All MBPs will lose optical drive within a few months

[Nugget]

.... They aren't considering the impact to others.

Maybe they just have a more realistic understanding of how many "others" share your views. I don't claim to know what proportion of the marketplace is ready to be done with the optical drive, but I'm pretty sure it's a larger segment than just Steve Jobs and the eight or nine of us in this thread who are. I think that the percentage of the marketplace still needing internal optical drives is a lot smaller than you do.

It's tough to avoid falling into the trap of false consensus fallacy when it comes to disagreements like this. We all sort of want to believe that our experience and our preference is universal, or at least common. Respectfully, I'd suggest that you take some time to consider that maybe (just maybe) you don't actually speak on behalf of the majority or on behalf of all the Mac-buying "IT departments" and "churches" in the world.

Minimally, I know at least one IT Department that is looking forward to the end of onboard optical drives. Mine.

 

[applepearpp]

Maybe they just have a more realistic understanding of how many "others" share your views. I don't claim to know what proportion of the marketplace is ready to be done with the optical drive, but I'm pretty sure it's a larger segment than just Steve Jobs and the eight or nine of us in this thread who are. I think that the percentage of the marketplace still needing internal optical drives is a lot smaller than you do.

It's tough to avoid falling into the trap of false consensus fallacy when it comes to disagreements like this. We all sort of want to believe that our experience and our preference is universal, or at least common. Respectfully, I'd suggest that you take some time to consider that maybe (just maybe) you don't actually speak on behalf of the majority or on behalf of all the Mac-buying "IT departments" and "churches" in the world.

Minimally, I know at least one IT Department that is looking forward to the end of onboard optical drives. Mine.

finally, someone brings this up.

 

[dblissmn]

I wouldn't mind losing the optical drive. The main reason for having it at this point is movies, and even that's a bit iffy because of world region DVD encryption. Then there's software installation but that shouldn't need to be done on the road and in any case is surely going to give way to downloads, USB flash drives and/or SD. Otherwise you've got an item that's rather prone to failure and awkward to service and replace and adds deadweight and excludes items in the case that would be more useful (ExpressCard back in the 15, hint hint).

Further improvements to online movies and TV shows would be helpful. Enabling full offline viewing of iTunes rentals, hardware acceleration for flash (e.g. for Netflix), wider adoption of QuickTime; these would all assist with the demise of the optical drive.

 

[nfl46]

I think the Pro will eventually lose it. Apple wants us to spend more money (*cough*). They want us to spend an EXTRA $80 on the Superdrive. SMH! It wouldn't hurt to make the Pro at least one pound lighter.

 

[coochiekuta]

"... If people absolutely want one, they will tell them to buy a SuperDrive."

i think this sums up why it will happen. apple doesnt care what the customer needs, apple tells the customer what his needs are. if they believe you dont need the disc drive any longer, then they will not provide you it. they know their fans are loyal and will come aboard in a heartbeat. the non-fans, if they wish to continue using osx will follow even if cautiously.

 

[applepearpp]

i do think that OD still has some use in some specific situations such as k-12 schools (but hey, if a school got the funding for new macbooks for the teachers, they probably have funding for other media equipments too). Some argue general consumers "need" OD for movie viewing and what not.

However, getting rid of the OD is almost predictable in the next gen MBP. but what i think is that the MB and 13" MBP will still retain the OD while the 15" and 17 inch will lose it in exchange for something more frequently used such as better GPU or more battery. Express card is probably going to return to 15", but i am very unsure on this. Express card slot does open up a lot of options for MBP. a 8GB bootable SSD, USB3 ports, external OD at a decent speed, etc.

but let's see what apple brings us. I always enjoy guessing and finding out how off i am from what Jobs introduces.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

Expresscard isn't coming back to the 15". Not unless people start to nerd-rage sjobs@apple.com like they did for firewire. Expresscard is barely supported by Apple as it is , take a look at the "Are There Any eSata Cards that actually work?" thread. One user actually sent Apple plenty of Sample Cards including the 'holy grail' Sonnet Tempo Pro eSata card. All produce kernel panics for a variety of reasons. Apple isn't exactly lining up to provide ExCard users with USB 3.0 cards/drivers. We don't even know if they put Ex34 spec 2.0 in the 2010 17" MBPs.

 

[Blues003]

i do think that OD still has some use in some specific situations such as k-12 schools (but hey, if a school got the funding for new macbooks for the teachers, they probably have funding for other media equipments too). Some argue general consumers "need" OD for movie viewing and what not.

However, getting rid of the OD is almost predictable in the next gen MBP. but what i think is that the MB and 13" MBP will still retain the OD while the 15" and 17 inch will lose it in exchange for something more frequently used such as better GPU or more battery. Express card is probably going to return to 15", but i am very unsure on this. Express card slot does open up a lot of options for MBP. a 8GB bootable SSD, USB3 ports, external OD at a decent speed, etc.

but let's see what apple brings us. I always enjoy guessing and finding out how off i am from what Jobs introduces.

The 15'' and 17'' already have a dedicated GPU. The MB and MBP 13'' don't, and it'll be hard to fit it with the OD in. Why would they not take the OD out exactly in the models where the lack of it could create the most benefit, graphic's wise?

 

[Vortexmac]

Here's my shot

Hi everyone. Relatively new to the world of Mac and this great forum. Enjoyed researching recent purchase of Macbook Pro and from an iFixit teardown engineering point of view I think the OP may be right, although perhaps not in 2 months as I think they will wait and see how the OS X app store works out.

There is not a lot of room in these sexy aluminium cases and there are considered compromises to be made. Developments in processor performance and battery all need room..... which is not there, the C2D compromise proved that...... and not a bad compromise based on my experiences with the 13" base model so far.

So how about the next Macbook Pro 13 with no optical drive and smaller form SSD making space for slightly larger logic board and therefore i5 and seperate GPU and larger battery...... released next Spring to allow SSD prices to drop and release with Lion..... and a superdrive bundled in box or discounted if bought together...... or throw it all in the air for a top secret superefficient in house integrated CPU and GPU with USB 3.0 and battery the size of a planet??

 

[dusk007]

I am also hoping for SSD onboard in the new MBP and I would say it is not that unlikely but I think there will still have to be a 2,5" driver because Flash costs grow linearly and 64GB is not enough for most MBP users. Thus it would be more like a speed feature than a space saving design choice.
But don't worry too much about the logic board's size. There are triple chip designs like a 13,3" Acer TimelineX that work perfectly well. It is not that difficult to fit those 3 chips onto one logic board.
And considering that the MBA 13" has 50Wh battery and only two components missing I think it won't be a problem to redesign a new MBP with slightly smaller dimensions and pretty much anything in it they want.
There is so much battery research going on now, it is only a matter of time and money till they can significantly increase the Wh per cubic inch. There are already new battery technologies available that offer much more power for the same weight and space. Apple only needs to license it and scale them down to laptop size as they are only used in cars till now.

 

[applepearpp]

The 15'' and 17'' already have a dedicated GPU. The MB and MBP 13'' don't, and it'll be hard to fit it with the OD in. Why would they not take the OD out exactly in the models where the lack of it could create the most benefit, graphic's wise?

my reasoning is that MB and MBP13" are for general consumers who probably just want to buy a machine and do whatever they do. They probably don't do anything graphic intensive anyways but they probably want to still watch DVD or something like that.

your argument is kinda like why don't we put the same thing in every mac but but only differ the size. different size/config are aimed toward different population. Apple is hella good at knowing who to sell their machine too.

 

[redkamel]

OP has a good point, but I think this will happen 1-2 updates AFTER Lion. Once the App store is in place, it will be prime time to drop the disc drive. Unfortunately this will be viewed as a heavy handed way to push people to the App store (and it probably would be, partially). I download most of software these days anyways.

I know for me, I would much rather have them "Air-ize" the MBP; remove the disc drive, add more battery and cooling. With better SSD options in the future, you could have a pro-level, ultralight laptop with 10-12 hours battery life.

I would gladly pay 100 dollars for an external disc drive to have the above mentioned benefits. I don't know about how MBPers use their laptops, but when I had one (and I now have an Air), I RARELY needed a disc drive in the field. I burned discs at home. I don't even do that really.

I mean, the worst case scenario is that you leave you burner at home and have to transfer via USB stick or even give one away. A 4gb stick is only 7 bucks.

 

[gimmi80]

... I'm willing to bet my life ...

I reserve your soul.
Sign here, please.

 

[hcho3]

I see that some of you are very sentimental about optical Drive on Macbook Pro, but apple is not.

MBA is the future of notebooks. Apple will be getting rid of optical Drive and HDD.

They already offer SSD as an option on Macbook pros.

With exception of 17 inch MBP, both 13 inch and 15 inch MBP will lose optical drive either this year or early next year. Apple will start replacing MBP with SSD+HDD for few years, but they will slowly kill of HDD as well. SSD is great for faster boot up and loads your apps even more quickly. As long as apple can pump out like 256 GB SSD or 512 SSD for my next 15 inch MBP, then that is all I need. I will just load any DVD from my iMAC. Please apple ditch HDD and optical Drive for next MBP update and put more battery. Also make it lighter and thinner.

 

[tjb1]

I see that some of you are very sentimental about optical Drive on Macbook Pro, but apple is not.

MBA is the future of notebooks. Apple will be getting rid of optical Drive and HDD.

They already offer SSD as an option on Macbook pros.

With exception of 17 inch MBP, both 13 inch and 15 inch MBP will lose optical drive either this year or early next year. Apple will start replacing MBP with SSD+HDD for few years, but they will slowly kill of HDD as well. SSD is great for faster boot up and loads your apps even more quickly. As long as apple can pump out like 256 GB SSD or 512 SSD for my next 15 inch MBP, then that is all I need. I will just load any DVD from my iMAC. Please apple ditch HDD and optical Drive for next MBP update and put more battery. Also make it lighter and thinner.

Oh and add $1000 to the already high price...256 SSD = ~$500, 512 SSD = +$1000 and the extra cost of the battery plus research and development for lighter/thinner along with the new components needed to do that and the MBP will be at $3500. Yeah blah blah intel 3rd gen ssd, cheaper prices, blah blah...prove it.

 

[hcho3]

Oh and add $1000 to the already high price...256 SSD = ~$500, 512 SSD = +$1000 and the extra cost of the battery plus research and development for lighter/thinner along with the new components needed to do that and the MBP will be at $3500. Yeah blah blah intel 3rd gen ssd, cheaper prices, blah blah...prove it.

This is mac rumors. Not mac facts. There is no way to prove or know what apple is going to do. Also, I said they will do it over time. 1000 dolars for 512 SSD price was the price since early 2010. It has been more than 8 months since MBP has been upgraded. These prices are changing day by day. I never said it will happen over night. It will be done gradually. I did say SSD + HD combo for a while and then move on to SSD. Besides, I don't think I want to prove to someone who don't read anything carefully. Blah blah.

 

[tjb1]

This is mac rumors. Not mac facts. There is no way to prove or know what apple is going to do. Also, I said they will do it over time. 1000 dolars for 512 SSD price was the price since early 2010. It has been more than 8 months since MBP has been upgraded. These prices are changing day by day. I never said it will happen over night. It will be done gradually. I did say SSD + HD combo for a while and then move on to SSD. Besides, I don't think I want to prove to someone who don't read anything carefully. Blah blah.

Funny, 512gb still costs over $1000 and 256gb is over $500 still...really moved alot. You think Apple has some sort of hidden ssd that is $200 for 512gb? Oh and a SSD-HD combo then move to SSD, so two complete redesigns of the inside? You really need to think before you spurt crap out.

 

[Mal67]

If you live that long!

Will it happen? Yes. But your time frame is way to short. This isn't like when the floppy drive got left off for the optical drive. There's nothing to replace it yet. Not cheaply or securely anyway...

CD distribution is cheap compared to a flash drive and I think you'd find a public unwilling to download every major program they need from the internet due to security scares and backup concerns. Most of us here regularly rely on the cloud, but Ma and Pa need that disc, at least for the next couple of years.

I'm sure the optical drive will go at some point but downloads are sometimes so slow. I probably use my thumb drive more than the optical drive but there wouldn't be too much in it and anyway I don't understand why a pro machine has to miss out on its drive. Personally I would be very unimpressed even if it had double the battery life and a souped up video card.

 

[Yin]

Funny, 512gb still costs over $1000 and 256gb is over $500 still...really moved alot. You think Apple has some sort of hidden ssd that is $200 for 512gb? Oh and a SSD-HD combo then move to SSD, so two complete redesigns of the inside? You really need to think before you spurt crap out.

you should really watch your language. and learn to read. OVER THE TIME!

 

[WelshBluebird]

Please apple ditch HDD and optical Drive for next MBP update and put more battery. Also make it lighter and thinner.

Why?
If you want a Macbook Pro that is lighter and thinner, and doesn't have a HDD or DVD drive, then just get a Macbook Air.

 

[bigjobby]

Why?
If you want a Macbook Pro that is lighter and thinner, and doesn't have a HDD or DVD drive, then just get a Macbook Air.

I agree. Also Apple are unlikely to up the ante significantly on battery as competition are still playing catch-up. Another point is if this is to happen, there will be a price hike as price of more battery is more than an OD. So if more battery was ever to replace the OD, the same people asking for this replacement will again be whining. Its a no win for Apple with some people.

 

[hcho3]

I said please as hope. They won't do it immediately. Apple always try to make people go buy software from their stores or itunes. By ditching OD, more people will use APP store.

 

[deadkennedy]

Of course, watching movies on DVD, let alone Blue Ray is evil. You should instead buy from iTunes. Same as playing Flash games is evil. You should instead buy them from App Store.

 

[bigjnyc]

So everyone disagrees. I guess I have to pull this thread back up in a few months...

I'm sure you wont if you are wrong.

 

[tjb1]

you should really watch your language. and learn to read. OVER THE TIME!

I didnt use any language so maybe you should learn what language is. Over time can be 2 months or 20 years. The time Apple would even consider if...IF they redesigned it WITHOUT the superdrive this year would be at least another 2-3 years before they would redesign it again. So if its 20 years you can stop making this redundant thread, if its 2 months you can stop also.

Edit: Read some other posts of yours and it seems all your here to do is stir the crap in these threads...Predictions, Superdrive, Lion, Release dates. Maybe you should contribute something instead of stirring the crap.