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

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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Adding AACS to the system is just an encumbrance that most of us don't want. Blu-ray is for HDTV and that's how the content is generally consumed.

lilo777 said:

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.

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Schiller has surveys and mounds of data coming directly customer response in the Apple Stores. I don't know why you think that you have more pertinent data about what Apple customers are asking for than Apple.

No one I know personally gives a rat's arse about Blu-ray on the Mac.

The only Blu-Ray player I have is in my PS3 and I only use my PS3 for games. Phil is right. Optical drives are a thing of the past. I can't remember buying software on disc anymore. If I get anything new, I usually download the drivers from the web then install from disc. Why? Because I know i'm installing the latest versions of drivers vs having to install from disc and update online after.

If I want to share files, I give people a USB flash drive. I bought a 10pk of 1GB flash drives for under 20 bucks on sale once. Even if one goes bad or I lose it, it's still cheap enough that I don't care. Or I email a link to dropbox and share a folder.

A lot of people are still stuck on optical, and its fine, but don't expect the industry to include it much longer.

Although I do believe requests for Blu-Ray have gone down, many customers' frustration with Apple for not including Blu-Ray is certainly increasing. I like the new iMac's design but can't understand why Apple felt the need to make a desktop computer so thin. It would have been better to keep the SuperDrive in and eventually introduce Blu-Ray to Apple's desktop line.

The future of anything Apple related is in peripherals and dongles, I guess.

KindredMAC said:

Physical media has maybe 5 more years left to it. I think when the next revolution in High Def TVs occurs (4k), all movies will come as a file downloaded or even on a thumb drive.

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While I agree that media will all be in the cloud, I don't think we'll get current blu-ray quality downloads within the next five years. Certainly not 4K.

from techradar.com:
At a recent Sony event in Tokyo, TechRadar was shown a trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man in 4K using the Sony VPL-VW1000ES projector. The two and a half minute uncompressed trailer weighed in at 500GB. "On the basis that three hours of 4K video takes up 3.16TB, this would be 212 standard 25GB Blu-rays – although the quality of image and amount of Blu-rays used all comes down to the amount of compression applied."

I don't have a television connected to my Oppo Blu-ray player anymore. I just use it on the rare occasion that I want to listen to an SACD.

The rest of the world just doesn't understand...

swagi said:

And I guess all of you don't have a decent AVR, let alone a decent speaker system. If you ever heard a Blu-Ray DTS HD Master over a decent home theater (which btw is specced up to 10MBit/s stream for audio) you wouldn't talk this stuff out of your backs.

Do I need a Mac as HTPC? Sure as hell not, because I actually own a lot of Blu-Rays and some of them (those Live Concert Blus) are a real joy to watch over and over again.

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I could not AGREE with you more. Consumers are just that...consumers. And they will believe anything they hear especially from a powerhouse like Apple. Don't get me wrong, I'm writing on a Mac site because I am a devoted fan. I am also a film editor for studios/TV. In this day and age of technology, we all want it faster and easier. And that truly is a shame. And Apple is to blame for a lot of it in media.

You cannot tell me that iTunes streaming or downloading is so much better than actually having a Blu-Ray. Blu Ray was created to hold almost 50GB of data while Dual Layer DVDs only hold about 8.5GB. So the quality of picture and audio on a Blu Ray are SIGNIFICANTLY better due to less compression. And now they are taking that said 50GB of data and compressing it down to a "HD Quality" quicktime that can be downloaded or streamed at a size of about 5GB. So literally BY THE NUMBERS even if the H264 HD Codec was designed with HD in mind...you have just taken the quality of Blu Ray and brought it back down to SD.

It will probably be harder for the average person to discern the difference between a Blu Ray image and a HD Quicktime, but there is a definite quality drop. No way around it. So for Apple to balk at not putting in a Blu Ray to force the masses to their proprietary program, iTunes, is just annoying.

It will happen...old formats will go away. But the truly great formats will remain because they are truly amazing. Go ahead and listen to your favorite song downloaded from mp3 and then go ahead and get the record of that same song and play it on a turntable going through a proper receiver. You will be blown away.

So while you might not care about Blu Ray...there still a lot of us that do. And if you took a minute to educate yourself and take the time to notice what you are losing by moving so much to streaming/downloadable content...you would probably start wanting a Blu Ray again.

nuckinfutz said:

Adding AACS to the system is just an encumbrance that most of us don't want.

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Adding AACS support changes nothing for you. So what you want means nothing. It's like Apple shipping libxml2. If you don't use XML, the lib is there, it's just not being used by applications.

So what do you care if they put in AACS ? Oh I get, you don't have the first clue about how all of this works. That's the only reason and now you're posting here just to prove it to us.

Heck, AACS support is available from the open source community, it's just not properly licensed and could be illegal in some jurisdiction :

http://www.videolan.org/developers/libaacs.html

darcyjames said:

Steve Jobs said focus groups are for losers, if Apple gave people what they asked for they would be a very different company.

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Reminds me of the Henry Ford quote "If I asked people what they wanted, they'd say a faster horse." However, with a lot of this stuff, you have to not be so literal but rather the underlying wants & needs. I once heard this one interview question "A guy walks into a hardware store looking for a drill bit. What does he want?" Most people will say "A drill bit." Actual answer: a hole. So what people want ≠ what they think they want all the time, but what they think they want does indicate the general idea. But then again, sometimes you don't know that you want something until you see it.

My thing with blu-ray vs. downloads, in my experience, is that Blu-Ray has a lot higher quality & features than downloadable movies. Many Blu-Ray movies look better, IMO, plus are far more likely to have subtitles (my dad's hard of hearing) and different languages, plus you also get the special features like behind-the-scenes documentaries and so forth.

Blu Ray is an option, the thing is that people got used to watch thing in bad quality since youtube came out. As long you can watch the story in an "ok" quality that would do most of the times... if is Blu Ray... better, but is not a need.

Just want to say my thing about BR on a computer. When BR was first announced I was really excited about having it on a computer. This was back when you still burned DVD discs. I am sure that some people still burn DVD discs and use DVDs and BR.

But at this time around now, I understand Apple. BR on a computer is waste of space. And if someone really really need one, I guess there are external alternatives.

To watch movies are just stupid. Who would want to watch a BR movie on a computer. Most people have big TVs with surround. Watch it on that. Burning data on a disc could be usefull. It does have a lot of data on a BR disc. But prices on external HDs are so cheap now it makes no sense. I just bought a USB 3, 2 TB external HD for 148 US dollar. That is alot of BR discs.

I hear the same stuff now as I did before when Apple ditched the 3.5 diskett drive. Complaining.

Ryth said:

If you think Netflix or Apple streaming HD quality is good, you need to get your eyes checked.

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

It's night and day right now for optical vs streaming quality.

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Exactly. I have yet to watch a Netflix title via streaming without suffering from video stutter and pausing over the connection. (yes, I have Airport Extreme and 802.11n, albeit to a player and not my Mac). No viewing problems via DVD and BD.

Are there any Criterion Collection titles available through streaming? For my movie collection, that warrants being able to play physical media.

Naimfan said:

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

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Its the 'post pc era' where 64GB is plenty, 'pro' computers have no user-accessible RAM and HDD, Apple decides nobody requires optical drive, Mac Pro is forgotten, Mac OS gets closer to iOS with every release

MMOTotal said:

I use Blu-Ray for watching movies etc but I wouldn't need one in my computer.

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Same here! Bluray for movies but I don't have that much collection but Redbox is there. If I buy a movie I prefer to download, because it supports multiple device and future proofing my collection.

Thank you for telling me what it is that I want. I guess I'll have to buy an external drive if I want a blu-ray player or burner, which I use a LOT!!!! SMH!!!

I have an external BlueRay, and BlueRay connected to my projector on my home theater. I bought a few bluerays, now I find myself buying the movies I really want on iTunes instead.

I do use the blueray player to rent from Redbox.

I'm in the camp as well that optical media is essentially dead. An external player is good enough for how rarely I use it.

This is utter bull$h!t! Perhaps people stopped asking as a poster previously said, it's like beating a dead horse."

I use Optical Discs a lot. Getting photos on discs from photographers, burning DVDs for family members.

My parents finally have a Mac Mini and a DSL connection. Their connection CANNOT support streaming. It barely is fast enough for regular web surfing.
A DVD would be their choice.

Father in Law has no computer. He has a Blu-ray player and can watch our home videos burned to DVDs easily.


The reasoning is NOT that consumers didn't want it. It is to make it thinner and continue their iTunes $$$$. They claim it is so easy to watch on any Apple device, blah, blah, blah.
Cars come with DVD players built in. I cannot easily (data wise) stream a movie to let the kids watch on trips.

I love that I can buy the Cars blu-ray and watch really nicely on TV, and pop in the DVD in the car or at a grandparents house and let the kids watch, NOT saying sorry kids, we bought this movie from iTunes, we can't watch it in the car or over grandparents. YES, I can think in advance and download at home on WiFi and have on the puny GB space on iOS devices.

Apple just WANTS to get lots of $$$ from iTunes sales. I UNDERSTAND that. But NOBODY asked for a slimmer iMac with less FEATURES did they????

its funny.. my optical drive went out on my 2007 MBP in 2010 (still using it now). I found out that I used it very little when it was working.. began using usb drives. Only have one optical drive in the house next to the TV connected to the mac mini and we seldom use it.

Always thought he Blue ray would be short lived and it has always been over priced.

Have a bunch of usb thumb drive from Walmart or similar for backing up files and they don't get scratched like Cd's / DVD's.

Hmm, I guess I'm in the minority that still likes physical media when it comes to movies.

I do stream movies from Netflix but their streaming collection is mediocre at best although it is getting better every day. Rarely will I think of a movie I want to watch beforehand, check Netflix streaming, and it's there. Most of the time it's the other way around. I don't know what I want to watch, check Netflix streaming, and settle on something that catches my attention.

Bluray to me is still the ultimate home movie watching experience. I don't have to worry about my sometimes slow WiFi, buffering, ect. I pop in the Bluray into my PS3 and that's it and the image/sound quality is AMAZING.

Something a lot of my coworkers and I do is bring in movies for each other. Just today, a coworker of mine brought in both Sherlock Holmes movies and that's great, I have my entertainment for the weekend. I ALWAYS go to friends house's and bring movies. How does this happen if they don't have Netflix or a way for me to login into some account to get the movie?

Eventually when all the movie studios come together and figure out their rights, and EVERYTHING is easily made streamable across multiple platforms and everyone has a streaming device hooked up under their TV, I will gladly embrace the change. It IS the future and I'm ok with it. Right now I just feel like we're in some in between, half in, half out, transition that just doesn't work for everyone.

pil0tflame said:

I've yet to hear anyone ask for a thinner or lighter iMac either...

I have heard people asking for cooler and quieter iMacs and for iMacs with desktop CPUs & GPUs.

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Love this.

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My main DVD player is my Xbox. I don't really notice having or not having one in my computers until that rare time I need it. My daughter got some CDs for her birthday. If we didn't still have our old clamshell MacBook, we wouldn't have been able to burn the tracks for our iPods. But that's just one time in the last couple of years.

Personally, I prefer streaming.

It's not that surprising imo, most people that are into bluray most likely watch them on a home entertainment system that gives the format justice. Personally I never understood the appeal of it in a computer.

linuxophile said:

I for one need to burn dvds with data (e.g. physical backup of photos). Not often, but on occasion.
I don't think I am significantly away from any average consumer.
As for Blue Ray I can't say (I don't even watch dvds at all, so in that respect I am in the tail of the gaussian.)

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

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You're thinking (and actually *talking*) about backups. That, in and of itself, puts you "significantly away from any average consumer".

It's getting to the point these days where even DVDs are as useful for backups as floppy disks were when they were dropped from Macs.

As for the using an external optical drive, my MBP (2010) has a working optical drive. My old one (2006), which my wife uses, doesn't. We didn't discover the drive was dead until late 2011, at which point I popped the very first disc into mine to make sure it worked. I've used it twice since then. Instead, I use an external Blu-Ray drive I got so I could try ripping our Blu-Ray movies for iPhone/iPad viewing. (I'm having mixed, but mostly bad luck with that.)

So much for sleekness, sure, but I can't really say I'd miss the built-in optical drive if it were to die.

BJMRamage said:

I love that I can buy the Cars blu-ray and watch really nicely on TV, and pop in the DVD in the car or at a grandparents house and let the kids watch, NOT saying sorry kids, we bought this movie from iTunes, we can't watch it in the car or over grandparents. YES, I can think in advance and download at home on WiFi and have on the puny GB space on iOS devices.

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I don't understand why people spend so much money on DVD players for their cars. We have 3 small kids, 4 on the way. So it was something we seriously wanted, but when they wanted $3000 for the option on our new Van. I said I can buy an iPad for every seat in the van for that price.

We ended up with a single iPad on a removable mount between the two front seats. Audio is streamed via bluetooth to car. All for a whole lot less then the DVD option on the car.

I know aftermarket kits are a lot less expensive, but for the price, an iPad and mount couldn't be beet.

Naimfan said:

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

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You forgot to add ssslllooooowwwwww storage as well, I mean why shouldn't you use the cheapest storage component money can buy based on speeds from 5 years ago and put it in a very premium priced product?