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Would you miss the optical drive on MBP if apple removed it?

cube said:
Yes we care. I can buy uncompressed catalog CDs which already provide me with a backup from Amazon for less than what it would cost to download.

BD playback on a laptop of course make sense when you have a 1920x1200 screen. If apple still has lame displays on the 15" that has nothing to do with it.
Click to expand...

You care. 'Consumers' by the million dont care. Apple build machines to suit them, not you.

Apple sells a single laptop that could display BR without downsampling it. Not to mention that anyone watching BR on it will have a hard time getting far enough away for a proper viewing distance. And it has only stereo speakers. And it is only a 17" display.

BR on a laptop is a pointless piece of geek credibility that other manufacturers support to have another spec to add to their list of bullet points. Apple doesnt do that.
 
If they got rid of the dvd drive then id be fine.... providing it was replaced with bluray.

No dvd drive was one of the reasons I didnt go for a macbook air!
 
I would totally buy a MBP without an internal optical drive if one of the following is met:
1) An external, USB powered optical drive is included for no extra charge
2) Snow Leopard/Whatever OS comes on a bootable SD card. (If you don't use SD cards all the time, you can keep it in your laptop)

History will tell us that Apple tends to do things that are slightly ahead of the times (ie: floppy drives to CD-ROM drives), but causes the entire industry to follow.

Losing the optical drive will not only give us more battery life outright, but it can give us lighter laptops, more internal space for battery, and room for a second hard drive (a hard drive is about half the size of the optical disk drive).
 
cube said:
The technical word is not compression. And the point is that CD content is of higher quality than downloads. I would be buying DVD-A and SACD if it were not for the stupid protection and inflated prices.
Click to expand...

Gotcha. I did notice my error. And ditto for the SACD/DVD-Audio but copy protection is a deal breaker.
 
andiwm2003 said:
if they make the notebook much better (dedicated GPU, longer battery life, more ports, express card, faster CPU, better heat dissipation) then i could settle for an external.
Click to expand...

You don't need to get rid of the drive to add more ports. Apple can just put them at the back and stop making uber-thin laptops that nobody needs.
 
Mactagonist said:
You care. 'Consumers' by the million dont care. Apple build machines to suit them, not you.

Apple sells a single laptop that could display BR without downsampling it. Not to mention that anyone watching BR on it will have a hard time getting far enough away for a proper viewing distance. And it has only stereo speakers. And it is only a 17" display.

BR on a laptop is a pointless piece of geek credibility that other manufacturers support to have another spec to add to their list of bullet points. Apple doesnt do that.
Click to expand...

You convolve a signal with your own HRTF and you can place it anywhere in 3D that you want using headphones. Headphones is what you use on the move.

Why would you want to get AWAY from the screen???

It's true that Apple is no longer a computer company, but an iPod company.
 
I would like to have the option to add a second HDD, in place of the optical drive, so I could have 1TB raid 0.
 
Come on guys, stop fighting.

May I summarize this thread by writing that there is an obvious market for a Macbook Pro without the optical drive (i.e. basically a Macbook Air with larger screen, a little more oomph, more ports, etc), and that Apple has been missing out on serving this market?

I mean, given how polarized people here are on this it's the obvious solution to just offer a new product, in addition to the existing one. The real question we should try to answer is: why is Apple not doing it?

Right now I can think of two reasons: 1) the Air's inferior performance compared to the MBP, and people falsely associate a Macbook Pro without an optical drive with an Air. 2) SOME people (i.e. those who don't have a separate computer for movie watching) need the optical drive to watch DVD's. The real problem is not that there are two different kinds of users, but that the DVD/netflix industry hasn't made the switch to streaming or using flash (i.e. SD cards). One reason for that is piracy. So one reason could be that the film industry has Apple in their hands to some extent.

Just my 2 cents.
 
cube said:
You convolve a signal with your own HRTF and you can place it anywhere in 3D that you want using headphones. Headphones is what you use on the move.

Why would you want to get AWAY from the screen???

It's true that Apple is no longer a computer company, but an iPod company.
Click to expand...

- Apple doesnt market laptops to people who know what any of that means. They sell workstations to them.

- I have been under the impression that different resolution samples (IE 720p and 1080p) were difficult to distinguish unless the viewer was both sitting at an appropriate distance from the screen and viewing it on a large enough screen. Thus I dont think the added resolution and quality of BR is enough of an improvement over Apples current 720p downloads to justify including it.

- Dont forget that only one laptop Apple sells (and one that I imagine sells the least of all) can even display BR video without downsampling it. It just isnt worth it to them to deal with the licensing restrictions and expense of building it in at a time when optical discs are on their way out of portable computers. Not to mention that including it would do nothing but compete with Apple's own HD media sales.
 
As long as they gave us some other solution (like packaging it with external DVD Drive) I see no reason why they would do anything like that. How would you install software you purchased in the store? How would you rip your own CDs?

Not everyone has gone (or plans to go) completely digital. When given the choice, I will always go with physical media. I know I'm not the only one.
 
Reading all that give me a headache:p
What I deduce from it all is that the majority of users would forgo the optical drive to save weight/battery or to have a second hard drive but only if there was a agreed format in place to replace optical media.
I see little wrong with dumping optical now for thumb drives or SD - my pref being SD. And I dont go for the argument that they are more expensive to produce because for years we were spoon feed rubbish that the high cost of CDs was due to their manufacturing costs. Aye right! If they are pumping out SD cards by the millions with Snow Lepoard or whatever on it I think they will be ok on the costs:)
 
I would miss the drive. If I wanted a laptop that had features removed to worry about portability, I'd get a MacBook Air. The MBP is my main computer and as long as Apple and other companies continue to sell software using discs (can't very well download iLife '09, can I?) then they better not remove it.

Add to the fact that blank CDs/DVDs are so cheap compared to SD cards. I've had a good number of times when I've been at family functions or get togethers and people want copies of pictures, etc.
 
Yeah, I'd miss it.

1) Used it to install Windows/BootCamp
2) Burned CDs/DVDs to install Linux and BSD on work computers
3) Used it to install Office
4) Used it to burn a bunch of DVDs I made for our performance group
5) Used it to watch some DVD movies I just bought on a long flight
6) Used it to burn a CD containing AV software to clean up a friend's PC

I'm also always making copies of stuff for people at work, since I'm the only one with a DVD/CD burner, AND software installed. The PCs might have the drives, but IT doesn't install the software.

I think for the minimal weight it adds, I really would not want to do without it. I'm all for Apple selling a laptop without a OD... Oh, wait, they already do, the Air.

I also don't care so much about the battery life. My laptops spend 95% of their time on an AC adapter. Only on the airplane do they go without, and that is on the rare case I watch a movie, rather than reading a book.

-jt2
 
The problem is that the only laptop apple offers without optical drive, the Air, is not up to specs with the Pro, in particular has pittyful screen resolution even for a 13" and too little RAM. If it were up to specs, even if that would make it a smidgeon thicker and heavier, nobody including myself here would complain. Why are we having this thread? It should be clear by now that many users would like a Pro without the optical drive and others don't want to miss it. So the question is not whether the drive should be abandoned, but why Apple is not producing a 15" Air (which because if it's greater size could also have better specs).

Am I making sense?
 
I have mixed feeling about the drive. I like having it for when I need it (obviously) but the rest of the time it just adds extra weight. If its lucky, I use it twice a month and always a home. If Apple were to start >
macbook123 said:
producing a 15" Air ... (which because if it's greater size could also have better specs)
Click to expand...

I'd buy it in a heartbeat if it had at least 4gigs ram and a 2.0ghz.
 
cube said:
And the internet is far away from being able to serve Blu Ray quality. The day it catches up with that, we will have something like Super Hi Vision discs.
Click to expand...

In truth, these disks could easily still be based on current Blu-ray technology.

Super Hi-Vision media could be served up on Blu-ray disks, though not the capacities of today.

A 400GB Blu-ray disk is nearing production and a 1TB disk will be produced in 2013.
 
macbook123 said:
The problem is that the only laptop apple offers without optical drive, the Air, is not up to specs with the Pro, in particular has pittyful screen resolution even for a 13" and too little RAM. If it were up to specs, even if that would make it a smidgeon thicker and heavier, nobody including myself here would complain. Why are we having this thread? It should be clear by now that many users would like a Pro without the optical drive and others don't want to miss it. So the question is not whether the drive should be abandoned, but why Apple is not producing a 15" Air (which because if it's greater size could also have better specs).

Am I making sense?
Click to expand...

Yes...thats one view point on this thread/issue. However my original question was based round the idea of apple removing the optical drive from the MPB (and indeed MB) and leaving the entire notebook range without optical drives therefore abandoning optical media in general as floppy was in the iMac
 
if it was

1. optional
2. you could replace it with another hd or a bigger battery AND it included an external dvd drive standard
 
Mactagonist said:
You care. 'Consumers' by the million dont care. Apple build machines to suit them, not you.

Apple sells a single laptop that could display BR without downsampling it. Not to mention that anyone watching BR on it will have a hard time getting far enough away for a proper viewing distance. And it has only stereo speakers. And it is only a 17" display.

BR on a laptop is a pointless piece of geek credibility that other manufacturers support to have another spec to add to their list of bullet points. Apple doesnt do that.
Click to expand...

On PCs it is nice b\c usually a laptop with a BR drive also has an HDMI port..therefore they can simply plug their laptop using one plug into their HDTV and get 1080p and audio whenever they actually want to watch a BR disk. Macs do not have HDMI standard, so it would be more of a pain to set up.
 
redshovel said:
Yes...thats one view point on this thread/issue. However my original question was based round the idea of apple removing the optical drive from the MPB (and indeed MB) and leaving the entire notebook range without optical drives therefore abandoning optical media in general as floppy was in the iMac
Click to expand...

well, now you have plenty of evidence that this is not an option, but that apple needs to build both a decent air as well as continue the pro with floppy, sorry, DVD drive...
 
Freyqq said:
lol unfortunately I have one of the old school MBPs..not the new uMBPs ;)
Click to expand...

Same company makes it for the old Mbps as well, just check out the site.
If you think about it, it's pathetic that we have to have these arguments about whether the drive should be in or not. I've spoken to dozens of people besides this thread that crave a mbp without the optical drive, or call it air pro if you will. I don't know why apple is not building it but am coming to think there may be a deeper reason.
 
Mactagonist said:
You care. 'Consumers' by the million dont care. Apple build machines to suit them, not you.

Apple sells a single laptop that could display BR without downsampling it. Not to mention that anyone watching BR on it will have a hard time getting far enough away for a proper viewing distance. And it has only stereo speakers. And it is only a 17" display.

BR on a laptop is a pointless piece of geek credibility that other manufacturers support to have another spec to add to their list of bullet points. Apple doesnt do that.
Click to expand...

Its posts like this that make me laugh sometimes. Do people realize that BR can do something other than play movies:eek:? its a medium to store large amounts of data, either being a movie or files, etc. Just because you don't want it, doesn't mean its not a valid requirement. Plus, with people adopting BR, why wouldn't they want to be able to take it with them?
 
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