Totally CRAZY idea but...

[Benedictus-x]

Right as we all know Time Machine will be a feature in leopard.
Time Machine will require another hard disk.
For consumer products a second hard drive inside isn't viable.

How about apple was to make their own brand of external hard drive, free or in reduced priced when bought with every mac shipped with leopard. MacDisk or something.

Thoughts, please?

Cheers

 

[animenick65]

Would be nice but you have to remember that everyones storage needs are different so everyones backup needs are also different. I'm a photographer and as such I have a 500gb hard drive so apple would have to include one of those for it to be a benefit.

 

[Jessy]

Apple would overcharge like a beast for that. I could actually see this happening, but I would definitely avoid it like the plague. Disk enclosures are easy enough to do that you don't need an Apple one for it to be sexy, unlike the current tech in which Apple specializes. (I got what was the cheapest 500 GB external drive on the market, and it's a real looker and performer.)

However, I assume all non-tower Macs will be including either two flash-based drives or one standard magentic and one flash within a few years.

 

[andiwm2003]

why would apple compete in the hard drive market?

apple makes prorietary high end hardware where the margin of profit is high.

hard drives are non proprietory discount items in a extremly competitive market with low profit.

why waste resources on that when you can use your engineers to make a better $499 ipod?

 

[Benedictus-x]

mm i'm thinking itl be like the current RAM, in that it'l come with a decent option (250 GB for example) included in price, but to go to 700 or 500 will cost far more than is needed. But Apple could suprise us!

 

[PlaceofDis]

not going to happen.
they'd have to create more skus more annoyances and more customer complaints. not worth it.

 

[Jessy]

mm i'm thinking itl be like the current RAM, in that it'l come with a decent option (250 GB for example) included in price, but to go to 700 or 500 will cost far more than is needed. But Apple could suprise us!

The options are not decent. You simply can't tell how much you are being overcharged for the cheapest options. There's nothing like OS X, for sure, but if I could get it elsewhere, I'd be there in a heartbeat.

 

[shipdestroyer]

Nope. They probably added external HD support to the Airport Extreme for this purpose, though.

 

[ziutek]

It's actually possible to use time machine with one hard drive. You just need to make a seperate partition on the hard drive dedicated to time machine. Of course, this isn't the ideal backup setup, because if your harddrive crashes you lose everything.

 

[MagicUK]

why would apple compete in the hard drive market?

Yeah I mean next they will be restarting the browser war.

Hell I may be new but I am getting the feeling if they stuck it in a nice case and stuck the logo on the front some of you would be sat outside your local store for a week.

Seriously I think your right but for different reasons. The R&D and manufacturing processes involved in disk development are akin to processor development.

Then again.....never say never.....

 

[kuebby]

I don't see them releasing an external HD. There's no reason for them too. Any HD you buy will work with a Apple computer; unlike smart phones or mp3 players before them.

As far as design goes there are even enclosures that match Apple's hardware pretty closely.