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Apple Patents Mini CD/DVD-ROM Adapter For Slot Loading Drives

You Didn't Get It!

»reduced-size media when possible would reduce shipping, manufacturing, and packaging costs.«

If you ship a sub-notebook or whatever you can give a **** on the difference price for packaging and delivering a mini CD insted of a normal CD. I suppose it even would be more expensive because of the unusual size of media. For shure its not cheaper.

This adaptor comes in two peaces and so it's not much bigger then a mouse. And yes – there would have a reduction of pacaging which is at least a third to the package Apple use to ship their Mouses. And yes – if they ship a multi-touch-mouse (which patent we saw at the beginning of the year on this board), they would ship it with software for Mac and PC on a mini CD. They would sell masses of this product, and yes – costs for pacaging and shipping are very relevant for it.

So what do you think?
 
kristenz said:
I own a Sony Camcorder that records to mini-disks. ... Can any of you help me with a quick fix solution to input video in the meantime?
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Buy a tray-loading external DVD drive in a FireWire or USB enclosure. If you're willing to go the eBay or used route they should be very cheap.
 
Sounds to me like this gives you two options with a slot-loading drive - either put the small disc in and hope you don't get it stuck in there, or put the adapter on the disc and hope you don't get two things stuck in there. Maybe it will attach securely, but do you really want consumers assembling something before inserting it into a very thin slot?

The trade show business-card-sized discs were nothing more than a novelty to me. I acquired a dozen or so but never used them. I didn't feel like putting my hardware at risk just to view a marketing video.
 
personally i think the discs are dumb. and i think that this be a frivolous patent. But after the screw up with microsoft in 85 why shouldn't apple patent every idea they ever have. better to protect everything even if some of its rubbish than let something that seems benign and it explodes to something huge.
 
mike12806 said:
I live in the US and never have seen a smaller disc then the dvd/cd size.....are they prevalent in digital filming or something?
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I recently bought a Nikon digital SLR. The image manipulation software that came with it was on a mini-CD. I recently bought an mp3 player, and the software for it came on a mini-CD. I recently bought an SDHC card reader. The software that came with it was on a mini-CD.

They're out there..

The *other* issue with mini-CDs that torques me off is that you can't buy a darned wallet for the darned things. You either have to stack and carry multiple little plastic boxes in your laptop bag, or continue to carry a full-size CD wallet. So, trying to save space by using the mini-CD worked right up until the point you tried to store them for your convenience. I'd found a couple of links for 8mm CD wallets, but they were in Britain, and the postage and handling was more than buying two of the darned wallets. Since Mini-DVD cameras are plentiful, why isn't there an equal call for the wallets to store *those* things in?? Geez....
 
notjustjay said:
Why bother with a CD at all? We are getting to the point where anything you could fit on a miniCD (what, 180 megs or so?) could easily be downloaded over the internet.
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---um, unless you're stuck with dial-up, which a large portion of the western US still is. I have a relative that lives on an acreage. Because of the size of the lots, population density will never rise to the point where cable will go in there. He's also serviced by Billy-Joe-Bob phone company, and he's about thirteen thousand feet from the nearest central office, and they've no plans to upgrade this century, it seems. So he 'lives with' crappy dial-up. There's not even a plan in place for anyone to do muni wi-fi or wi-max anytime 'soon.' He's just plain scr00d.
 
re: Why bother with CD?

That's true (although overall, the situation gets better in the U.S. all the time, with more areas getting cable or DSL, and satellite a viable option for some others). The problem I have with the whole "just download it instead of buying it on physical media" idea is, you really should store your download permanently on something once you get it. For 99% of us today, that means burning it onto a CD or DVD. This is an extra hassle you shouldn't really have to go through on a piece of commercial software you just paid for.

In this era of horrible tech. support and constant "upgrades" that end up costing you over 2x what you spent on the product to begin with after only a few years, the LEAST they can do is provide you a piece of physical media with the software "ready to install" from it!


MarvinMartian said:
---um, unless you're stuck with dial-up, which a large portion of the western US still is. I have a relative that lives on an acreage. Because of the size of the lots, population density will never rise to the point where cable will go in there. He's also serviced by Billy-Joe-Bob phone company, and he's about thirteen thousand feet from the nearest central office, and they've no plans to upgrade this century, it seems. So he 'lives with' crappy dial-up. There's not even a plan in place for anyone to do muni wi-fi or wi-max anytime 'soon.' He's just plain scr00d.
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longofest said:
...Remember that reduced sized media = reduced packaging = good for environment as well.
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That's all good but I am really tired of all those non-standard medias. I mean, if they can do it with a smaller CD (with the same capacity as the regular ones), that's fine by me. Just change them all then! As mentioned above, I don't want to carry (yet an other) adapter around... :eek:

Did the DL DVDs are twice as big as single DVDs? So why have different size for CD/DVD and mini-dvd? :confused:

I think they should all be the same size.

We are already facing an exciting dilemma about BR/HD DVD... :eek:
 
dumb idea

I think it's a dumb idea. I just wish the small disc would die out. It almost has, let's not try to popularize the stupid thing again. Storage capacity needs are continually increasing, why would we want a lower capacity media to become widely used? Let it go.
 
What I don't understand is why Apple doesn't put the iTunes software needed for iPods on the iPods themselves.

Why download from the internet when you can just install it from the flash or disk drive of the iPod?
 
i've been re-ripping my entire cd collection on my new iMac and have ripped a number of cd singles using old-skool UK converters. it did make me a bit nervous but they seemed to work fine.

Amazed they bothered trying to patent this.
 
MarvinMartian said:
The *other* issue with mini-CDs that torques me off is that you can't buy a darned wallet for the darned things. You either have to stack and carry multiple little plastic boxes in your laptop bag, or continue to carry a full-size CD wallet. So, trying to save space by using the mini-CD worked right up until the point you tried to store them for your convenience. I'd found a couple of links for 8mm CD wallets, but they were in Britain, and the postage and handling was more than buying two of the darned wallets. Since Mini-DVD cameras are plentiful, why isn't there an equal call for the wallets to store *those* things in?? Geez....
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A friend of mine has a 12-disc zippered wallet for his gamecube discs. I don't know where he got it, but if you search eBay or Google for "gamecube 12 disc" you might find one.
 
Yvan256 said:
...I'm with you on the downloading, though. In this age of downloadable TV shows and movies, 600MB isn't that much data anymore...
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I agree that downloads are the future (well, more like Y2K's future;)) but I can't see myself installing, re-installing or trouble-shooting my computer without a physical CD (or DVD) of the OS.

Sure, now that we have Time Machine, we are slowly going down that road but, as it is now, it's *nowhere* as safe or as practical as a physical CD (with the trusty CMD+C)...
 
notjustjay said:
...One day you'll receive a USB memory stick with it instead. You'll pop it in, mount the disk and run the installer...
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This idea (or even the iPod idea with iTunes installer on it) seems much more adequate for softwares distribution than mini-cds, as far as I'm concerned.

Plus, you could (possibly) reuse them...:rolleyes:
No more zillions CD/DVDs laying on your desk... :D
 
Another stupid device to carry, lose or break. Regular DVD format is fine, leave it alone.

There is no real must have advantage here.
 
Littleodie914 said:
So instead of a sub-notebook completely scrapping the optical drive, maybe Apple will be releasing one with a sub-optical drive?
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Here is my theory, and it's just a theory, but may one day come to life. Seeing how the new smaller laptop is supposedly going to not contain a cd-rom drive, how is someone supposed to go about updating their operating system later when 10.6 or 11 comes out (they will be on DVD's)? What if something gets corrupted and the original OS needs to be reinstalled? What if a person does not have access to an external CD/DVD drive?

Enter the new possibility: Removable USB flash card based distribution. Flash media is getting cheaper and cheaper as the memory sizes increase. In theory, Apple could have the OS installation on a USB flash drive (that would be protected from user erases of course). This would also allow the system to update the installation files on the USB Flash drive (Ex: flash media ships with 10.5, and a few weeks later 10.5.1 comes out. The system/OS (being the only mechanism that can make changes to the flash drive) could update the files on the flash drive to include 10.5.1 so that the user does not have to update and it would make the recovery process faster). Apple's programs, such as iWork or iLife, could be shipped on small, lightweight flash drives with the same criteria (the ability to update the installer files and the system being the only mechanism that can make any changes). Plus, the newer macs have the ability to boot through USB making it doable.

I know, it sounds a little out there, but look at the impact that it could have on the user end as well as Apple's end. NAND is getting cheaper all the time, probably never as cheap as CD's, but it could maybe one day get there. But the programs, such as mac os or ilife, could be zipped (unzipped by mac os or disk utility) and .dmg'ed to make the size smaller. iLife '08 installation package could in theory fit on a 512mb flash drive.

As per the folding mini-CD adaptor, it's neat but I'd honestly be afraid to use it. I'd be afraid that the rotation of the disk would break one of the folding hinges, resulting in a useless disk drive. With how big program installer packages are getting, they won't be able to fit the installer packages onto the tiny disks, at least for very long. It's an idea that I think is a little too late in this digital era.
 
mikeinternet said:
shouldn't optical drives be replaced by thumb drives by now?

- they are tiny
- they are cheaper everyday
- and they are reusable
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I guess someone else had the same idea as I did (I only read the first and second page), but I had elaborated on how this could be done and what restrictions that they should have.
 
Macrumors said:


Apple has issued a patent application for an adapter to convert mini CD/DVD-ROMs to standard 12 cm size for use in slot-loading drives found on many of Apple's computer models.

Apple points out that the use of reduced-size media when possible would reduce shipping, manufacturing, and packaging costs. However, such media cannot be played in slot-loading drives that are designed to only accept standard-sized 12 cm media.

As a solution, Apple presents an adapter that would fit around reduced-sized media, making the media work as if it were standard 12 cm media in slot-loading devices.


CDadapter1_300.gif



The patent application, which was first published last Thursday, was filed in May of 2006 and was brought to light today by AppleInsider.

Raw Data: Patent Application #20070271577

Article Link
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A definite thumbs up for this one! Too many times have I been given a mini cd rom from a hardware package I ordered and have had to go find a regular tower computer to read the cd rom on.
 
morespce54 said:
That's all good but I am really tired of all those non-standard medias.
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8cm CD and DVD disks are standardized. (Oddly enough, you Americos call that 8cm vs. 12 cm while here in Europe most people I know refer to the disks as 3.5" and 5.25")

morespce54 said:
I think they should all be the same size.
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"I think they should all be the same small size." - corrected that for you.

I stopped using CD/DVDs because 12cm is dominant form factor - and it doesn't fit my pockets. On other side, 3.5" USB hard drive fits perfectly and can hold much more info.

morespce54 said:
We are already facing an exciting dilemma about BR/HD DVD... :eek:
Click to expand...

BR/HD are both now on hook of movie industry. And movie industry want you to sell something huge, big - at least physically - to make overpriced movie (you have paid N time before already) look OK in comparison. At least that was my impression.

Anyway, I'm all for smaller disk domination. Probably I would start using them then again.

P.S. And of course Apple's R&D gets a "TOO BAD" mark for not taking/ripping idea from Wii drive.
 
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