It's like when Rumsfeld thought he could take over Iraq with just Special Forces.
No, it's a rumor about the new specs for a computer..it is not even close to 'being like' invading a country...
It's like when Rumsfeld thought he could take over Iraq with just Special Forces.
Doesn't this go against the elegance of Apple and all that hoohah? I can already imagine the mock up images comparing that Dell PC with wires everywhere and an iMac, now with wires everywhere.
No. He said the next generation of MacBooks. Last I checked, the word MacBook is in their entire line. He didn't say the next generation of MacBook Air's. He said the next generation of MacBooks. He was talking in the present tense.
Alright, now you're just nitpicking. Also, and I mean absolutely no disrespect (not even of the usual Internet variety) when I say this, but you're delusional if you think that the removal of the optical drive will bring the MacBook Pro customer base anything other than more non-practical side effects of Steve Jobs' ever-continuing obsession with thinner-than-necessary-thinness. Yes, a quad-core in a MacBook Pro would be rad; it ain't happening (at least not in this round of Intel mobile chips) for the same reason why the 17" MacBook Pro is one of the few 17" laptops out there to not have a second hard drive bay, we've sacrificed with the thinness. And sure, I like Apple's looks as much as the next guy, maybe more. But when the machine loses practicality because it's so freakin thin, no thanks.
You mean to tell me, that as a MacBook Pro customer (note the word "PRO"). I won't be able to EDIT VIDEO, and then BURN discs to an OPTICAL DRIVE that is built-in to the machine? I'll need to buy a separate attachment for $100? I'm sorry, but screw that. It's inconvenient, and if I'm already shelling out $1000 more for a Mac laptop than a PC laptop equivalent (with the same, if not faster specs) that I could probably Hackintosh to run OS X, I should at least be treated to the convenience of not having to use one of the two or even three USB ports and extra desk/lap/pillow space that I have for burning things. I do video editing, and while I'm not installing software every friggin' second on my optical drive, you better believe, I'm going to be doing a ton of DVD burning. Give me the SSD they have in the MacBook Air, fine (though preferably with a hard drive as I'm not willing to pay an arm and a leg for anywhere near 500B worth of Flash JUST yet), but if you take out the optical drive on the MacBook Pro line, you end up with quite a few pissed off customers, me being one of them. As soon as you make SD cards or streaming the unarguable standard for distribution of digital video, you can't kill the optical drive. Period.
Also, might I remind the thread that Jobs' quote was "The Next Generation of MacBooks" not "The Next Generation of MacBook Pros" nor "The Next Generation of Laptops". Sure, optical media might not enjoy a long and prosperous future, though that day is many years off for us Pro customers. For the regular MacBook, which shares just about everything with its low-end 13" Pro equivalent, save for a FireWire 800 Port (which most consumers won't miss), an IR sensor (which most consumers won't miss), and backlit keyboards (which most consumers don't care about), the only things separating the current 13" MacBook Air from the white MacBook are Aluminum, a proper hard drive (which most consumers don't require the space for and would be fine replacing for flash), an optical drive (which most of them don't use or would be fine with the external superdrive for the one or two times they need it), and an Ethernet port. Make a 13" MacBook Air that has an Ethernet port and have it replace the white MacBook and you won't piss anyone off because for that audience, you've taken out the unnecessary and made everything else awesome. The end.
No, I'm not. You think that Apple will do nothing but make it thinner? Where have you been the last two years? Did you miss the late 2009 iMac refresh? Apple went from a mobile dual core 35-45 watt chip to a 95-watt quad core desktop chip in the iMac while still making it thinner. If Apple wanted to make the iMac paper thin then they could have, but they didn't. They know consumers still care about performance. Anyone who thinks Apple will do nothing but make their notebooks thinner from the removal of the optical drive clearly doesn't think logically.
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Anyone else think they should spend a few hundred million more and buy up the rest of the middle? They could install a monorail....
1) buy an external optical drive
2) use remote disk like the MacBook air
Expect this to become the new Apple HQ after Steve levels this lot. The current Apple HQ was built during the Scully years and Steve hates the introverted style of the architecture. This campus will be Steve's legacy after he is long gone. I would not be surprised to see the entire Loop leveled and one last act of spite against Scully. The money is there, ego just needs to engage. Oh how I would love to see the talks between Steve and the poor architects that will have to deal with him when this place is built!
1) buy an external optical drive
2) use remote disk like the macbook air
It's what I've been saying all along. Apple seems to have put their REAL Pro users by the wayside.
Regardless of whether the new MBP's come with or without an optical drive, Apple have lost their love and care for their Pro users.
Yes, that's right, shell out more money to compensate for missing features.1) buy an external optical drive
2) use remote disk like the MacBook air
This. It's pretty clear that Apple is slowly trying to phase out the white MacBook. Almost All of Apple's products have moved away from the white plastic design. It's barely cheaper than the base 13" MBP and has about half the build quality with that plastic case. I'm sure at some point they'll just rename the MacBook Air to MacBook. I highly doubt they'll take the optical drive out of the pro though. They may offer it as an option in case people want more HDD space or battery life (like they did with the mac mini server) but nothing more.
April 2011, if true, would be perfect in my agenda. My current Powerbook G4 Titanium still works great, but with new software starting to be intel-only and/or really slow on G4, its time for a new notebook. By then I've used this Powerbook basically every day for the past seven years, with almost no trouble.
Hopefully the new Macbook Pro's will feature Lightpeak and/or at least a BTO HD-DVD/BR burner. And ofcourse... the new Macbook Pro has to last at least another 7 years or longer.
The landscape is littered with failed companies with products that no longer address the moving markets they THOUGHT they were serving. Apple's plan for portable products it to make them more portable. That means making them lighter and to operate longer away from a power source. If that also makes them thinner, well, so much the better.
If you and I are burning more thumb drives and fewer CDs or DVDs then Why do we need to be lugging around an optical drive 100% of the time? Even then, if I need to have a super drive at arms length (in my computer case), then it's still an advantage to me to not have to heft the optical drive out of case every time I pull my computer out to use.
April 2011, if true, would be perfect in my agenda. My current Powerbook G4 Titanium still works great, but with new software starting to be intel-only and/or really slow on G4, its time for a new notebook. By then I've used this Powerbook basically every day for the past seven years, with almost no trouble.
Hopefully the new Macbook Pro's will feature Lightpeak and/or at least a BTO HD-DVD/BR burner. And ofcourse... the new Macbook Pro has to last at least another 7 years or longer.
Optical drives don't drastically increase the weight of the laptop. They just don't. Thickness, yes. But really, like I need my MacBook Pro to maintain the wedge-shape of the current MacBook Air. Like I really need it THAT thin and THAT light. Like any of us really do. If we need it that thin and light, then good news everybody! They make a product to address that, it's called the MacBook Air! If you are a MacBook Pro customer, such things needn't matter.
Currently the Pro is difficult to carry around open and by one hand, and that's how I move it around.