Second, I think people probably give Jobs WAY too much credit for the decisions that Apple made. I seriously doubt the rest of the execs were like, "Steve can we pleaeaeaeaeaeaeasssssse put Blu-Ray in Macs? Pleeeeeeeeeease?"
"NO!"
I guarantee you that shareholders are paying attention to how they treat Blu-ray. And I guarantee you that they have asked for it. It doesn't hurt Apple to support it, even if they don't push it. By your logic, there shouldn't be an iPod Shuffle because the Nano exists and touch is the way they're moving.
I fail to understand why so many damn Apple fanatics are so anti-choice.
The Pro would still be Pro as long as it had the quad-core CPU and discrete GPU (in the case of the 15" and 17"). If Tim Cook is smart, and I think he is, he is going to stay away from Blu Ray. Apple has a good thing going with iTunes, much the same way that Amazon has with Kindle. Thin is in, and it isn't a matter of being fickle. Thinner devices are more portable, even in a 13" or 15" design.
The Pro is NOT a Pro because of its processor, it's got the same damn processor as the Air, just under clocked. # of cores does not make a machine any more "Pro" than another. What makes a machine built for Pro use is just how much it can do - and the machine should be DIFFERENT than the lesser-priced models. The Pro should KEEP Ethernet, ADD Blu-ray, ADD USB ports, Make them USB 3.0 compatible. Why? Because that's what other "Pro" laptops are doing. You guys are making excuses.
While you're at it the Pro also needs:
- More efficient cooling. How about instead of cramming useless components into the thing, you make it cool better than it currently does?
- More screen options. Why doesn't the 13" have a matte option? Why is the matte option so prohibitively expensive on the 15" but not the 17"? Why can't they look into polarizing the screen, or changing the glaze of the glass screen?
- More external storage options. Why is the 17" the only one with ExpressCard? Why not all Pros?
- More expansion capabilities. Instead of people whining and complaining about being "forced" to carry around a "heavy" optical drive, why not make that bay completely modular? Allow people to CTO whatever they want and plug it in there. Extra battery, standard optical, Blu-ray? (Even though more battery is more dense and thus heavier than the optical, but whatever...)
THAT is how you keep it a Pro and differentiate it from the Air. The Air has some of you people feening for thin yet you refuse to just go to that machine. If you want a 15" Air then demand it. Leave the Pro alone FFS. I also don't want the Pro's prices to skyrocket the way the Air's prices are which is the other "thin" problem.
Please Apple, ditch the 5400 RPM hard drives. They're a thing of the past.
This is a good change. There's no logical reason Apple continues to use those drives over at least 7200RPM. I don't know about default SSDs because of the cost/capacity argument. But 7200RPM isn't too much to ask. They're effectively the same price for a noticeable speed improvement, especially when running VMs.
Apple is clearly attempting to set a trend by eliminating the optical drive and designing thinner products. Backtracking by putting in a Blu Ray drive and maintaining the size of the MacBook Pro line after the next major update would go against it.
No, it would not. That's what you're not getting.
Suppose - and you'll have to fight hard to get the clouds out of your eyes - but suppose that their way of adding to the computing world with a thin-trending change is by ADDING THE AIR TO THEIR LINEUP. In other words, suppose for a moment that they sat down logically and said, "you know, we can't get rid of the Pro since it got us to this point, and we do need a truly powerhouse machine, but what if we create a whole new line of product that is thinner?" The Air is born, the poly MacBook dies.
Now, my question to all of you fanboys is this: Without falling back to your useless response of "because it's the Apple way", logically, why are you guys so anti-choice? I seriously want to know this.
Want thin: Buy the Air. Force Apple to give you a 15" or even 17" Air if you must. They won't sell for crap, but go for it anyway. Point is, for thin, buy the air.
Want POWER: Buy the Pro. Make the optical bay modular if you must. But the Pro must never LOSE any functionality, otherwise it'll no longer be a Pro.
TO me that seems a much smarter proposition from a financial standpoint than corralling the sheep (pun intended) into one machine or another. Why do you suppose so many people bought the poly MacBook when the MacBook Pro 13" was clearly superior at the same price (at some stores)? It's because PEOPLE LIKE CHOICES. Choice is good. Choice is American.
