Notes of Interest on OS X Lion, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and Display Announcements

[anthony11]

Am I the only one who hates Apple are their forcing ways.

Yes, you are, because your question that for some reason ends with a period is a non-sequitor. Apple forces nobody to do anything. There is no gun to your head.

Removing Optical drives when MANY still use DVDs

The optical drive was removed from the Mini. The Air never had one.

I use my laptop for DVD playback all the time

The Mac Mini is not a laptop. I'll write it again so maybe it'll sink in: The Mac Mini is not a laptop.

buying a DVD feels much nicer than using iTunes.

Another non-sequitor. Buy DVD's if you like, again, nobody has a gun to your head. Apple is simply responding to market trends and offering products that they feel will sell and enhance their position in the market. Netflix has shown that the mass market increasingly favors instant online viewing over physical DVDs. If you want to watch physical DVD's and are afraid that running Handbrake will invoke the heat of SATAAAAAAANN, nothing stops you from buying an MBP. Neither the Air nor the Mini are products intended for the dwindling market of those want a laptop with a space-and-battery-slurping optical drive. Really really just gotta gotta have a DVD drive on a Mini? Ten seconds on google finds one for $35, 1/3 the amount that this mini is less expensive than the previous generation.

Same for CD installs, what happens when you don't have Internet.

"Have Internet"??? Me love you long time.
So, let me get this straight:
o You use a Mac Mini as a laptop somehow
o You want to install a 2.4GB OS from a 700MB CD
o You live in a reality where the thumb-drive option isn't available, nor are libraries, coffee shops, workplaces, friends, neighbors, or Apple stores.

Sucks to to be you.

Windows 8 has higher hopes in my books now, for one it'll very likely be CD and USB installed (For tablets needing USB) and it does not force anything upon you.

Whoa, now my head is REALLY spinning. You think MS Windows will somehow magically fit onto a 700MB CD again?

 

[ry4n525]

Ethernet port on thunderbolt display? Why? Dock feel?

 

[Rocketman]

Ethernet port on thunderbolt display? Why? Dock feel?

1. Because they can.
2. The place to attach your DSL/LAN to an Ethernet free Air.
3. NAS

MY QUESTION IS WHY IT DOESN'T HAVE WIFI.

 

[Rocketman]

Need Lion on a CD/DVD?

Here:

 

[kalsta]

A great round of updates.

<The thumb drive option will be priced at $69?

$40 for a 4GB thumb drive?

So download it. You have a choice. Personally, I think $69 for the best OS in the world, licensed to run on all your personal Macs, 3 per machine if you want to, is still a bargain.

Am I the only one who hates Apple are their forcing ways. Removing Optical drives when MANY still use DVDs. I use my laptop for DVD playback all the time, buying a DVD feels much nicer than using iTunes.

Same for CD installs, what happens when you don't have Internet. Rip-off selling it for a stupid price.

Windows 8 has higher hopes in my books now, for one it'll very likely be CD and USB installed (For tablets needing USB) and it does not force anything upon you.

People complained just like you are now when Apple dropped the floppy drive from the first iMac. Heck, even I joined the complainers when Apple refused to adopt Blu-ray, but I'm coming around. If you absolutely can't live without physical media, buy an external drive. All that said, it sounds like you might be happier in the Microsoft ecosystem, where old ideas hold new ones back for years to come. Enjoy.

I get the SuperDrive omission from a strategic standpoint, but it sucks for people who wanted to use it as a media center computer.

The best media centre setup has all your films ripped to the HD anyway. It's a royal pain in the backside to rip and compress hundreds of disks (believe me, I know!), but it's worth it in the end.

 

[lilo777]

People complained just like you are now when Apple dropped the floppy drive from the first iMac.

Do you remember music and movies being sold on floppy drives in all electronics stores at the time Apple dropped floppy drive? Were people renting movies on floppies from Flopflix? Were people sending their wedding videos on floppies to friends? When this happened floppies were used mostly for driver distribution and such and the replacements were ready. While internet does provide a partial replacement for optical drives there are plenty of uses for optical drives still. Some people prefer $1 rentals from Red Box, apparently Apple fans are OK with overpaying for online content from iTunes (it's OK as long as the money goes to Apple, right?)

 

[kalsta]

$29 - Lion
$10 - 4G thumb drive
$30 - Apple Specialist loading Lion onto the drive (~1 hr)

Your 'Apple Specialist' is a bit of a stretch as others have noted! But you're all forgetting the cost of physical distribution and retail markup. In addition to manufacturing, this is what Apple is cutting out by going with an all-digital distribution strategy. They're choosing to reflect this in their pricing to encourage the shift, which is perfectly reasonable.

 

[kalsta]

Do you remember music and movies being sold on floppy drives in all electronics stores at the time Apple dropped floppy drive? Were people renting movies on floppies from Flopflix? Were people sending their wedding videos on floppies to friends? When this happened floppies were used mostly for driver distribution and such and the replacements were ready. While internet does provide a partial replacement for optical drives there are plenty of uses for optical drives still. Some people prefer $1 rentals from Red Box, apparently Apple fans are OK with overpaying for online content from iTunes (it's OK as long as the money goes to Apple, right?)

You're missing the point. A lot of people really couldn't imagine life without a removable floppy disk at the time. But a shift was coming and Apple predicted it. A similar shift is happening with digital media. We can argue about whether Apple is moving too early… but rather than argue, why not just go out and buy an external drive?

In my experience, the DVD drives on all our Macs sit idle and unused 99% of the time. We can't be the only ones. So why duplicate one in every Mac? Does that make sense to you?

At home we have two cars, and occasionally we need to use a trailer. Would it make more sense to have trailers permanently attached to both cars, or just have one trailer that we hook up when we need it?

 

[InuNacho]

"Have Internet"??? Me love you long time.
So, let me get this straight:
o You use a Mac Mini as a laptop somehow
o You want to install a 2.4GB OS from a 700MB CD
o You live in a reality where the thumb-drive option isn't available, nor are libraries, coffee shops, workplaces, friends, neighbors, or Apple stores.

Sucks to to be you.

Whoa, now my head is REALLY spinning. You think MS Windows will somehow magically fit onto a 700MB CD again?

Fail troll is fail.

 

[MacSince1990]

this will make it very difficult to boot from a DiskWarrior CD >_>

 

[Young Spade]

Some people prefer $1 rentals from Red Box, apparently Apple fans are OK with overpaying for online content from iTunes (it's OK as long as the money goes to Apple, right?)

Apple "fans" more than likely have money, hence them buying a 1.x k laptop. And for some people, factoring gas into the trip and the effort of going to Red Box, it might actually be cheaper, overall, to just stay home and rent the movie for 3 bucks.

I get what you're saying; I think the CD/DVD is here for years to come, however you can always buy an Apple branded superdrive.

 

[EljayWasHere]

Am I the only one who hates Apple are their forcing ways.

Doesn't bother me. You can always buy a Dell, or HP, or Sony, or whatnot.

Removing Optical drives when MANY still use DVDs. I use my laptop for DVD playback all the time, buying a DVD feels much nicer than using iTunes.

I have no problem using my external shiny disc drive on my Mac. I do wish I could play Blu-ray on my Mac, despite it being a "bag of hurt". Well... once I rip the Blu-ray, I can play it on my Mac. Which is what I do. (Apparently 3rd party Blu-ray drives can be used to rip on the Mac itself, but I'm doing it from a PC.)

Same for CD installs, what happens when you don't have Internet. Rip-off selling it for a stupid price.

$40 surcharge for a 4GB USB thumb drive seems high to me too. I'll burn my own DVD from the install image, tyvm Apple.

Windows 8 has higher hopes in my books now, for one it'll very likely be CD and USB installed (For tablets needing USB) and it does not force anything upon you.

*cough* Well, we can all dream. I'd direct you to Linux as a better fulfillment of that dream, but if you'd prefer Windows 8 I won't say nay.

 

[Young Spade]

I will probably wait to upgrade to Lion though. Want to hear more reviews and the Rev A released bugs to be worked out. Plus, I have been getting a lot of emails from my third party application providers saying NOT to upgrade, as they do not have a Lion-ready update yet. It will probably be like snow leopard - 2-4 months before I jump on the band wagon.

I feel the same way. I went into the only Apple store in north FLorida today and got a baseline MBP. Luckily for me ( I read so much on Lion and the problems/benefits and completely prepared for it), they have a surplus of Macs and I got an earlier, 10.6.7 MBP with SL disks.

I'm happy. I didn't think much of it earlier but I have a TON of freeware/small productivity apps that I doubt are ready for Lion and I know I would have killed somebody if something didn't end up working.

It's all good though; I dl'd my free Lion copy and I'm just going to wait it out