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Why don't apple kill the superdrive?

col sandurz said:
This is actually what happened with floppies. While people used them less and less, stores stopped selling them when companies stopped putting the drives in machines. Floppies were small and essentially useless, they needed to go away because there were better alternatives. If you kill DVD and Blu-Ray there will be no alternative. (As I argued above, flash drives are not an alternative.)
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I wish someone would tell my company this, we still use floppies to send files in the post!
 
bigjobby said:
When the competitors catch up with their laptop battery life then maybe Apple will up the ante by making the SuperDrive external and beefing up the battery life again.

The throughput of USB or FireWire 800 just wouldn't be good enough for an external optical drive. Maybe Apple will wait when USB 3.0 becomes more ubiquitous or Light Peak or next gen FireWire when its available or whatever.
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The throughput of USB and FW800 is fine for optical drives...

I would like the idea of of an external DVD drive instead of the built in one. It's just not very often that one needs to install sw whilst on the road...

There's a need for a bit more battery life - say 10hours consistently - beyond that it becomes moot as people often have the option to recharge whilst they sleep.
 
mac8867 said:
Is anyone else really bothered by the horrible grammar of the title on this thread?
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Yes, should be "doesn't"...

On topic, I think the idea of an external superdrive is a good one. I don't think you can claim that optical media are dead (yes, "media" is a plural word). Are they on their way out? Definitely.

But what do you have to offer to replace my DVD+Rs (SL and DL) that allow me to send decent amounts of information to someone else without paying for server space or paying much more money for a flash drive? I can spend a few cents and burn 8 GB of data to a DL DVD and mail that to someone, or I can pay much more for an 8 GB flash drive and mail that.

I think it's wise to stick with the drive as an option, but I also think it would be a great option to be able to keep it external. I only ever use mine while at home (and, because my comp is so old, I use an external anyway).
 
mac8867 said:
Is anyone else really bothered by the horrible grammar of the title on this thread?
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English may not be the OP's native language.

On topic - I would agree that optical media is not dead yet but I would not be making any long range plans for it either. As solid state solutions come down in price and increase in capacity I think we will see the computer and audio/video markets transition away from optical drives.
 
some of us like to have a dvd drive you know, to install retail app/games, watch movies, burn iso, and make backup dvds..

if you dont want the dvd, then get the freaking macbook air and stop whining...geez
 
mac8867 said:
Is anyone else really bothered by the horrible grammar of the title on this thread?
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I don't know where the OP is from, but in Australia, companies are referred to in the plural. So "Apple do not offer anti-glare for the 13-inch MBP" is perfectly acceptable. I guess the rationale is that Apple is a group of people so it can mean "the people at Apple do not..."
 
My i5 macbook pro is my first personal computer in 10 years to have an optical drive (umm... excluding a brief flirtation with a 17" macbook pro in early 2009).

I had the Thinkpad X20 for a few years back in 2000, followed by the X30, then the X41, then the X60 Tablet, then the Macbook Air, X200s, HP 2140, HP 2140 HD, HP 5101, Vaio P, HP 5102, X200s again, and finally the X201s. Whenever I needed to use a DVD, I could just grab an external one.

Now that I have one built-in, I'm using it all the time - for backing up iTunes movie purchases (ah, the irony!), for viewing/ripping rented DVDs from netflix, and for fighting world hunger. While I'd love to have a blu-ray burner in there, I've grown to appreciate the superdrive.

I've got an SSD and I'm sure I'll be optiplexing my machine soon enough, but I don't hate the superdrive.
 
What do you mean CAN sell? http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB397G/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY

If apple removed the superdrive and added an extra 160gb hdd or equivalent in apple eyes to what the superdrive is worth would you pay $100 extra for a superdrive? I believe that a majority would complain for getting an extra bit of hard drive they most likely don't need and then having to pay $100 for the drive and say it should have been included.
 
mac8867 said:
Is anyone else really bothered by the horrible grammar of the title on this thread?
Click to expand...

It depends. If the OP was referring to the company itself, as a corporation, Apple would be used as singular. Now, if he was referring to all the people who work at Apple, then it COULD be used as a plural noun. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
I just wanted to add my opinion on this matter:

I couldn't do without an optical drive in my laptop*. I use it primarily (as late as today) for importing purchased CDs into iTunes (iTunes Store does not have everything, so I can't just buy my music there). Also, occasionally, I use it to play movies (DVDs), and I sometimes burn an Audio CD from an iTunes playlist.
I would hate to not have my DVD drive.

But, undoubtedly, sometime the format will die and we will no longer be using CDs, DVDs and BDs, but, for me at least, that day hasn't come.


* Well, actually, I could use an external DVD drive, but that somehow defeats the purpose of a portable computer...
 
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