Most car drivers and serious music listeners would disagree with you there.
No Optical Drives - it's wrong!
- Thread starter SixKi113r
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Most car drivers and serious music listeners would disagree with you there.
Your rebuttal fails to invalidate his point.
Soldato
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One thing most of you may have slightly overlooked is the inability to install Windows from an external USB DVD drive via Bootcamp. Straight out doesn't work with the Samsung drive I've got and I'll be damned if I'm putting in my Superdrive again. Apple probably want everyone to buy their £65 external in order to be able to do this... **** that. **** Apple.
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You also can't beat opening up iTunes n clicking the play button, or even better still on a MBA/MBP just by pressing play on the keyboard.
I don't have any problems and I have an external Samsung drive.
Not at all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/06/downloads-physical-sales-us
The nails are being hammered into optical media's coffin, one by one.
Soldato
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Yes I feel entirely 'forced' to use iTunes to purchase music.
Oh no wait, I have used Amazons and Googles services on my mac.
I so rarely used my optical drive I replaced it with a HD in my MBP.
Only reason my Mac Pro has a optical drive is to enable me to read/write blu-rays.
Optical media is a technology is heading towards it's death bed, although until the entire world has access to high speed internet, I can't see it ever being 'dead'.
This.
Nobody is forcing you to use the App Store, it's just a way of saving space and making the design easier. If you still need one then just get the USB super drive. Simples !!
In several years of iMac ownership I've sed my DVD drive only a handful of times
I'm not disagreeing that the majority of people will probably not miss the optical drive, but they aren't even throwing a bone to the people who do. I'm not buying that its a big conspiracy to get everyone buying from the Mac app store and iTunes - what I'm saying is form has well and truly trumped function on what is supposed to be a mobile workstation.
Consider a scenario where you absolutely NEED an optical drive and/or Ethernet port to get your work done. Every day. This is a quickly diminishing problem for the home user, but for a business class or 'Pro' laptop it's just bread and butter technology and not even close to being a niche requirement.
Which would you prefer? A slim laptop with a bunch of accessories or slightly larger laptop with everything you need integrated?
And let's put 'larger' into context - we are only talking about previous generation chassis which are hardly beastly units. The next argument is that optical drives and certain ports are causing some kind of slimming bottleneck and are just wasting space. I disagree, as Apple could put that space to great use as other components get smaller. They could:
- Increase the size of the battery
- Make the laptop more user serviceable
- Make it more recyclable
- Include more powerful components and additional ports
These are obvious advantages to somebody looking for a professional class laptop. Much more so than having a slightly slimmer and lighter design, which is completely negated if you have to carry around additional accessories.
Feel free to name a business scenario where it's vital to have access to optical media, wired ethernet, the Mac operating system, and such a huge requirement to be mobile than an external drive and/or ethernet adaptor aren't an option. Because I'm struggling.
Also the non-retina MacBook Pro's are still available, which have everything you just claimed to want, so nothing's been taken away.
Also the non-retina MacBook Pro's are still available, which have everything you just claimed to want, so nothing's been taken away.
Soldato
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Does DVD player recognise it? Also what machine are you using, I think some of the newer hardware has USB boot loaders. Older stuff not so much.
Pretty much any creative industry.
I work in the film industry and pretty much everyone will be on a Mac. DVDs are still used because its quick to burn some data to a disc to send to someone. Plus a DVD video is universally still considered the best method of giving somebody test footage. Its no good giving a video file out to ten important execs if it doesn't playback on their machines due to codec issues or whatever. So DVDs are used because they 'just work'.
A secondary reason is also security. A DVD is a piece of physical media which can be logged by any company's library system so it can be accounted for.
As for wired ethernet...
I've already said it once in this thread, but every office I've ever worked in uses ethernet. WiFi is usually just provided as client access or for checking e-mails. This again is largely down to security, which most businesses take very serious.
I'd also add that Mac sales are huge these days, so while the creative industries are typically where they grew a large following in the 90s/00s, these days just about everyone uses them. Thus there are many environments where ethernet especially is important.
I personally don't use ethernet at home, nor do I use discs much, but in a professional capacity I do. All that myself and others are trying to argue here is that it seems silly to get rid of features that a working professional needs with people claiming that just because they don't use them on their MacBook Pro University/Gaming Laptop, that therefore the technology is completely outdated and that Apple are making the right decision removing it.
Again we are well aware of that fact.
All I've said myself is why not also offer a MacBook Pro that has a retina screen, along with all the ports built-in. If I have to carry around an ethernet adapter and superdrive attachment with me everywhere I go, what saving have I actually made from having a thinner laptop?
Then just buy the DVD SuperDrive
If your using it for The Film industry the £60 will be nothing to your companies budget.
You're just going to have to accept that you're now in a minority, and as such going to have to compromise to benefit the majority who will make use of the space and don't need the drive
If your using it for The Film industry the £60 will be nothing to your companies budget.
You're just going to have to accept that you're now in a minority, and as such going to have to compromise to benefit the majority who will make use of the space and don't need the drive
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.
Wired ethernet certainly is.
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree, but from what I've seen, most businesses won't have important data sat on the end of a wireless network.
Yeah, its certainly looking that way.
They binned their RAID product, then stopped the production of Xserve at the start of 2011. Ironically though, for a discontinued product, the company I was working at the time ordered two and they had to extend the cut-off because so many orders had been placed for them. We were actually told by the supplier that we could likely sell them for profit when the project was over. Mac OSX Server software is also now built into OSX, so they aren't even bothered about charging more for server software now.
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 without radios replacing the co-ax cables.
I'm wondering if all these Apple Pros that are happy to use wireless all day just surf the net for a living?
OK, so you can now get a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor. I'd rather have the proper connector, a couple of extra mm thickness and use the space for something else useful like an optical drive or extra battery capacity. What I'd really like to see is something like the IBM Ultrabay with various plug in modules like optical drives, hard drives or an additional battery. Apple know how to do it - the G3 powerbook had one.
I'm wondering if all these Apple Pros that are happy to use wireless all day just surf the net for a living?
OK, so you can now get a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor. I'd rather have the proper connector, a couple of extra mm thickness and use the space for something else useful like an optical drive or extra battery capacity. What I'd really like to see is something like the IBM Ultrabay with various plug in modules like optical drives, hard drives or an additional battery. Apple know how to do it - the G3 powerbook had one.
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Sure you would.
But you have to ace the fact you are now in a minority compared to other MacBook Pro owners and as such apple isn't going to compromise the design just for the minority
Actually there are more MBP with optical drives than without at this point in time.