Phil Schiller Claims Customers Aren't Asking for Built-In Blu-Ray Anymore

I don't care about blue ray in a computer.

I have a playstation 3 for the big screen.

Blu-ray is awesome, but truth be told I haven't gotten a disk or used my PS3 in 7 months.

On the other hand I use Apple TV every day.

Ryth said:

Nothing can replace the quality of an optical disc other then the original uncompressed asset.

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Always the pedant, the quality is derived from the data on the disk, not the disk itself! If you put the same data on a harddrive would see/hear the same quality. Unfortunately most people don't have internet connections that would support streaming a 'blu-ray' quality movie and in reality I doubt many cloud service have the infrastructure to support it either!?!?

I don't get the complaints... you can buy a Bluray drive if you reallllly wanted it for storage.

But for movies? Why not just get an actual player or PS3 to hook up to your TV?

They aren't asking because they know it's fruitless at this point.

And blu-rays have hardly gone the way of the 8-track, etc. - in fact - as of June, Blu-ray Disc sales for the first half of 2012 is up 13.3%

Streaming quality might be good "enough" for some/many - but not all. Some people take picture and audio quality very seriously. Especially with bigger screens.

It's funny that of all companies that pride themselves on providing a "quality" experience, it's Apple that hasn't been paying attention to that when it comes to audio and video.

But it's no surprise though - because they don't sell blu-ray - they sell streaming services.

And for the uneducated or those that think that HD is HD - think again. There's a big difference between resolution and bitrate. That's why a movie streamed might be 2-3 gigs and a blu-ray is 35-50gigs.

Until internet providers have pipes that deliver much higher data rates (and without any caps) - blu-ray is and will be the way to go for QUALITY.

Bokes said:

Well said!
fact is fact- uncompressed blu ray quality is FAR better than any stream or "HD" download.

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Whoa, where do you get the uncompressed video on BD? That would be impressive.

linuxophile said:

And if "you can have it external" then it does misses the point of the sleekness factor.

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Which is just fine, for a rare, niche need. Meet the need, yes, but don’t make everyone else lose the sleekness factor to squeeze in a useless (for them) disc player.

Phil Schiller is a liar, but it's ok. My Mac Pro has a BD-R installed that works just fine, and I've been able to watch Blu-ray discs on my 30" ACD despite Apple's efforts to steer me to iTunes. I normally watch them on my non-Apple Blu-ray player via a non-Apple HDTV in the living room, so I have better options than iTunes, thankfully.

rmwebs said:

So the 90+% of people who dont need a blueray/optical drive should put up with it just so you can feel like your computing experience is 'sleek'?

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Ah, you contend that you have actual statistical data....

likemyorbs said:

I don't have a bluray player in my house at all. Bluray movies are overpriced and inconvenient. I much prefer netflix streaming. The image quality is sharp enough for me.

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I can buy new releases and get a BR disk, DVD and digital copy often for the same price or less than I can buy from iTunes. This covers all my bases. My digital copy goes to iTunes and can be used on the AppleTV, iPad or phone. I have a BR copy should I ever need one, and I've got a DVD copy for the entertainment system in the car.

I bought a BR burner for my mac mini purely to copy off the Harry Potter box set and a couple of other physical dvd's that were available for digital release. I still keep it around in my computer desk in case I'll need it again. I don't think an optical drive/BR drive is a waste of space on a desktop these days. I'm actually starting to lean towards the refurbished Mac Pro's as my future computers just so I can retain the internal optical drive.

herbapou said:

There are plenty of external BR on the market, are you forbiden to buy something not made by Apple?

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Support at the OS level is pathetic, so it is not as simple as you make it out to be.

herbapou said:

There are plenty of external BR on the market, are you forbiden to buy something not made by Apple?

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The problem is in the software. If you don't want to laboriously rip your discs and waste hd space, the only way to play blurays is Mac Bluray Player which is quite terrible.

Naimfan said:

Apparently people aren't asking for optical drives or sufficient storage any longer, either . . .

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And the price remains the same. But I can live without optical drives, I have for years as it turns out. Storage on the other hand is a whole different story, more storage!

Optical Drive

Unfortunetly I do use an optical drive for job interviews. My profession requires me to have a reel for interviews and although my online reel is where I direct potential employers I always make sure to have a few DVDs for back up when going on an interview. But I was waiting for the new Mac Pro next year anyway.

If you like to watch movies and care about image and sound quality, nothing beats Blu-ray. Streaming doesn't even get close... On a 55' HD TV with home-theater one can see the difference. For this reason, I won't be watching blu-ray on my i Mac.

I get Apple moving away from optical drives, and I almost don't use it. But if Apple thinks that thinner is better and design rules, at least let me PLUG A SUPERDRIVE TO MY F%$#%$ TIME CAPSULE SO I DON"T SEE THIS BOX SITTING ON MY DESK!!!

Sorry, just lost it for a little bit...

MacRumors said:

Apple customers are no longer asking for Blu-ray drives in their Macs these days

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No one ever actually did though. What we want is OS X support for AACS. We already have OS X support and Mac support for HDCP, AACS is the only missing component so that 3rd parties can implement Blu-ray players and 3rd party drives can be used to watch movies.

And like others have said, it's just that people have come to terms that Apple will never offer it, as they'd rather sell you their vastly inferior streaming/downloads riddled with DRM that only works within the Apple eco-system and locks you into their own toys rather than letting you buy any device out there from any vendor.

Apple execs are stupid

Why do they make these stupid claims? I understand they might have reasons not to produce phones with 4+" screens, 7" tablets, real desktop computers, BluRay drives and other stuff but do not make these ridiculous claims about people not wanting them. A lot of people do want them. Samsung increasing smart phone sales 2x year-over-year is a clear proof of that. Android tablet sales (mostly 7") also increased two fold causing iPad market shared to slip below 60%. Theses guys just sound childish. For AAPL shareholders sake, I hope they do not believe in what they say.

KnightWRX said:

No one ever actually did though. What we want is OS X support for AACS. We already have OS X support and Mac support for HDCP, AACS is the only missing component so that 3rd parties can implement Blu-ray players and 3rd party drives can be used to watch movies.

And like others have said, it's just that people have come to terms that Apple will never offer it, as they'd rather sell you their vastly inferior streaming/downloads riddled with DRM that only works within the Apple eco-system and locks you into their own toys rather than letting you buy any device out there from any vendor.

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This.

likemyorbs said:

I don't have a bluray player in my house at all. Bluray movies are overpriced and inconvenient. I much prefer netflix streaming. The image quality is sharp enough for me.

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This probably comes from a person who hasn't watched movies in blu ray. Streaming quality is way behind bluray and if you have a nice surround sound and top of the line tv blu ray is the only way to go

I use an external Blu-Ray drive to rip my (few) Blu-Ray movies as soon as I buy them - then I never use the disk again. The ripped movie goes onto an old MacBook Pro that's serving as a media server (the screen's broken on the MBP, but for this use I don't really need it).

It's a lot more convenient to stream stuff to my television via my AppleTV or the TV's built-in Plex client.

Nonsense

PeterQVenkman said:

I think it has to do with the fact that Apple sells media through a competitive format.

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:… Blu-Ray on my Mac would prevent me from downloading movies from the iTunes Store and torrent sites?

…

: Why not buy a Blu-Ray player?
: Or NOT buy a Mac at all. That is a risk Apple is welcoming. You need balls to take risks like that.

: Indeed!

Technarchy said:

I don't care about blue ray in a computer.

I have a playstation 3 for the big screen.

Blu-ray is awesome, but truth be told I haven't gotten a disk or used my PS3 in 7 months.

On the other hand I use Apple TV every day.

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I've lost interest, too. I have a nice player, so there isn't much point. Although it would be nice for the secondary TV in the house. That is run by a Mini, it would be nice if the kids could put both DVDs and BDs into it to play.

It's been 2 weeks since I played a disc, which is actually pretty long. Played a wonderful Italian BD in my region-selectable player. The full movie isn't available on USA discs or other sources.

I completely agree. If the only reason to make the iMac larger would be a bluray player, I would prefer not having it....that´s how little I care about it. Dunno what I would use it for.

Makes BluRay more likely for me

Paradoxically, this makes it more likely I will eventually move to BluRay: I could not live without a DVD drive as there is plenty of content that I want to watch that is not available on line, only on disc. If my next imac has no DVD drive and I am forced to buy an external, I may as well buy one that can read BluRay...