I haven't read the whole thread (forgive me), but there is a major point most of you are ignoring: even IF we accept that digital downloads are the future (they probably are) and even IF we overlook their terrible quality compared to Blu-Ray, there's still the issue of, you know, being able to GET these digital downloads. It smacks of arrogance that some posters here - Americans, I assume - rave about their awesome internet connections and about how digital distribution is the future. Guess what, I have a 25Mb-connection that I would probably use to legally download movies IF they were even available in my country! As of today, the iTunes store does not offer movies or TV shows in Europe, or at least not in my country. We also don't have Hulu or Netflix. So, even if I had a 1Gbps-connection, I'd still want Blu-Ray, because where the hell am I supposed to download all these movies legally? This reduced availability, coupled with low-speed internet connections in many parts of the world and of course the atrocious quality of iTunes-downloads (or are they offering 1080p now?) just goes to show that digital distribution still has a looooong way to go. Now, it's probably going to come into its own in the next few years. But what are we - especially Apple's European customers - going to do until then? Continue to buy DVDs, a dead medium? Illegally download titles in 1080p-quality? Not watch any movies at all? Pay thousands for a big home entertainment system even though we'd like to watch movies on our laptops?
And one other point: how is the selection in the iTunes store? Can you only get the mainstream titles or are there also niche movies? That could be another advantage of the physical medium.
And boy, of course it makes sense to watch BR-movies on a laptop screen, provided that screen has a resolution of at least 1920x1080. I would expect Apple to offer such screens across the whole MBP-lineup (yes, even the 13-incher - have you seen the new Vaio Z?). In fact, I do all of my movie-watching on my MBP, and so do most people I know. It might come as a surprise to some of you, but many people, mainly students like myself, don't have big living rooms with huge HDTVs and surround systems. Our laptops are usually our main media hubs, our movie players and audio players rolled into one cool device. I would be absolutely delighted if I could finally watch movies in adequate quality on my laptop - why shell out thousands for a good TV+BR-player+surround system when I have neither the money nor the space for this stuff and would be satisfied with BR+FullHD on my laptop?
Now, I know not everyone is interested in this. Some of you actually have kick-ass TVs and don't want to watch movies on a laptop. That's fine. Just understand that different people require different things of their laptops, and there is a difference between extravagant and reasonable requirements. It would be extravagant for me to assume that Apple should ship out all future MBPs with SSDs only, because this technology is still a bit too expensive to come as a standard option (in a few years' time it will be very reasonable to assume SSDs as standard!). However, it is not extravagant at all to expect a BR-player and a FullHD-screen in a laptop that costs 2'000-2'500 dollars or euros or whatever when the competition puts this stuff in machines that cost half the price. It's arrogant to assume that everyone's requirements of a computer are the same, just like it's arrogant to smugly point out that digital downloads are the future when they're not even available in most parts of the world yet. Apple is free to skip BR, you know, but then they had better provide ALL OF THEIR CUSTOMERS, not just the American ones, with a viable alternative: i. e. an extensive selection of DRM-free movies and TV-shows in 1080p on every iTunes store in the world.
BTW, I'd be fine with BR remaining a BTO-option for the moment. Here's what I'd like to see:
- cheap configurations with superdrives
- standard configurations with no optical drives at all and a choice of having the optical drive replaced by either an extended battery at no premium or an 80GB SSD that complements the main HDD at a small premium
- BR option at a very small premium
