If your going to be spending a lot of money, then IMO you should be doing product research and making sure the product meets your needs...
I know that when I buy things I do research, read reviews, and ask for peoples opinions.
I have to agree that anyone spending that much money without asking if the product involved will do the specific things they want it to has no grounds on which to complain.
That pretty much sums it up. This thread was started because someone didn't pay enough attention or ask enough questions when they were buying their computer. To get upset about their Mac missing a feature Apple never claimed it had (and most lines of PCs don't include as standard on their entry model) is ridiculous.
Please understand: all of us discussing this are informed consumers who understand what it is we are buying and know what research we have to do first. But much of Apple's marketing is aimed at people who would not know where to begin. They will read a couple of magazine articles, look at the "Get A Mac" pages and think "Wow! It's expensive, but I can make easy DVDs at home!!". Then they will buy the cheapest model (because these sorts of people always do) and be disappointed.
Apple have powerful marketing suggesting that you can do all this out the box, and a tiny footnote buried somewhere on their site is simply not good enough when compared to the marketing juggernought which implies the opposite. Especially when these days DVD burners are such a bog-standard commodity in consumer machines of this price.
Seriously...I don't need a dvd burner, and wouldn't want to pay extra to get something I don't need.
You are a rare beast indeed if you use *every* feature of your Mac. Apple are not like Dell, with a million different options. They tend to make most things inclusive to keep the options simple. I'm sure fewer people use Bluetooth than DVD burning, but perhaps that is the point: Bluetooth makes the machine's specs look nicer, but is not a big enough reason for lots of people to upgrade. So there is no advantage to Apple in leaving it out of the cheaper machines.
Apple would not have to increase the cost of the iMac if it had a DVD burner, but by leaving it out they make their marketing.... not false, of course, but certainly disingenuous.
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