Sorry Apple, you really dropped the ball here. Working professionals such as myself who do photo and video work are being screwed and will be forced to start buying Windows laptops. There are a large number of professionals who need a disc drive on their laptops to burn discs for clients when traveling. The MBA already forego a disc drive to be thinner and lighter, why do they feel the need to do this with the MBP as well? The PRO should be more suited for business and include a disc drive. Let the people who want the thin and light laptops for play get the Air. Stupid move Apple, very stupid.
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No disc drive on new MBP?
- Thread starter mrbutters
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What's wrong with a super slim USB burner? Cheap and portable...I have an eight month old 17" MBP, so I have the burner...In the studio I think I've used it a couple of times. I think we saw that one coming to be honest....Dropping the 17" and the total lack of Mac Pro refresh? That's a different story.
Apple still sells both 13" and 15" Macbook Pro models with disc drives:
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/features/13-and-15-inch/
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/features/13-and-15-inch/
Why have a bunch of peripherals you have to carry around when you can have the items built in?
mrbutters - Agreed
It should be built in, externals on the go just feel clumsy.
I believe the issue is those will be the older model and over time that will do little good.
Any more then they should pander to people that do not want it? With it there, either use it or don't, not there, people that need it cannot use it. One sounds better then the other.
Some people like completely function computers.
Defeats the purpose.
It should be built in, externals on the go just feel clumsy.
I believe the issue is those will be the older model and over time that will do little good.
Any more then they should pander to people that do not want it? With it there, either use it or don't, not there, people that need it cannot use it. One sounds better then the other.
Some people like completely function computers.
Defeats the purpose.
Why carry CDs around with you when you can transfer files wirelessly, hook laptops up to TVs, or transfer things via flash drives, SD cards, or external hard drives?
It's all relative. I'm sure the same people were complaining when the floppy drive was dropped. But they moved on and survived, I'm sure. Just give it time and restructure the way you do business. I would be pissed if I worked with someone and they gave me a CD-R.
That could just be me of course.
ODD is dying a slow and agonizing death, it's just more dead today.
Seriously what do you need an ODD on the road for today?
Seriously what do you need an ODD on the road for today?
When you talk about on the road I cannot think of much unless someone brought some movies with them or needed it for work, if it is your main and only system then it is a must.
Yep and Apple appears to be slowing down on iMac productions too as they move towards mobile everything. Another move that will force pros like myself who need powerful desktops for editing to look elsewhere. Not smart.
But you have to carry around the blank CD's, probably in a bag, anyway. Is it really that much different? No. Infact if you don't want to carry anything around lets just drop all the ports together?
I don't care enough about this issue to disagree with you, but I wonder why you discriminate in the audiences between the two by characterizing yourself, of course, as a professional who does work, as opposed to the users of the Air.
I've always felt like the Air was definitely used by mobile workers who just had to have that lighter-weight portability because they're always transporting the thing.
People who need to share/transfer files already know there are way better ways to do it than to carry around discs, find them when you need them, go to all the trouble to burn them and then give them to someone else who may also have an Air and find it a quaint, yet somewhat antiquated process that doesn't help them because they don't have a superdrive either.
However, the pluses are that 1) there are superdrives available for Airs ... what an easy solution, though yes, I do lament that there is an additional cost and 2) both the 13" and the 15" with superdrives are still available!
While I do feel for someone that is upset that they can't have retina and a superdrive (because for these costs, people should be able to get what they want - and eff whatever St. Steve thought), this just isn't really an issue that's going to set someone's life off course.
That's my point, you can slap an external ODD drive on it when you're home. Copy whatever you need and leave the drive at home.
They squeezed batteries into any available space.
I just see no need to make the MBPs so thin and light and start taking things out, isn't that what they started the MBAs for? Whats the point of having the MBA line if you are just going to make the MBP the exact same model? Beyond stupid. Many clients want their photos and videos on the spot. You have any idea how long it would take to transfer 10GBs worth of data over FTP? A lot longer than burning a few DVDs. Hours as opposed to 20 minutes.
Yep, quad core i7, 15", 95Wh battery, retina screen (retina is power hungry i.e. iPad 3), Nvidia video card with 1GB DDR5. Thankfully it's OSX as Windows 7 would probably cut that to 3hrs.
Seven hours is less than my old 2010 MBP, I could only imagine if they crammed batteries into it instead of an ODD. Same applies to the iPad 3, I wish they crammed its battery into the iPad 2.
What can I say, I use my ODD very rarely, my batteries I use everyday.
If I were you, I would just buy 4GB USB thumb drives as bulk.. usually only about dollar each and give the thumb drive with photos to your clients. They will love it.
Obviously everyone has their opinion and is entitled to express it. I just want to represent the argument that the OP is dead wrong and that it's past time that Apple started removing the optical drives from its laptops.
The optical drive is the second biggest and heaviest component inside laptops besides the battery and the laptops can be made substantially thinner and lighter by removing this one component. It is also probably the single most failure-prone component because it spins, it is open to the environment, and it accepts foreign objects. So some people above have made the argument "well wouldn't you rather have it than not have it, what's the downside?" The downside is that it adds size, weight, and a higher probability of failure.
So if you you only rarely need to use an optical drive, why would you want to schlep it around with you constantly? I'm not doubting that there is a very small subset of people who need to burn disks all the time, but it's definitely a minor minority. For the vast majority of people, email attachments, Dropbox, Google Drive, and USB flash sticks are the preferable solution even if they have an optical drive built into their system.
I've had a 2011 Macbook Air as my primary computer since launch, so yeah I've had to find alternatives for the 5-10 times I've needed to burn disks. It has never been inconvenient. I don't think I'm a rare case when I say that there are still plenty of computers around my house and office with disk burners that I can use. There's also Apple's external Superdrive, or if you don't want to pay the Apple premium you can get generic slim USB DVDRW drives for $30.
Which reminds me of another point: if I was burning as many optical disks as you people claim, I would still prefer a laptop without an optical drive because I would want to use a desktop-size external burner anyway considering they are very cheap and 3-4x faster than the slim mobile ones.
Which is all besides the point that Apple for some reason is still selling the ancient 15" Macbook Pro chassis that still has the optical drive so these complaints are stupid.
The optical drive is the second biggest and heaviest component inside laptops besides the battery and the laptops can be made substantially thinner and lighter by removing this one component. It is also probably the single most failure-prone component because it spins, it is open to the environment, and it accepts foreign objects. So some people above have made the argument "well wouldn't you rather have it than not have it, what's the downside?" The downside is that it adds size, weight, and a higher probability of failure.
So if you you only rarely need to use an optical drive, why would you want to schlep it around with you constantly? I'm not doubting that there is a very small subset of people who need to burn disks all the time, but it's definitely a minor minority. For the vast majority of people, email attachments, Dropbox, Google Drive, and USB flash sticks are the preferable solution even if they have an optical drive built into their system.
I've had a 2011 Macbook Air as my primary computer since launch, so yeah I've had to find alternatives for the 5-10 times I've needed to burn disks. It has never been inconvenient. I don't think I'm a rare case when I say that there are still plenty of computers around my house and office with disk burners that I can use. There's also Apple's external Superdrive, or if you don't want to pay the Apple premium you can get generic slim USB DVDRW drives for $30.
Which reminds me of another point: if I was burning as many optical disks as you people claim, I would still prefer a laptop without an optical drive because I would want to use a desktop-size external burner anyway considering they are very cheap and 3-4x faster than the slim mobile ones.
Which is all besides the point that Apple for some reason is still selling the ancient 15" Macbook Pro chassis that still has the optical drive so these complaints are stupid.
I honestly cannot remember the last time I even used an Optical Drive. All my software/games I get via download.
I'm not arguing with the fact that you have a rare good use case for burning DVDs all the time, that's your job and you just happen to be in an unfortunate minority in this case.
But I do want to correct one of your misunderstandings. This new retina MBP is not "the exact same model" as an MBA. 17 watt Ultra Low Voltage CPU vs 45 watt Full Voltage CPU. Integrated vs. Discrete graphics with an even bigger gap in performance.
Why make 100% of MBP owners lug around a thicker MBP with a built in ODD when maybe only 5% of those people actually use it.