No Optical Drives - it's wrong!

[shine]

Its not that simple. The whole new rMBP is built around the new display. The huge battery in the rMBP won't fit into the chassis of the old MBP.

This is a valid reason, I'd accept this over the "obsolete and I don't need it therefore no one should need it" nonsense in this thread. However, it doesn't hold up in the removal of the optical drive in the iMac - there's no power issue there.

Do you feel the same way about the iPad. Should apple offer the iphone 4 in the standard resolution?

That doesn't make sense? What are you asking here?

Because it is almost obsolete. Very few people need an ethernet port and if you do, get an adaptor.

Rubbish - unless you can prove it's obsolete stop stating it as fact. There are no major corporations phasing out ethernet in favour of wireless. If you know of one please state their name and the source of your information and I will withdraw my objection.

No, of course I don't but I meet a lot of people in the tech industry who would be considered power users, I also know a lot of people still at university and none of them care about ethernet or a DVD.

There may be individuals who feel they don't need ethernet and I'm willing to accept students fall into this category but there are no enterprises that will favour ethernet v wireless simply because of security. Again name me one large organisation that is giving up or has given up ethernet in favour of wireless and I'll withdraw my objections. If you cannot then do not make stuff up to suit your way of thinking.

I understand that you would prefer to have a slightly fatter laptop with the retina display and all the trimmings but why would apple create a whole new layout for the sake of selling a few extra laptops.

The 2011 version of the MBP sold like hotcakes even though it had ethernet and an optical drive:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/11...apples_us_sales_up_47_year_over_year_in_march

There wasn't a queue of people demanding removal of either, which is why Apple still offer the non retina MBP - there is demand.

 

[Gimpymoo]

The percentage of users using optical media nowadays is very low.

Microsoft ditched DVD playback support in Windows 8 to save on decoder licensing costs. I cannot recall the last time I used an optical disc for anything on my computer.

 

[bloodiedathame]

As a graphic designer/animator I wouldn't consider an rmbp purely because of the retina gimmick and the fact I can't upgrade it myself. No Ethernet is more of a problem than lack of optical on the non rmbp. I could use an adapter but why should I pay extra. If they put it in the box, along with the usb superdrive I'd buy one in a shot.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

There may be individuals who feel they don't need ethernet and I'm willing to accept students fall into this category but there are no enterprises that will favour ethernet v wireless simply because of security. Again name me one large organisation that is giving up or has given up ethernet in favour of wireless and I'll withdraw my objections. If you cannot then do not make stuff up to suit your way of thinking.

As a student, I use Ethernet the vast majority of the time. I only have access to Wireless when I happen to visit my parents or sit in the Library.

There's no wireless in out labs and we are required to use ethernet, the same for my apartment. Each room as an ethernet drop and no wireless.

So I had to get the ethernet adapter.
I also personally prefer to use ethernet when ever I can, it's faster and more secure.

 

[MagicBoy]

The 2011 version of the MBP sold like hotcakes even though it had ethernet and an optical drive:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/11...apples_us_sales_up_47_year_over_year_in_march

There wasn't a queue of people demanding removal of either, which is why Apple still offer the non retina MBP - there is demand.

That was me skewing the figures. Had to buy one quick in case the rumours were true about Apple neutering the line!

 

[teaboy5]

I don't own a mbp myself, but it seems crazy apple would get rid of the Ethernet port on the laptop! For one who wants an adapter sticking out of the side of their laptop each time they want to plug into the network. We have a graphic design department in work and there would be no hope in hell of them using the wireless due to slow transfer speeds and lack of signal so a network point would be an essential item when they upgrade soon. I don't think they will be best pleased about having to carry around an adapter and plugging it in each time they want connected to the network.

 

[Skyboat]

Leave the adapter plugged into the Ethernet cable instead of the laptop?

 

[teaboy5]

Leave the adapter plugged into the Ethernet cable instead of the laptop?

That's not always possible, they get used in the main office, at home and various other meetings room at different sites. It's a bit of a joke really what were apple thinking!

 

[Fr0dders]

So you're saying you find it difficult to carry around a wired ethernet adaptor for this laptop you don't own ?

Thanks for the input !

 

[Caged]

Also you realise that slow transfer speeds and lack of signal are entirely your problem to solve? Saying "ethernet is better because our Wi-Fi is crap" is a pretty poor reason to hate Wi-Fi. There's no reason it can't be fast and reliable, you just need to do it properly.

The argument for having the adaptor hanging out the side of the laptop is a pretty poor one when the best case alternative is that there's a cable hanging out the side of the laptop. Moan that it's an extra cost, or having to carry around something of its unprecedented size, but not that it sticks out the side.

 

[shine]

Also you realise that slow transfer speeds and lack of signal are entirely your problem to solve? Saying "ethernet is better because our Wi-Fi is crap" is a pretty poor reason to hate Wi-Fi. There's no reason it can't be fast and reliable, you just need to do it properly.

Name one commercially proven wireless setup that matches the real world data transfer rates of gigabit Ethernet. If you can't then it is perfectly acceptable to class wifi as too slow compared to Ethernet.

 

[MagicBoy]

At the risk of quoting myself :

Wireless is fine for home or small business use but doesn't scale well in larger office environments. It's not switched - it's a shared medium. It's essentially the same as going back to the days of thin-ethernet with radios replacing the co-ax cables.

 

[shine]

Most people on here are probably using wireless at home and not sharing it with anyone. We have wireless internet access in the office for clients and personal devices. Before 9 am it is nice and fast but once we everyone is in the office the speed drop is noticeable. It is acceptable for surfing and nothing else (you can forget streaming of any nature).

There is no way even with the theoretical speeds of the best wireless equipment that there would be enough bandwidth for my team to work over wireless let along the few thousand people in the whole building.

 

[theheyes]

The percentage of users using optical media nowadays is very low.

Microsoft ditched DVD playback support in Windows 8 to save on decoder licensing costs. I cannot recall the last time I used an optical disc for anything on my computer.

Windows 8 not playing DVDs out of the box is annoying (and a step backwards in my opinion) but can be rectified, for free. It's not comparable even by a stretch.

It's a complete fallacy that optical media usage is very low and the technology obsolete. Anybody taking a stance against it is basically just showing an irrational deference to Apple.

British Video Association via BBC 6th July 2012

Last year, the amount spent by consumers on video entertainment - a total of £2.3bn - was more than that spent on cinema and music combined, with sales of DVDs accounting for the biggest share.

At present, the British Video Association expects discs "to remain the consumers' preferred option for the foreseeable future", but the digital sector - while small - continues to show growth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18718738

DEG’s Mid-Year 2012 Home Entertainment Report compiled by DEG members,
tracking sources and retail input.

Led by a surge in digital distribution and continuing double-digit increases in Blu-ray Disc sales, the home entertainment sector further stabilized in the first half of 2012, experiencing a 1.43 percent increase in consumer spending compared to the first half of 2011.

Among the trends in the first half of the year:

• Blu-ray Disc sales continued to grow steadily at double-digital rates with consumer spending for the first half up 13.3 percent compared to the same period last year

http://degonline.org/pressreleases/2012/DEG_2Q12 cover note_7.29.12_FINAL.pdf

So can we please stop saying optical media is obsolete?

And yes, this is consumer entertainment research. It's almost a compelling argument for keeping the drive in Apple's consumer line (iMac, Mac Mini), let alone the MacBook Pro.

 

[bigredshark]

Apple appear to be moving away from the Pro market therefore I'd be willing to accept that they have no interest in catering for businesses.

However, I've never worked in office where wired networking is obsolete. I'd be surprised if you could name one major company where this is true.

Actually, this surprises me (and is minority embarrassing considering how much we spent on refreshing gigabit to the desktop last year) but wired Ethernet is practically redundant for most people in my office. I'm rarely at my desk more than half the day with meetings and such and the whole 'just pull the power and go sit in a conf room' without worrying about moving to a wireless connection means it's easier to just use wireless all the time. It's high end Cisco wireless and it's all over VPN but that's not really a hindrance in any way to me these days.

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if most corporate laptop users are the same (I mean, if you aren't frequently moving around why have a laptop?). Between port security violations and the like our support guys say wireless is less hassle than wired for them day to day.

I'll be getting my laptop refreshed as a rMBP shortly and I'll get the Ethernet adaptor and keep it in my bag but I don't expect to need it much. It's a trade off I'm fairly happy with personally...

The whole optical drive thing is very contentious, but I all on the side of most people don't use them (I ditched mine for a second hard drive a few years back and haven't regretted it) and I don't see apple introducing the manufacturing complexity of having additional products lines with and without. In their place I'd have done the same.

That's for laptops though, all bets are off on desktops, I would have left both in for now. The Ethernet puzzles me, it's not a worthwhile cost reduction leaving it out and it doesn't fit Apple's grand plan in a way I can see (I can't imagine it selling many airports) but I imagine they have good data on how many iMacs actually used the port and made a decision. The optical drive...well it's a push towards iTunes Store at the end of the day but it's maybe pushing a bit hard and annoying a few too many users...

 

[bigredshark]

Windows 8 not playing DVDs out of the box is annoying (and a step backwards in my opinion) but can be rectified, for free. It's not comparable even by a stretch.

It's a complete fallacy that optical media usage is very low and the technology obsolete. Anybody taking a stance against it is basically just showing an irrational deference to Apple.

So can we please stop saying optical media is obsolete?

And yes, this is consumer entertainment research. It's almost a compelling argument for keeping the drive in Apple's consumer line (iMac, Mac Mini), let alone the MacBook Pro.

I don't think this shows what you think it shows, it's just disparate facts...

Did bluray sales grow at the expense of DVD? They don't seem to say...

What made up the increase in video sales - the vagueness could allow for DVD sales to have declined (while still remaining the largest share) while downloads increased in market share...

It's all pretty vague stuff and while I actually agree DVD and bluray is important to the average consumer I don't think very many of them put them anywhere near a computer, that's what home entertainment gear is for. But the figures don't say what people play them on...

I'm not arguing that optical media is or isn't redundant as a computer media format here but whatever you believe I don't think those stats show anything useful to the argument...

 

[theheyes]

The facts are not as disparate as you think and support what I'm trying to say. It's relevant in response to suggestions that optical media is obsolete or broadly, as I quoted, 'not used'.

It also comes down to the availability of information. It would be quite difficult to quantify a general 'business need' for optical media, but relatively easy to show that optical media is not an obsolete format for consumption, and certainly not creation which the MacBook* should be more tailored towards.

Edit - *MacBook Pro

 

[teaboy5]

Also you realise that slow transfer speeds and lack of signal are entirely your problem to solve? Saying "ethernet is better because our Wi-Fi is crap" is a pretty poor reason to hate Wi-Fi. There's no reason it can't be fast and reliable, you just need to do it properly.

The argument for having the adaptor hanging out the side of the laptop is a pretty poor one when the best case alternative is that there's a cable hanging out the side of the laptop. Moan that it's an extra cost, or having to carry around something of its unprecedented size, but not that it sticks out the side.

It's not our case at all, you will never match the speed and reliability of a wired connection. Also the signal is down to the building which has very very thick walls, so thick in fact that in some cases you can't pick the AP up from the next room.

 

[Caged]

I didn't say you'd match ethernet, I said there's no reason for Wi-Fi to not be fast. If you are having congestion or signal issues then you have crap access points or not enough of them. A well planned Wi-Fi infrastructure can be every bit as reliable as a wired one, you just need the right products in the right places with the right Tx levels set on them. If you're putting one AP in the middle of an office and then writing the technology off when the transfer speeds and signal levels are terrible then I really don't know what to say.

Whinging about Wi-Fi performance when you have Netgear / Linksys / Belkin crap and no planning went into deployment is like arguing that wired ethernet is garbage because you've run out of switch ports to plug into or have a cable that's too short to reach where you want to sit, so you only trust carrying data around on USB sticks.

I fully accept that gigabit ethernet is quicker than Wi-Fi, but for that there exists an adaptor. Typical laptop usage would see you not tied to one spot, and this is the market Apple are catering for.

 

[teaboy5]

I didn't say you'd match ethernet, I said there's no reason for Wi-Fi to not be fast. If you are having congestion or signal issues then you have crap access points or not enough of them. A well planned Wi-Fi infrastructure can be every bit as reliable as a wired one, you just need the right products in the right places with the right Tx levels set on them. If you're putting one AP in the middle of an office and then writing the technology off when the transfer speeds and signal levels are terrible then I really don't know what to say.

Whinging about Wi-Fi performance when you have Netgear / Linksys / Belkin crap and no planning went into deployment is like arguing that wired ethernet is garbage because you've run out of switch ports to plug into or have a cable that's too short to reach where you want to sit, so you only trust carrying data around on USB sticks.

I fully accept that gigabit ethernet is quicker than Wi-Fi, but for that there exists an adaptor. Typical laptop usage would see you not tied to one spot, and this is the market Apple are catering for.

I think you need to relax a little. I wasn't suggesting wireless is crap, in fact it's used a lot in our building. But in this case it won't suit the users due to their location in the building and the type of files they work work with.