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Steve Jobs Suggests Blu-ray Not Coming to Mac Anytime Soon

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They’re clearly BOTH right.

Yes, downloads are the future—and at 720p and below, the very NEAR future.

But Blu-Ray still has enough traction that users will find value in it for some time to come. Especially for higher-quality titles, or situations where bandwidth is constrained.

I can understand skipping Blu-Ray if the development costs were really massive, but I doubt those costs outweigh the benefits (and sales) in the next few years. Blu-Ray would be one more welcome checkmark in the list when I’m thinking about upgrading to a new Mac.

That said, I’ve never used Blu-Ray and don’t feel left out (yet). If only 1080p downloads were here now, WITH a great selection, I’d be happy to never go Blu-Ray!
 
Very disappointing. I cannot understand his opposition to Blu Ray. Weren't Apple one of the parties supporting the standard over HD-DVD.
 
Internet standards in Australia (for the most part) can't compete with downloads of such high quality movies. Plus I think it's nice having a mad collection of bluray movies sitting on my shelf. But then again I'd be hypocritical since most of my music collection isnt sitting on a shelf but on my computer
 
yeah. i have to agree with Jobs on this one. i don't use anything in physical format anymore. big hard drives and internet-based consumption is about it for me. don't ever plan on going blu-ray. i don't even purchase physical DVDs let alone blu-ray.
 
wschutz said:
But he wouldn't get any cent for each single copy :) That's why he doesn't want to see any BR near "his" machines (that he is turning into a platform for iTunes and all others making-Apple-profit platforms...)
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haiggy said:
To add to this... the bandwidth to download these movies. Here in Canada my internet provider (Rogers) is a joke! I pay $50 a month and have a 60 GB monthly bandwidth cap. If I go over it is $2.50/GB. Downloading 1080p movies would eat into that VERY quickly.
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Both very valid points. Apple has been very quick to make business decisions that protect their revenue streams. As for bandwidth, European and Asian countries don't have to deal with the same crap we do, but it will serve to stymie our download habits for the foreseeable future.
 
It is not beneficial for Apple to add Blu-Ray drives. They promote a download service as one of their core business models and are trying to drive e-commerce over brick and mortar stores.

Maybe if Blu-Ray ever become even slightly used as a storage medium, but at the moment, portable HDDs are much more popular. I would rather have a £100 cheaper computer than a Blu-Ray drive any day of the week.
 
:rolleyes:
furi0usbee said:
Yes, it's called internet streaming.
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How's that unlimited streaming working out for you? :)

You know what you're going to do when you download 10 movies you want to keep forever? Buy a 2nd or 3rd or 4th iPad and keep them on all of them? Or erase it and if you want to watch it again or someone else in your household wants to watch it after you've erased, redownload it again?

"Steve, you magnficiant bastard, you make my life easier!!! :D"
 
I think it depends on what internet providers do wrt bandwidth allowances. Right now for me BRD would be useful only as a storage medium, and I don't have high end enough video or audio equipment to need BRD for the home theater experience.

The Netflix streaming over my xbox360 currently works great and I have no complaints other than how long it takes some movies to become available.
 
The issue with streaming, is that still on the internet, its a struggle to get a true HD signal down the pipe. Often times its a "compressed" HD. Which is a bit of an oxymoron. The other side of that coin is the lack of internet support for things like uncompressed audio and sometimes even 5.1 sound.

It is however it Apple's interest to see blu-ray and all other physical media formats fail; given their support of the itunes movie store.
 
You can call Steve stupid and greedy, but last time I checked he just paraded Apple's market cap over Microsoft's (while taking no salary OR bonuses). He must be doing something right.
 
JediZenMaster said:
The future is pretty much going to be mobile devices and tablets so this makes sense. People like to have their entertainment with them at all times not some useless optical disc.

If you want Blu-Ray don't buy a mac.
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It's the future... for the relative few that live in the areas of a first world nation w/a fast, affordable, uncapped and robust broadband connection.

The heyday of physical media is over but physical media itself will be w/us for a very long time.


Lethal
 
Be grateful

As a Mac Pro user, I am just grateful that he remembered that his company makes computers. Now if only I could see some evidence that he remembers that they make professional computers....
 
I was surprised the new mini came with a DVD drive at all. Of course if it did have BD it would suit the home theatre crowd. Personally it's been years since I last watched a DVD on my computer. The same regarding burning discs; it's far more convenient to upload content or enable ftp access for others to download at their end.

If I had a better TV I'd have a BD player. But I don't miss it on my Macs.
 
furi0usbee said:
Physical media is on the way out. Sure, right now you can't get the highest quality video from streamed sources, but I think within the next 5 years with faster access and better streaming technology, we'll be there. I don't even buy physical media anymore. iPad for books/audiobooks, magazines, Netflix, Hulu, iTunes. For me, I have zero need for Blu-Ray. On top of that, unless you have a large screen to playback the content, it's really pointless on a laptop.

Forget Blu-Ray Steve, and put your efforts into better technologies.
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Screw 5 years. I want to watch Avatar tonight in 1080p.
 
haiggy said:
To add to this... the bandwidth to download these movies. Here in Canada my internet provider (Rogers) is a joke! I pay $50 a month and have a 60 GB monthly bandwidth cap. If I go over it is $2.50/GB. Downloading 1080p movies would eat into that VERY quickly.
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Also a fellow Rogers sufferer here. Also one who has gone over his 25GB/month limit by watching streaming on TVWeb360 (.com) to watch US cable channels like Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and just found TBS.

Streaming a movie I could OWN for keeps is like running the water while I'm not home.
 
hlfway2anywhere said:
yeah. i have to agree with Jobs on this one. i don't use anything in physical format anymore. big hard drives and internet-based consumption is about it for me. don't ever plan on going blu-ray. i don't even purchase physical DVDs let alone blu-ray.
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I do not use the DVD as downloading movies, but do not you think downloading movies fullHD requires considerably more traffic (once in 5 more) that bad for your cash cost? Or you do not see fullHD, and happy DVD quality?
 
Vaporware

Blu-ray will never make it to the Mac officially.
 

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CalebF said:
:rolleyes:

How's that unlimited streaming working out for you? :)

You know what you're going to do when you download 10 movies you want to keep forever? Buy a 2nd or 3rd or 4th iPad and keep them on all of them? Or erase it and if you want to watch it again or someone else in your household wants to watch it after you've erased, redownload it again?

"Steve, you magnficiant bastard, you make my life easier!!! :D"
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To answer your question... it's called an external drive.

My unlimited streaming is working out very fine thank you. Between Hulu and Netflix I'm just giddy. I don't care about owning movies. You only watch a movie a handful of times. Owning music is must more important. You may watch a 2 hour movie 10 times, but listen to a 3 minute song tens of thousands of times in your life. I don't really want to own movies, except certain movies, which I will buy the downloaded version.

I don't know what you mean about buying a 2nd, 3rd, iPad... all the content I want on all of my devices is synced. I have backups of all my media. Re-downloading something I already have backed up is silly.
 
I've got a PS3, Xbox, and ATV. I played a blu-ray movie once or twice when I first got the PS3, but now it's all downloads and/or streams for me. 1080 and 720 stuff actually looks really good. There will always be videophiles that want the blu-rayquality, but most of the population won't care because the movie that comes via ATV/XBox/PS3 looks as good or better than the HD cable/SAT they are used to watching.
 
CalebF said:
Oh, yeah. Perfect.

"Hey, Jim-Bob. Here's my iPad. It has [blank] movie on it. You can borrow it. Just give it back to me when you're done."

Just let me output my iPad to my HDTV via HDMI output-- wait a minute!!! :eek: :p

And isn't Steve a wonderful man extorting you like that by pigeon-holing you into one OR the other.
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I get your discontent with the issue at hand however, I think optical media is very last century and the future is portable. With that said Blu-Ray will never get the traction and market share that DVD or even VHS got.

I'm sure that there will be a hobbyist market that will dream of the haylcon days of discs but it's pretty much done.
 
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