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I have been witnessing more and more grandmas and grandpas starting to use laptops as their primary and only computer, especially when they are introduced to wireless high-speed internet. This is happening with my parents and others that I know. Certainly there is still a need for desktops such as the iMac among the general public, but I see the desktop marketshare continuing to drop in favor of portables.
Apple notebook sales outstripped desktop sales years ago.

Your analysis is nice, but about five years late.
 
Surely Apple must be considering geting rid of the optical drive in the 13" MBP, It's the only way forward imo.

I'm sure Apple has considered many things.

They are necessary and useful for *fewer and fewer* people, and an external drive will absolutely suffice for those one or two times you might feel the need for one.

At the very least, more models not including them would seem logical. I can't believe that the majority of people really need them.

But as usual, Steve will tell you what you really need.

As for making it optional, that would violate the Steve Jobs Doctrine: Don't Confuse Your Customers With Choices.
 
Even if I could remove it myself, it'd have a great big gaping space in it - what a waste, and all the circuitry to support it would be in it still. Why not design it without one? That's a more elegant solution.

At least it would be without all the extra weight that people have reason to complain about.

But really, an optical disc drive is about the volume and weight of two typical food bars, your choice, candy or health. Something that trivial just doesn't seem worth complaining about.
 
as an option :)

I'd be happy to see the back of optical drives altogether..

To be honest, nowadays i think the Superdrives are next to useless, if people really need one they should be able to attach one like with the MBA, otherwise i would love to see all that space used for a freaking huge HDD (x2?) or 1GB Graphics Card. Plus it would, i presume, allow for the 13" MBP to get both i3/5/7 + nVidia Discrete :O
 
Would you but it if...?

For all those whowant Apple to kill off the ODD in some models such as the MBP....how many are willing to accept the higher price on the "MacBook Pro" Air? THis assumes that the MBP gets some worthwhile upgrade/redesign ie 4 dimm slots, RAID, SSD, etc.
 
For all those whowant Apple to kill off the ODD in some models such as the MBP....how many are willing to accept the higher price on the "MacBook Pro" Air? THis assumes that the MBP gets some worthwhile upgrade/redesign ie 4 dimm slots, RAID, SSD, etc.

I'm the first in queue :)
 
additional thought

how about rethinking the use of carbon fiber for the case?

it's lighter, much stronger and pretty much heat resistant. it's also more expensive, but with volume that gap should narrow.

also, the 13" should have some build to order options for the needy.
 
as an option :)

I'd be happy to see the back of optical drives altogether..
Computer use extends beyond the geek fraternity, you know. Many of us that have moved out of Mama's place want to send DVDs of the grandchildren back home, and said Mama isn't interested in computers or the Internet.
 
Huh, should I wait with buying the small MacBook Pro with 2,4 GHz at least until the WWDC has finished?

Actually I thought they won't update the MacBook Pros before fall. But whats with the technology of 2,4 GHz Core2Duo. Is it still worth buying or too old already?
 
Considering that the i5 & i7 are freezing up for many people, maybe it's a good thing the 13 is still C2D based.

Better the Devil you know, eh?

I doubt we'll see anything anytime soon. The iX series is pretty much a stop gap measure until Sandy Bridge comes out which is a more important refresh than what we've seen so far - I'd say hang in there with the MacBook Pro you have and wait till there is a refresh at the end of this year when Sandy Bridge is released and nVidia refresh their chipset to include Fermi based GPU's which are OpenGL 4.0 compatible.

Yeah, I know it's stating the bleedin' obvious but I'd say that's gonna be a major update (with hopefully a long-needed opticaldrivectomy)
 
At least it would be without all the extra weight that people have reason to complain about.

But really, an optical disc drive is about the volume and weight of two typical food bars, your choice, candy or health. Something that trivial just doesn't seem worth complaining about.

Perhaps they should allow me to remove the drive and have a flap or door so I can store my food bars! Of course, they'd have to be melt proof. :rolleyes:

But as usual, Steve will tell you what you really need.

As for making it optional, that would violate the Steve Jobs Doctrine: Don't Confuse Your Customers With Choices.

I don't see it that way at all. Apple builds products I like - they're not perfect.

In this particular case, other than netbooks (I guess? I don't own one), what percentage of laptops have no optical drives in them as standard? Apple isn't lagging behind here, instead it appears I'm (possibly, though I'm not convinced) in a minority that no one cares about, or no one in the industry has woken up to the fact that we don't require the bloody things internal in these devices any longer.
 
I just bought a i7 4 days ago, should I get a refund as a new one is coming out?

Sure, but you will be with out a Macbook Pro until later this year, or if Apple is lazy, early next year.
I would say no. Just enjoy your MBP. The i7 is plenty fast, and will not be slower when the new one comes out. Its only a 200 MHz speed increase (not noticeable)
 
The only time I even touch my optical drive is when I have to install APPLE'S SOFTWARE of all things. They really should just move everything to USB thumb drives. If they aren't going to put Blu-Ray in it's useless. iDVD is pretty horrendous anyway, hasn't received a worthwhile update in a long time.
 
Internal optical drives are old and piontles, please remove them SJ...

you people are all nuts. the optical drive is a MUST to anyone who creates large content. backing up online doesn't work for 4 gig files, ya know?

the bigger ones people are already used to lugging around a beast of a machine.

right, because that dvd drive adds... what, 2 ounces of weight? oh, what a BEAST!

a laptop without an optical drive is crippled. and instead you people want an EXTERNAL drive? insanity.

so what happens when i want to...

1) backup large files / transport large files easily and cheaply (YOU back up multi-gig files online. i don't have the time. thumb drives? right. quick, easy, cheap 8gb of storage. what else does that?)

2) consume media immediately (not after ripping, storing, etc.) (hey, watch this movie, view this presentation, snag my files, etc... oh, you can't you have no drive. why did you even bring the laptop?)

3) publish media... video, audio, etc. (Now that i'm done with my project i'll just... find another computer to burn it on, take FOREVER to get the project over, and then deal with that same process every time you want to make a change. giant suck)


anyone who wants to lose the optical drive doesn't produce anything of any size on their laptop.
 
you people are all nuts. the optical drive is a MUST to anyone who creates large content. backing up online doesn't work for 4 gig files, ya know?



right, because that dvd drive adds... what, 2 ounces of weight? oh, what a BEAST!No. People want it gone because it takes up space that could be used for other components.

a laptop without an optical drive is crippled. and instead you people want an EXTERNAL drive? insanity.

so what happens when i want to...

1) backup large files / transport large files easily and cheaply (YOU back up multi-gig files online. i don't have the time. thumb drives? right. quick, easy, cheap 8gb of storage. what else does that?) What the hell is this 1999? No one uses optical media to back things up. External hard drives are far more sufficient.

2) consume media immediately (not after ripping, storing, etc.) (hey, watch this movie, view this presentation, snag my files, etc... oh, you can't you have no drive. why did you even bring the laptop?)Snag files? USB thumbsticks.

3) publish media... video, audio, etc. (Now that i'm done with my project i'll just... find another computer to burn it on, take FOREVER to get the project over, and then deal with that same process every time you want to make a change. giant suck)USB thumbstick.


anyone who wants to lose the optical drive doesn't produce anything of any size on their laptop.

Good, for that small majority of people they can buy an external superdrive. Hardly going to set the world on fire. The sooner the last spinning parts of a computer are gone the better. The HDD is already on its way out, next up is the optical drive.
 
Good, for that small majority of people they can buy an external superdrive.

right, because having a much WORSE solution is somehow better for everyone?

i'd bet a lot more people use the optical drive on their laptops than don't. the air is set up that way... and yet isn't really setting the world on fire either.

people that want a tiny, crippled, less capable laptop can buy the air... everyone else who wants a laptop to do all the things it should can buy a real laptop.

and so you want the SSD... so again, you want to reduce storage space, and then take away removable storage space. how does that make sense?

"no, you can't just watch a movie on this thing... you have to rip it first. and oh, you don't have the drive space to do that any more, cause you've got a lousy little 128gb ssd."

why is this better, to save 2 ounces and a tiny bit of space? to gain 1 hour of battery time? yawn.
 
right, because having a much WORSE solution is somehow better for everyone?

i'd bet a lot more people use the optical drive on their laptops than don't. the air is set up that way... and yet isn't really setting the world on fire either.

people that want a tiny, crippled, less capable laptop can buy the air... everyone else who wants a laptop to do all the things it should can buy a real laptop.

and so you want the SSD... so again, you want to reduce storage space, and then take away removable storage space. how does that make sense?

"no, you can't just watch a movie on this thing... you have to rip it first. and oh, you don't have the drive space to do that any more, cause you've got a lousy little 128gb ssd."

why is this better, to save 2 ounces and a tiny bit of space? to gain 1 hour of battery time? yawn.
It really seems like you are just making up excuses to keep the ODD around. It's useless. I've responded to your claims of why the optical drive needs to stay around above. If they removed the optical drive we could actually have dual SSD's in our laptops. There's a lot of **** that can be done without the useless optical drive. Apple could make the logic board bigger on the 13" for one. USB thumbsticks and external harddrives do everything you listed above with flying colors. Optical media is dead.
 
I got a 15" 2.6GHz i7 MacBook Pro this week. I opted for 8GB RAM, 7200 rpm hard drive and the hi-res anti-glare screen. It's an absolutely stunning machine!

It absolutely kills the old 2.66 GHz ALU MBP I'd been using. I'd seen reviews saying that $200 extra for 5% to 7% of extra speed wasn't worth it. HAH! It's worth every penny.

I was testing some 3D Vectorworks models and the rendering speed is phenomenal. I was able to rotate fully rendered (OpenGL) models with no lag, whereas previously, I could rotate wireframes only with 5 to 10 seconds of rendering time. High quality renderings took only a few seconds, vs. about 30 seconds on the old machine.

A couple hundred more megahertz can only improve it.
 
Computer use extends beyond the geek fraternity, you know. Many of us that have moved out of Mama's place want to send DVDs of the grandchildren back home, and said Mama isn't interested in computers or the Internet.


I wouldn't know, why don't you tell us all about this geek fraternity then. If you have time off from making snarky remarks that you wouldn't say in real life ;)
 
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