Phil Schiller Claims Customers Aren't Asking for Built-In Blu-Ray Anymore

[janstett]

The new thin iMac's are sweet. Apple chose HDDVD and lost to blu-ray,

Nope. Apple supported Blu-Ray. Here's the press release from March 10, 2005, when Apple joined the Blu-Ray Disc Association Board of Directors.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/200...Welcomes-Apple-to-Its-Board-of-Directors.html

Apple is pleased to join the Blu-ray Disc Association board as part of our efforts to drive consumer adoption of HD. Consumers are already creating stunning HD content with Apple’s leading video editing applications like iMovie HD and are anxiously awaiting a way to burn their own high def DVDs.

Coincidentally Apple's iTunes Movie Store launched in October, 2005.

 

[miran68]

Since nobody has specifically made this point (as of page 5) not only is there the HTPC case but there is the college dorm or small apartment case, where people use their 27" iMac as their entertainment device and basically IS their TV.

Actually, people have made the point multiple times over the course of 30+ pages of this thread - that Blurays are the best viewing you can have... on TELEVISIONS. This HTPC stuff with all the (illegal) burning of copyrighted movies and downloading of torrents isn't an audience Apple wants to deal with, and good for them.

For monitors/laptops etc, DVDs are fine for the majority of people. I'm still LOL-ing at all the people extolling the quality of Bluray, yet their viewing environment is a 20 inch monitor and computer speakers.

 

[janstett]

For monitors/laptops etc, DVDs are fine for the majority of people. I'm still LOL-ing at all the people extolling the quality of Bluray, yet their viewing environment is a 20 inch monitor and computer speakers.

I have a 30" Cinema Display that I'm sitting in front of right now... 2560x1600. I also have a 15" Retina Macbook Pro... 2880x1800.

Yeah, 720x480 DVDs look great on either So Apple gushes over how great high-resolution images look on the cinema display but we have utter garbage as far as video.

I'm certainly not LOLing at the waste of these high res displays

 

[mendosasenemy]

Tell us about when they got rid of firewire and matte displays

Thanks, you have just pointed out another critical thing missing here that I hadn't noticed- Firewire! Certainly, will not be purchasing as my audio interface and external hard drives are powered by this.

Thunderbolt may be great, but not at a cost of 1,000s!!!

 

[RedRaven571]

I could hang with it until this vinyl warmth.

What you're hearing is distortion. Vinyl analog recordings are hard to reproduce as cleanly as digital media.

Sounds like you'd also like tube amplifiers and monster speaker cables.

I don't beleive it either. Nostalgia. Different must be better. Digital sounds harsh... It's just numbers.

I think it's more than presumptuous for you to say what another person can, or cannot, hear since you are not them. My son is a fairly talented musician who says that, to him, vinyl sounds "warmer"; me, I can't hear it, just the pops and hisses but I don't tell him that he can't hear it. And, as you mentioned, he is a huge fan of tubes, for the same reason, the quality of the sound.

So, you are like a blind man telling a sighted person that they cannot see the color red.

 

[Gomff]

Oh the priceless classic. You are actually right, i heard they are building an island out of unsold devices somewhere in the Atlantic.

Ignoring the obvious sarcasm in your comment....It's actually true that Apple use scarcity. If they wanted everyone to get a new iGadget on day one or near as damn it, they'd increase the time between commencing manufacture and announcing the hardware and availability at the keynote.

But they prefer to tell us how they can't meet demand because "Customers just can't get enough of our products". It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, along with strengthening the implicit message that everybody loves Apple.

Seems to work on a lot of people

 

[likemyorbs]

Bond 50 years Blu-Ray box set: $150 at Amazon
Buy the same 22 movies on iTunes store: $330

Oh and how do I get my DRM protected iTunes movie on my Nexus 7?

I don't buy from iTunes either.

 

[cohen777]

Actually, people have made the point multiple times over the course of 30+ pages of this thread - that Blurays are the best viewing you can have... on TELEVISIONS. This HTPC stuff with all the (illegal) burning of copyrighted movies and downloading of torrents isn't an audience Apple wants to deal with, and good for them.

For monitors/laptops etc, DVDs are fine for the majority of people. I'm still LOL-ing at all the people extolling the quality of Bluray, yet their viewing environment is a 20 inch monitor and computer speakers.

Blu-ray support on the Mac is more than just watching blu-rays. That's the most minor aspect. First, Apple hasn't made DVDSP able to author blu-rays. Second, blu-rays allow for data storage, and not making part of the iMac or Mac Pro makes you have to go a third party solution. Third, blu-rays are part of the computer landscape, and Apple should not just be nixing them in the computers.

 

[aajeevlin]

Actually it's 12.50 a month + transfer. It can get pricy... compared to a $2.50 blu-ray.

Transfer is not an issue, since you are not constantly transferring your photos in/out of the S3. Also, I do keep a good amount local for viewing purpose. As for price, $12 is a lot less than what some people are paying for their sports package for their cable TV(or eating out every other night). I think my family photos is worth $144 a year. I had a friend who used to back up all photos onto his awesome backup systems (dvd, external drive etc..) he had a break in, and they are all gone in one night. Take your chances I guess.

 

[janstett]

Only way for me to access blu-ray right now is to buy it from best-buy and I have no interest paying that much $$$ for a movie that I would only watch it once.

No more video rental store in my area anymore... they all shutdown earlier this year.

As much as I like Blu-Ray for the superior quality, it is clear... For now we have to survive renting by Netflix/Blockbuster mail service, RedBox, and buy what we like from Amazon, et al.

 

[Chrisg2014]

I don't have a bluray player in my house at all. Bluray movies are overpriced and inconvenient. I much prefer netflix streaming. The image quality is sharp enough for me.

No they're not... plus you get to keep them.

 

[calev]

I stoped buying macs because of blurays. But I suppose the average user doesn't need them, but i do. External drives are stupid.

 

[Smigit]

I don't care if there is a Bluray drive built in or not. I have an external one that didn't cost a fortune. What I would like is for Apple or some third party to release some proper software support for Bluray films, in particular those that have some form of protection included in them. Theres a few crap applications or work arounds, but I usually go to my Windows Partition to watch BluRays. Not that the apps there are great either, but they are years ahead of whats on OS X for Bluray playback.

 

[TC400]

I don't feel the need for it. I have a PS3 I don't play blu rays on.

 

[Paulywauly]

So Phil says "people don't ask me for Bluray anymore"? What he neglects to mention is that they were asking Apple for it for YEARS and were ignored until today, when optical media doesn't matter so much and for the most part people will just shrug it off.

 

[master-ceo]

Probably because it's too ********** late. We wanted Blu-Ray since 2007. Gtfoh Phill Shilling

----------

I don't feel the need for it. I have a PS3 I don't play blu rays on.

PS3 games are Blu-Ray what are you talking about way too much kool-aid

 

[palmharbor]

Ya, I guess nobody creates their own video content anymore... I like the cloud as much as anyone but I still like to be able to burn a DVD or BlueRay HD disc to share as well.

External drives will do and at least can't be killed off by one company's world view.

Yeah, no one cares anymore about taking video of their kids, vacations,
etc..I know cause Apple told me and I am an Apple Cult member and I believe everything because I cannot think for myself anymore.

 

[MisterDisney]

I prefer external drives. Thin, inexpensive... Been waiting for this move.

 

[miran68]

I have a 30" Cinema Display that I'm sitting in front of right now... 2560x1600. I also have a 15" Retina Macbook Pro... 2880x1800.

Yeah, 720x480 DVDs look great on either So Apple gushes over how great high-resolution images look on the cinema display but we have utter garbage as far as video.

I'm certainly not LOLing at the waste of these high res displays

I have a retina Macbook and a 30 inch monitor connected to a Mac Pro as well. I'd still rather watch Bluray movies on my 50 inch plasma, or the 37 inch LCD I got recently for another room that cost a total of $350 (with a $75 Sony Bluray player connected to it).

No matter how good the Retina MB Pro is, it's FIFTEEN inches, not exactly prime Bluray viewing territory. Also, I'd be upset if Apple made the Macbook 2 pounds heavier so it could accommodate the 50 people in real life that want an optical drive built in.

----------

Blu-ray support on the Mac is more than just watching blu-rays. That's the most minor aspect.

This thread gives lie to the "most minor aspect". A good portion of this thread is people arguing for the quality of Bluray viewing versus iTunes downloads and streaming. I always advocate for BR quality, but simply have little to no use for that quality for watching on computers.

I do agree about tools for authoring/playback so that external Bluray drives can be used on Macs. Even then, as someone who has a need for a lot of storage and who works with video professionals, I've moved away from optical media, and many of them have as well.

 

[JS3]

This thread will probably fade away like the rest and someone should refresh it in 5 years when dvd and blu-rays are basically gone.

I was like alot of you blu-ray guys with Vinyl I swore up and down on its side and sure enough it disappeared. Everything is going smaller and more portable who wants a huge collection of movies on a shelf when that collection can be stored in a cloud or on a drive?

 

[Breckenridge]

To all the fanboys out there, stop defending Apple's actions so blindly. It is a fact that Apple made many great products, thank you Jobs. However, it is also a fact that Apple made many dump decisions and brought us useless products like ping, the Smart Cover (I hate that thing), the not so ready Apple Maps and if you are old enough you must remember the Apple 3, the crappy PowerBook 5300 and more recently the eMac. This is just a short list of products I actually bought. Nevertheless, the majority of the crappy products where made by Apple after Steve jobs was booted by the board of directors in 1985 as the GM of the Mac devision at Apple. Now that Jobs is up in the clouds trying to fix the crappy iCloud, you are to expect more and more crappy products from apple. Jobs called the mini iPad useless, nevertheless, now it is on sale. Wake up fanboys and remember that when buying a computer, you are buying a production machine that should include all commonly used feature and specs. If you just want to play games, surf the web and waste your life away on social networks then get an iPad.

I think this iMac will be a great products for my 4 year old's playroom replacing her aging 2.33 MacBook Pro, or my husband who is a computer engineer and all he does is write code, but not for me and not for the majority of non-tech based businesses. I will grab a MacBook Pro with built in DVD-Writer before they kill that completely and we shall see where the industry goes with this over the next few years.

 

[Naimfan]

The problem I have with Phil's statement is the admission that people DID ask for and want Blu-ray but Apple chose not to do it - and then trying to cloak that admission by reversing it.

Please just be straightforward. All Apple had to do was say "Blu-ray does not make sense to us from a business perspective, and we have chosen not to offer it." That would have been fine. But don't say well, people didn't really want it anyway, and now they've stopped asking for it, and use that as the justification for never having offered it at all.

 

[JS3]

Sony makes amazing blu-ray players and they also have tons of laptops for guys who are looking for blu-ray. Maybe its just time to buy sony and not apple?

I am not a fan boy. I have lots of complaints about apple but blu-ray is not one of them and thats coming from someone with over 500 blus in my collection. Blus look best through my PS3 coming out of my projector onto a 110" screen. But then again so do netflix movies and vudu movies.

 

[Xiroteus]

This thread will probably fade away like the rest and someone should refresh it in 5 years when dvd and blu-rays are basically gone.

I was like alot of you blu-ray guys with Vinyl I swore up and down on its side and sure enough it disappeared. Everything is going smaller and more portable who wants a huge collection of movies on a shelf when that collection can be stored in a cloud or on a drive?

I will say that the concept of all television shows and movies on a hard drive is nice, the ease of use is perfect. That is thinking about a collection backup of full blu-ray rips, not compressed overpriced iTunes downloads. Keeping on that concept, it is a nice system and it will be a fact that even being compressed a lot of people are fine with good enough and I know it will continue that way for many aside from major collectors.

Even I am moving away from buying movies in general, likely stick with the theater and cheap rentals, I do not need to own everything I see nor take up that much room which I stopped years ago.

Cloud can be questionable, once again MOST people are not going to act like it is life or death if their favorite show is no longer being steamed. One of those, oh well, maybe it will be back later. That is the way of thinking I am moving to.

Comics, books, movies, music, I like digital when the price is right (basically lower then they likely ever will be) saves a good amount of space and easy to get to.

 

[doobybiggs]

I do not really see why people are so pissed about the blue ray ...

Yes it kinda sucks not having any media device on the computer, but the 8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) was not even all that great of drive to begin with that apple used on the previous iMacs. Seeing how Apple has been operating lately, if they went the blue ray route it would of been lower, maybe middle, of the road quality.

So why not save the probably $200 extra Apple would of charged and go buy a good external one that reads and writes twice as what Apple would of most likely used. If you are worried about storage space, I am sure you keep plenty of other bigger crap around that you never use that you could get rid of.

I would be, and am, more pissed with the GPU/CPU selection they have gone with for the 27" models.




..... so with that said ... Why are people ready to go in with pitchforks to Apple headquarters? Don't tell me thinness is evil and its a desktop - thinness doesnt matter. just ask PC users how much fun it is to make space for a huge tower and a huge screen. (that is why I am getting an iMac, to save on desk area realestate) So minus thinness is evil argument - what else there?