adding these things is either poor wording or poor logic. I don't see much use for EC on a desktop machine and Apple hasn't supported eSATA in any machine, not even the Mac Pro. A 2nd HDD would be nice for you and me for RAIDing or even Time Machine, but Apple isn't marketing it toward that crowd.
Quote:
I simply do not see any reason to believe that Apple would give us more ports, if they would remove the SuperDrive from the MacBook (Pro). They would rather shave off 3 mm in thickness and taper both sides than do anything people are asking for.
It seems that you think that everything that took place in the MBA's design stemmed from the removal of the optical drive. I think Apple set out to make an ultra-light portable with a good keyboard and display for the business person. I don't think removing the optical drive means that they then have to use a 1.8" single platter HDD and then taper the sides to have no ports. they could taper the sides in the MB and MBP, but they don't. They don't like ports on the back or the front and their is no room on the left and right side with the current design, which seems pretty obvious as to why FW400 had to go. I think when Apple moves the rest of the notebooks to same non-user replaceable battery that lasts extra long that we'll get some more ports. Another USB and FW800, even on the MB (just a speculative hunch).
Apple can't go DVD drive forever, eventually they're going to have to remove it altogether or jump on board with Blu-ray, which currently, by all searching I can do, does not exist in 9.5mm drives and is still cost prohibitive for 12.5mm drives.
I agree with you SOOOO much! Please, if anyone related to Apple are reading this; please forward the urgent need of a better application for us with 100k+ songs. The sluggishness of the current one is barely usable.
Are you kidding? Do you realize that 100,000 songs represents listening to your music library 24/7 for about an entire year without repeating a song?!!?
You could also buy an exotic car or a small home for that amount of $$!
The last iMac and Mac Mini added USB ports, the Mac Mini got dual video out and FW800.
True, but the iMac dropped one FireWire port in exchange and the Mini FW800 port was only in exchange for the FW400 (it is still a useful addition, but not really "adding ports"). No idea how many people will run a Mini with two monitors (and how many of those will buy a 900 USD Cinema Display for a 600 USD computer), but I am sure quite a few will connect it to a TV set, so HDMI would have replaced two cables plus the required adapters. Personally, I would have found that more useful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
The assumption that they made it thinner instead of adding these things is either poor wording or poor logic. I don't see much use for EC on a desktop machine and Apple hasn't supported eSATA in any machine, not even the Mac Pro. A 2nd HDD would be nice for you and me for RAIDing or even Time Machine, but Apple isn't marketing it toward that crowd.
Well, if you spend something like 3.4k for a top end iMac (with AppleCare, max. RAM and GPU upgrade), it would be nice to be able to add some USB 3.0 or FW3200 ports next year; an ExpressCard slot would allow that. Without it you are stuck with the existing connectivity forever. The iMac is a pretty powerful machine, it would be absolutely sufficient to e.g. cut pro video formats (a Mac Pro is not at all required for that) if there was an option for faster disk I/O. A MacBook Pro for 2k can do it, PCs costing significantly less than 1k can do it...
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
It seems that you think that everything that took place in the MBA's design stemmed from the removal of the optical drive. I think Apple set out to make an ultra-light portable with a good keyboard and display for the business person. I don't think removing the optical drive means that they then have to use a 1.8" single platter HDD and then taper the sides to have no ports. they could taper the sides in the MB and MBP, but they don't. They don't like ports on the back or the front and their is no room on the left and right side with the current design, which seems pretty obvious as to why FW400 had to go. I think when Apple moves the rest of the notebooks to same non-user replaceable battery that lasts extra long that we'll get some more ports. Another USB and FW800, even on the MB (just a speculative hunch).
Apple can't go DVD drive forever, eventually they're going to have to remove it altogether or jump on board with Blu-ray, which currently, by all searching I can do, does not exist in 9.5mm drives and is still cost prohibitive for 12.5mm drives.
I do not think that "everything that took place in the MBA's design stemmed from the removal of the optical drive" ... I used the MBA as an example for Apple having no intentions to add ports or functionality, even if they save space (e.g. by removing the optical drive). (The MBA may be a bad example, as it is targeting a very special group of users, but everybody I know having one loves the design, but has no intentions to buy one again. It is simply too limited for most people.) There was no real need to make the MacBook thinner though. Battery life is not great, quite a few people have invested in Firewire devices or even depend on them, etc. Apple said "a PC is not cheap, if it does not do what you want"... well.
I understand that they do not want to have ports on the front/back, but I have not heard one single person preferring the new port layout on the MacBook Pro either. Having the optical drive in the front and ports on both sides was a lot more useful; most travel mice do not even have a long enough cable to work with the current layout (if one is right-handed). But given the myriad of adapters you need for each single Mac today, an USB extension cord more or less is certainly negligible.
I hope you are right about the return of the FW port on the MB, having at least one usable machine smaller than 15" would certainly be nice. I do not need an optical drive at all, and I see no sign of Apple supporting BD (even if there would be any 9.5 mm models). BDs are useless for storage and I need no 1080p movies on a 13-17" screen either. I am all for removing the optical drive, if they add connectivity. I just do not see it happening. They may enlarge the battery and reshape the machine to look slimmer, but that may be it.
A bit off topic, but I if the next MB and MBP have a non-user replaceable battery we may see more ports added to them. Like an additional USB and a FW800 because they could build farther down the sides if they aren't trying to make it look clean and simple when you pop the cover. Here's hoping.
I can't remember when was the last time I used my DVD drive, maybe few months back to perform permissions checks. However, If I had a choice I would replace it with another user accessible and replaceable HDD.
The question is will Snow Leopard built-in support for Twitter? Get with it, people!
Mmm.... no video on Twitter... so, nice try.
You didn't "get" my attempt at humor. I was trying to poke fun at the fact that in the recent past, YouTube had a lot of buzz, but now the hottest thing is Twitter. The joke was why should Apple make its next OS support a past fad when they should make it support the latest one. But, if you have to explain your own jokes, they mustn't be so damned funny!
Next time I try to make a funny, I will bracket it with many emoticons like , and so it will be clear that it may not be a technical comment that requires a technical rebuttal.
While I agree that iTunes needs a complete re-write and a complete re-think as well, it's not sluggish at all on my machine either.
I have over a hundred gigs of music and video and about 50 or 60 apps on top of that (too difficult to find out how much space they take up, but probably an extra half a gig or so.
The apps are also not as large as the videos or the music by any means so if you have scrolling problems related to the amount of apps, then even a moderate movie collection should exhibit even more scrolling problems than that (which you don't mention).
iTunes needs a re-write because it sucks and makes no sense in terms of a tool used to organise the media on your hard drive. Even the name makes no sense. I would bet Apple is working as we speak on a sort of "clean room" implementation of a totally new iTunes product different from the incremental updates we now recieve.
If they aren't, they are seriously dropping the ball. While a new media manager from another source would not capture the market because Apple has that market locked up, it would make iTunes look ridiculous and spur the same kind of re-design that they should already be thinking of.
What iTunes needs is to be a jukebox.
Apple should make managing the iPod and iPhone into a separate app.
My mouth waters at what could replace that space hog optical drive. More drive bays or more external port expansion.
There are already kits to allow you to pop out the optical drive and provide a bracket to mount a hard drive where the optical used to be.
I'm seriously considering it for my MacBook Pro - I would love to move my existing 500GB drive to where the optical is, and install an Intel 80 GB SSD for my primary boot and application drive.
I have an Intel SSD on my work laptop and I'm very, very spoiled by it - and I'm missing it's responsiveness on my Mac...
Comments
My mouth waters at what could replace that space hog optical drive. More drive bays or more external port expansion. 3G and LTO hardware or more space for internal components for better heat dissipation.
I envy your optimism, but if we take the Air as a clue... no optical drive will mean: less ports, non-removable battery, a slow 1.8" HD, but thin... As much as I hate optical drives, if Apple wanted to give us good connectivity options, all laptops would at least have an ExpressCard slot (Sony and IBM can fit these into 10" and 12" sub-notebooks, Sony even together with a BD drive) and/or FW, iMacs would at least have an ExpressCard slot and/or eSATA and the Mini would have a full HDMI-out including audio instead of DVI + Mini-DP. Seems Apple hates ports even more than we hate the Superdrives.
Microsoft was sued for this because it exhibited monopolistic behavior.
I see nothing wrong with what they are doing. MS was not sued for having a monopoly, I don't even if you can exhibit such a behavior. You either a monopoly or you are not one. They were sued for tactics of antitrust where they abused their monopoly position. I see no way that Apple has a monopoly that they are abusing by adding an export option to YouTube.
I envy your optimism, but if we take the Air as a clue... no optical drive will mean: less ports, non-removable battery, a slow 1.8" HD, but thin... As much as I hate optical drives, if Apple wanted to give us good connectivity options, all laptops would at least have an ExpressCard slot (Sony and IBM can fit these into 10" and 12" sub-notebooks, Sony even together with a BD drive) and/or FW, iMacs would at least have an ExpressCard slot and/or eSATA and the Mini would have a full HDMI-out including audio instead of DVI + Mini-DP. Seems Apple hates ports even more than we hate the Superdrives.
The reason the MBA has no optical drive, an ULV CPU, and 1.8" HDD is because the design started with thin. A 9.5mm optical drive, standard C2D CPU with proper cooling, and a 2.5" HDD which is two platters and 9.5mm thick will not fit. The lack of ports is because they tapered it a point that required a hatch. This enhances the thin look and increases the rigidity, but it doesn't appeal to the average consumer, but it wasn't supposed to.
What I and hmurchison are proposing is removing the optical drive to get back that entire side for ports and and all that extra "footprint" space currently used by the optical drive. We are not suggesting that you need to then make it thinner.
High Res: http://files.myopera.com/mkrzych/alb...ray_hi-res.jpg (4052x2943)
The reason the MBA has no optical drive, an ULV CPU, and 1.8" HDD is because the design started with thin.
...
What I and hmurchison are proposing is removing the optical drive to get back that entire side for ports and and all that extra "footprint" space currently used by the optical drive. We are not suggesting that you need to then make it thinner.
??? I did understand that perfectly well. I just said that Apple has never really added ports and their focus is to make everything thinner all the time. Was the white iMac too thick for anybody? Instead of maybe adding a second HD or an ExpressCard slot or at least eSATA, what did they do? Make it thinner. Was the most frequent complaint about the plastic MacBooks that they were too thick? No; people hated cracking cases, discoloration, poor panels. Apple's solution: thinner, less ports. I simply do not see any reason to believe that Apple would give us more ports, if they would remove the SuperDrive from the MacBook (Pro). They would rather shave off 3 mm in thickness and taper both sides than do anything people are asking for.
??? I did understand that perfectly well. I just said that Apple has never really added ports and their focus is to make everything thinner all the time.
The last iMac and Mac Mini added USB ports, the Mac Mini got dual video out and FW800.
Instead of maybe adding a second HD or an ExpressCard slot or at least eSATA, what did they do? Make it thinner.
The assumption that they made it thinner instead of adding these things is either poor wording or poor logic. I don't see much use for EC on a desktop machine and Apple hasn't supported eSATA in any machine, not even the Mac Pro. A 2nd HDD would be nice for you and me for RAIDing or even Time Machine, but Apple isn't marketing it toward that crowd.
I simply do not see any reason to believe that Apple would give us more ports, if they would remove the SuperDrive from the MacBook (Pro). They would rather shave off 3 mm in thickness and taper both sides than do anything people are asking for.
It seems that you think that everything that took place in the MBA's design stemmed from the removal of the optical drive. I think Apple set out to make an ultra-light portable with a good keyboard and display for the business person. I don't think removing the optical drive means that they then have to use a 1.8" single platter HDD and then taper the sides to have no ports. they could taper the sides in the MB and MBP, but they don't. They don't like ports on the back or the front and their is no room on the left and right side with the current design, which seems pretty obvious as to why FW400 had to go. I think when Apple moves the rest of the notebooks to same non-user replaceable battery that lasts extra long that we'll get some more ports. Another USB and FW800, even on the MB (just a speculative hunch).
Apple can't go DVD drive forever, eventually they're going to have to remove it altogether or jump on board with Blu-ray, which currently, by all searching I can do, does not exist in 9.5mm drives and is still cost prohibitive for 12.5mm drives.
I agree with you SOOOO much! Please, if anyone related to Apple are reading this; please forward the urgent need of a better application for us with 100k+ songs. The sluggishness of the current one is barely usable.
Are you kidding? Do you realize that 100,000 songs represents listening to your music library 24/7 for about an entire year without repeating a song?!!?
You could also buy an exotic car or a small home for that amount of $$!
The last iMac and Mac Mini added USB ports, the Mac Mini got dual video out and FW800.
True, but the iMac dropped one FireWire port in exchange and the Mini FW800 port was only in exchange for the FW400 (it is still a useful addition, but not really "adding ports"). No idea how many people will run a Mini with two monitors (and how many of those will buy a 900 USD Cinema Display for a 600 USD computer), but I am sure quite a few will connect it to a TV set, so HDMI would have replaced two cables plus the required adapters. Personally, I would have found that more useful.
The assumption that they made it thinner instead of adding these things is either poor wording or poor logic. I don't see much use for EC on a desktop machine and Apple hasn't supported eSATA in any machine, not even the Mac Pro. A 2nd HDD would be nice for you and me for RAIDing or even Time Machine, but Apple isn't marketing it toward that crowd.
Well, if you spend something like 3.4k for a top end iMac (with AppleCare, max. RAM and GPU upgrade), it would be nice to be able to add some USB 3.0 or FW3200 ports next year; an ExpressCard slot would allow that. Without it you are stuck with the existing connectivity forever. The iMac is a pretty powerful machine, it would be absolutely sufficient to e.g. cut pro video formats (a Mac Pro is not at all required for that) if there was an option for faster disk I/O. A MacBook Pro for 2k can do it, PCs costing significantly less than 1k can do it...
It seems that you think that everything that took place in the MBA's design stemmed from the removal of the optical drive. I think Apple set out to make an ultra-light portable with a good keyboard and display for the business person. I don't think removing the optical drive means that they then have to use a 1.8" single platter HDD and then taper the sides to have no ports. they could taper the sides in the MB and MBP, but they don't. They don't like ports on the back or the front and their is no room on the left and right side with the current design, which seems pretty obvious as to why FW400 had to go. I think when Apple moves the rest of the notebooks to same non-user replaceable battery that lasts extra long that we'll get some more ports. Another USB and FW800, even on the MB (just a speculative hunch).
Apple can't go DVD drive forever, eventually they're going to have to remove it altogether or jump on board with Blu-ray, which currently, by all searching I can do, does not exist in 9.5mm drives and is still cost prohibitive for 12.5mm drives.
I do not think that "everything that took place in the MBA's design stemmed from the removal of the optical drive" ... I used the MBA as an example for Apple having no intentions to add ports or functionality, even if they save space (e.g. by removing the optical drive). (The MBA may be a bad example, as it is targeting a very special group of users, but everybody I know having one loves the design, but has no intentions to buy one again. It is simply too limited for most people.) There was no real need to make the MacBook thinner though. Battery life is not great, quite a few people have invested in Firewire devices or even depend on them, etc. Apple said "a PC is not cheap, if it does not do what you want"... well.
I understand that they do not want to have ports on the front/back, but I have not heard one single person preferring the new port layout on the MacBook Pro either. Having the optical drive in the front and ports on both sides was a lot more useful; most travel mice do not even have a long enough cable to work with the current layout (if one is right-handed). But given the myriad of adapters you need for each single Mac today, an USB extension cord more or less is certainly negligible.
I hope you are right about the return of the FW port on the MB, having at least one usable machine smaller than 15" would certainly be nice. I do not need an optical drive at all, and I see no sign of Apple supporting BD (even if there would be any 9.5 mm models). BDs are useless for storage and I need no 1080p movies on a 13-17" screen either. I am all for removing the optical drive, if they add connectivity. I just do not see it happening. They may enlarge the battery and reshape the machine to look slimmer, but that may be it.
A bit off topic, but I if the next MB and MBP have a non-user replaceable battery we may see more ports added to them. Like an additional USB and a FW800 because they could build farther down the sides if they aren't trying to make it look clean and simple when you pop the cover. Here's hoping.
I can't remember when was the last time I used my DVD drive, maybe few months back to perform permissions checks. However, If I had a choice I would replace it with another user accessible and replaceable HDD.
YouTube? That's, like, so 2008.
The question is will Snow Leopard built-in support for Twitter? Get with it, people!
Mmm.... no video on Twitter... so, nice try.
Originally Posted by macFanDave
YouTube? That's, like, so 2008.
The question is will Snow Leopard built-in support for Twitter? Get with it, people!
Mmm.... no video on Twitter... so, nice try.
You didn't "get" my attempt at humor. I was trying to poke fun at the fact that in the recent past, YouTube had a lot of buzz, but now the hottest thing is Twitter. The joke was why should Apple make its next OS support a past fad when they should make it support the latest one. But, if you have to explain your own jokes, they mustn't be so damned funny!
Next time I try to make a funny, I will bracket it with many emoticons like
Apple is a very prudish company. Everything has to be as happy, smiling and non-sexual as a Sears catalogue photo-shoot for them.
They won't support Dailymotion because it doesn't won't censor like YouTube does.
Tee-hee. iPhone's player "duncares" if a vid is flagged or not. Tee-hee.
While I agree that iTunes needs a complete re-write and a complete re-think as well, it's not sluggish at all on my machine either.
I have over a hundred gigs of music and video and about 50 or 60 apps on top of that (too difficult to find out how much space they take up, but probably an extra half a gig or so.
The apps are also not as large as the videos or the music by any means so if you have scrolling problems related to the amount of apps, then even a moderate movie collection should exhibit even more scrolling problems than that (which you don't mention).
iTunes needs a re-write because it sucks and makes no sense in terms of a tool used to organise the media on your hard drive. Even the name makes no sense. I would bet Apple is working as we speak on a sort of "clean room" implementation of a totally new iTunes product different from the incremental updates we now recieve.
If they aren't, they are seriously dropping the ball. While a new media manager from another source would not capture the market because Apple has that market locked up, it would make iTunes look ridiculous and spur the same kind of re-design that they should already be thinking of.
What iTunes needs is to be a jukebox.
Apple should make managing the iPod and iPhone into a separate app.
MacOS X should provide a user selectable video portal option, like that available in most Web browsers to select a search engine.
There isn't a standard API for video uploading. If there was, I'd agree.
didnt anyone else see it says "You Tube" instead of "YouTube"?
It's an artist's impression, as it says in the article. That's less likely to incur the wrath of Apple Legal.
What iTunes needs is to be a jukebox.
Apple should make managing the iPod and iPhone into a separate app.
It's a juke box that sits on top of the database that manages all the files that you might want to put on an iPhone or iPod.
My mouth waters at what could replace that space hog optical drive. More drive bays or more external port expansion.
There are already kits to allow you to pop out the optical drive and provide a bracket to mount a hard drive where the optical used to be.
I'm seriously considering it for my MacBook Pro - I would love to move my existing 500GB drive to where the optical is, and install an Intel 80 GB SSD for my primary boot and application drive.
I have an Intel SSD on my work laptop and I'm very, very spoiled by it - and I'm missing it's responsiveness on my Mac...
What happens if Silverlight from Microsoft overtakes Flash and becomes the standard on the web?
hell will have frozen over and we won't worry about flash any more...