iMac, Mac Pro Rumored to Drop Optical Drives

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
Optical drives are dead outside of niche uses. The cost savings of not including these drives are way beyond the $20 cost of the drive. Every competent has a physical cost to acquire. Then there is the design cost to fit the drive in the machine. Then comes the extra build cost to make the case work with the drive design. Then extra testing to make sure everything works. Then, no matter how much you test, a certain amount to cover eventual failures. Finally there is the intangible opportunity cost of how would you have designed the system differently if you didn't have to accommodate a drive?

Because of the very integrated design Apple uses all of these costs are higher for them than they are for a PC maker that simply slaps a $20 optical drive in the slot that will be there no matter what. This plus Apples drive to keep things as simple as possible means they move faster on changes that will happen the only question is when.

What I think the PC makers are failing to see is the opportunity cost it is causing them. If they could build PCs that didn't have a 5.25" slot what would the case look like? How good would the airflow be without a drive cage blocking all the air. How much less cost if they could build a case with no external bays?

Just like the tape cassette, 5.25" floppy, 3.5" floppy, zip drive, DLT drive and CD-ROM Drive, the DVD/CD will not exist on any PC in the next 5 years, it's just a matter of when. Blue-Ray never existed for all practical purposes so I'm not even including that. You can complain how you personally *must* have an optical drive but there are 100 others that want to be able to buy a machine that is better for not having it. If for some unknown reason you don't have a USB optical drive, purchase one for ~$30 and be happy. It has saved me a $100 over the last few years because I don't put $20 optical drives in all my computers.
 
[citation][nom]DRosencraft[/nom]A discussion like this began in another article about the Cloud. The fact is, there are many people who don't have internet, let along high-speed internet, to rely on downloading everything all the time. Granted, anyone who buys a Mac probably shouldn't have such worries. But it would seem to me that Apple is prematurely pigeonholing themselves into a corner. Many people aren't going to want to buy an external drive to attach to their desktop. Most instances of companies trying to make the push full on to all digital software haven't sold that product all too well. Sony did it with the PSPGo and that tanked had for them. I do believe that, based on the lax update schedule they've had for the MacPro and iMac, this is their attempt to kill that line altogether. Taking out the optical drive will save them nothing relative to the price of the system as a whole. If they do something like this and sales tank, they then have a legitimate excuse to point to say there's no interest in desktops anymore, we're done with those. I'll admit it's a real conspiracy theory, but that certainly seems like the direction this is heading.[/citation]


Their drive for (sorry about the pun) getting rid of optical drives, is that they have an invested interest in cloud services. The uses for optical discs are software installation, movies, music and file sharing/backup. Apple sells software through their Mac app store, movies and music through iTunes and filesharing/backup services through iCloud.

Having an optical drive on their computers actually goes against their business model because all of the drives uses cannibalize the services they are trying to sell their users.
 
[citation][nom]john_4[/nom]Use mine all the time to make up mix disks for my car.[/citation]

While I think every manufacturer should drop optical drives, I would never claim that there aren't still very valid uses for them. What I would claim is that we passed the point about 4 years ago where the vast majority of users no longer need them. For the vast majority of needs it's cheaper to simply purchase 4mb flash drive for $6 than it is to buy 30 DVD media for $15 that they only need one of to give someone some data. Those needing lots of copies of large files obviouslly would go with optical media but this is a rare need.

I own and will continue to use my 5 year old external USB DVD/CD drive. I don't have an optical drive in any of my computers because I very rarely use them. Your position is that it will be inconvenient to not have an optical drive by default and mine is that it is inconvenient to have one. It's easy to add an external drive but difficult to impossible to remove one. For the same reason you don't want a DVD or Blue-Ray built into your TV, with the obvious end of optical either already here or almost here, it's time to move it out of the computer so we're not stuck with a useless drive.
 
[citation][nom]Vladislaus[/nom]Didn't knew that MS made computers. Also when was the last time Apple sold a computer with a FDD? Windows 8 still supports them.[/citation]
Not counting the MS Surface PC, I agree MS doesn't make computers, I also agree they sell the OS. They don't need to sell hardware to drop support of optical drives so I don't see your point. So why would they drop support of optical drives? The same reason why Apple choose never to add in support for BD drives, to encourage users to get media from MS marketplace.
 
[citation][nom]freggo[/nom]"Given broadband speeds today"... Let's face it, thanks to no competition we are still way behind the rest of the world when it comes to 'high speed' internet.[/citation]

There are many areas where internet connection is spotty or only exist as dial-up or fake broadband.
 
[citation][nom]theabsinthehare[/nom]Everyone I know that owns a computer with a built in cam uses it. Apple never said anything about going cable less. They attempt to make the build as simple as possible for the majority of users. Power users, who are not the majority, tend to have lots of external devices and the cables that go with those. Optical drives are that obsolete. We used them for four reasons: Installing the OS, which is now done via thumb drive for base installs, or via download for upgrades on Macs; Entertainment CDs/DVDs, but now you can get your movies and music cheaper digitally via numerous stores, and even physical copies of movies now come with digital versions; Installing software, but all software can also be acquired digitally faster and cheaper; Physically sharing files, but not only is it easier to share online now with upload sites like ge.tt and mediafire, and all the cloud services, but flash drives are dirt cheap. You can get a 32GB flash drive for nearly the same price as a single dual layer bluray disc. Can you think of any other uses? I can't.[/citation]

Let's see them take Planet Earth or Frozen Planet and put that on jump drive. But of course, playing back HD movies on a jump drive is stutter free, and the throughput is plenty (sarcasm). Not only that, but it would only take one jump drive to fit all those episodes on one 32gb drive (more sarcasm). The only way to do that would be to compress the files so much that both the audio and video quality would be horrendous (no sarcasm).

Maybe you didn't know that ISPs like comcast have bandwidth caps.
 
Microsoft can't follow, Microsoft doesn't make any Desk tops, their venders do. And you will probably never see the disk drive go away on a pc because the Vast majority of people want it. Last but not
least Apple Imac's and Mini wanna a be's make up less then 6 percent of the PC market, if they choose to make stupid decisions that drive their market share down even lower doesn't mean anyone else will copy cat their sillyness. Most likely they will sit back and watch them Crash and Burn............
 
[citation][nom]john_4[/nom]Use mine all the time to make up mix disks for my car.[/citation]
Yeah me too, still can't understand why my two year old GM vehicle with the "upgraded" sound system is sooooo old tech. I'd really like to just plug in a usb stick, which apparently the 2012 model has (some warning about compatibility though), but they still have cd players and the newest have hard drives??
 
[citation][nom]phatboe[/nom]Not counting the MS Surface PC, I agree MS doesn't make computers, I also agree they sell the OS. They don't need to sell hardware to drop support of optical drives so I don't see your point. So why would they drop support of optical drives? The same reason why Apple choose never to add in support for BD drives, to encourage users to get media from MS marketplace.[/citation]
First Apple didn't dropped support for optical drives. They stopped selling computers with them, but the optical drives of older models will still function. Apple will most likely only stop supporting optical drives when models with them are no longer eligible for a OS upgrade. And even after that you can still have external DVDs functioning with third party software. Mac OS doesn't support bluray burners or readers yet they can still function using third party software.

Like I stated in my first post Apple has drop support for FDD for quite some time and Microsoft didn't followed suit. Also even if Microsoft removes support for DVDs it will be the ability for WMP to play them, not the ability of the OS to function with DVDs.
 
The only reason I use my optical drive is to rip cds, and to burn the occasional DVD. If they do this, it honestly wouldn't bother me that much, but they better be dropping the price by $79 for that "Super Drive" not being included. Other than that, I don't really care. In reality, they should have it as an option.
 
[citation][nom]ricardok[/nom]So, does anyone else uses their optical drives?? I don't.. And for more than 2 years already..[/citation]
I don't know why you got thumb down. I use mine for the OS install, and yes, there are a few pieces of software I install that need it, but, after that I never touch it.
 
Some of the earlier posters hit the nail directly on the head when they pointed out that Apple (should they go through with this and probably will) is dropping any and ALL optical drive options from their new models for the same reason they never offered Blu-ray drives. This would conflict with their business model of forcing people to spend money directly with them by streaming entertainment content from iTunes. This hardly represents an "upgrade" at all and this should be made clear. It is yet further degradation of the desktop experience, just like Microsoft's announcement that it will block any mods/hacks by users to bring back the "Start" button in Windows 8. I'll gladly stop by a Redbox or a public library when I feel like watching a movie rather than endorse Apple's streaming feature and for that I'll need and keep my optical drive.

Why would any individual in his right mind entrust his valuable, personal data to the "cloud" in the first place? By the same token, when you "stream" content to your computer, what kind of data are they collecting from you? And how safe is it in their hands? Are you getting spyware/malware in addition to the entertainment content? Is the "convenience" of ordering a movie from your couch worth finding this out...?

After Apple's obscene hardware price markups, removal of the optical drive only adds insult to injury. You can thank all of the guys hooked on "convenience" and are willing to be led like sheep over the course of their personal computing careers for Apple's boldness in taking such a step. My purchase of Windows 7 may well be my last ever from Microsoft. It is unlikely that I'll ever purchase Apple hardware as long as there are alternatives. Contempt for desktop users may score them points with kids but for me, I'll keep my optical drives thank you very much.
 
Something most people did not notice when Apple removed the CD/DVD drive from the Macmini they also dropped the price of the unit by $100. So that $79 for an external drive(or 30 if you go 3rd party) doesnt seem too bad to me if the price drop becomes a trend
 
[citation][nom]scannall[/nom]You mean like this one? http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD564ZM/A?fnode=5fOh wait. It's $79, and uses USB.... Hate on bro. You're a pro.[/citation]

yeah!! they always hate, also when they dropped the ODD from the Mac Mini the price actually dropped from $699 to $599. Which I believe its a better that way so only people that want and use the ODD spent the extra $100. It doesn't matter because they are not going to recognize that and they are still going to call us a fanboi lol
 
In laptops, by all means, ditch optical drives. In the iMac, not as much benefit as you don't have to carry it around. In a heavy duty pro machine like the Mac Pro? Heck no, not for a while.
 
[citation][nom]hasten[/nom]Most of us do hate on HP buddy. Didn't realize that Apple was a brand name producer of DVD drives. Samsung is a brand name optical drive maker and they sell for $30. Also, I would put money on that most apple users are not aware that they can use an external drive from another company.[/citation]

I don't think you understand the difference between a brand and an OEM.
 
[citation][nom]pharoahhalfdead[/nom]Let's see them take Planet Earth or Frozen Planet and put that on jump drive. But of course, playing back HD movies on a jump drive is stutter free, and the throughput is plenty (sarcasm). Not only that, but it would only take one jump drive to fit all those episodes on one 32gb drive (more sarcasm). The only way to do that would be to compress the files so much that both the audio and video quality would be horrendous (no sarcasm). Maybe you didn't know that ISPs like comcast have bandwidth caps.[/citation]

The bitrate of both Planet Earth and Frozen Earth on Bluray is 35Mbps.
The entire series' are 550 minutes for Planet Earth and 350 minutes for Frozen Earth.
This results in a total uncompressed size of 140GB for Planet Earth and 48GB for Frozen Earth.

H.264/MPEG-4 can encode 35MBps content down to an bitrate of 12Mbps without appreciable loss of detail, pending you have a decent GPU to decode it (Which I assume you would if you are watching Bluray in the first place).
This results in a total size of 48GB for the entire Planet Earth series, and 30GB for Frozen Earth.
Planet Earth could easily fit on a 64GB flash drive, which can be had for ~$30, and Frozen Earth could fit on a 32GB drive which sells for ~$18, compared to the $12 you'd pay for the 3 single use DL BD-R discs or the $30 for the 3 rewritable DL BD-RE discs necessary, on top of the ~$60-100 for the burner itself and the risk of possible failed burn coasters.

Research! It's your friend.
 
[citation][nom]pharoahhalfdead[/nom]Let's see them take Planet Earth or Frozen Planet and put that on jump drive. But of course, playing back HD movies on a jump drive is stutter free, and the throughput is plenty (sarcasm). Not only that, but it would only take one jump drive to fit all those episodes on one 32gb drive (more sarcasm). The only way to do that would be to compress the files so much that both the audio and video quality would be horrendous (no sarcasm). Maybe you didn't know that ISPs like comcast have bandwidth caps.[/citation]

My apologies, I forgot to address your following sarcastic remarks. USB 2.0 flash drive read speeds are 7MBps, high enough for even uncompressed Bluray bitrate, let alone H.264 encoded video.

I do know that ISPs have bandwidth caps, mine is one of them and it's set at 250GB. You'd have to stream 47.5 hours of full HD content running at 12Mbps in one month to hit that cap. Most streaming services like Netflix only use 5Mbps or less for their HD content (because most "HD" video is 720p, not 1080p. The exceptions are the two series you already mentioned, Planet Earth and Frozen earth, and a small handful of others.) So, it becomes something more like 114 hours of HD video a month. I have a family of 5, and we all use Netflix individually, often watching HD shows, on top of regular data use across five computers and several mobile devices and we have yet to hit our data cap.

You can point out theoretical flaws all you want, but real world evidence shows that optical drives are just completely unnecessary for the majority of computer users.
 
[citation][nom]Realbeast[/nom]Yeah me too, still can't understand why my two year old GM vehicle with the "upgraded" sound system is sooooo old tech. I'd really like to just plug in a usb stick, which apparently the 2012 model has (some warning about compatibility though), but they still have cd players and the newest have hard drives??[/citation]

Of course the newest cars have CD players. Many people still use CDs. It would be stupid for car companies to ignore this fact. Having a built-in hard drive is probably not as good of an idea as having built-in flash, but still, it means that the car has local storage for you to put audio and such onto, so that's a good idea too IMO.
 
[citation][nom]MarkD_1205[/nom]Some of the earlier posters hit the nail directly on the head when they pointed out that Apple (should they go through with this and probably will) is dropping any and ALL optical drive options from their new models for the same reason they never offered Blu-ray drives. This would conflict with their business model of forcing people to spend money directly with them by streaming entertainment content from iTunes. This hardly represents an "upgrade" at all and this should be made clear. It is yet further degradation of the desktop experience, just like Microsoft's announcement that it will block any mods/hacks by users to bring back the "Start" button in Windows 8. I'll gladly stop by a Redbox or a public library when I feel like watching a movie rather than endorse Apple's streaming feature and for that I'll need and keep my optical drive.Why would any individual in his right mind entrust his valuable, personal data to the "cloud" in the first place? By the same token, when you "stream" content to your computer, what kind of data are they collecting from you? And how safe is it in their hands? Are you getting spyware/malware in addition to the entertainment content? Is the "convenience" of ordering a movie from your couch worth finding this out...?After Apple's obscene hardware price markups, removal of the optical drive only adds insult to injury. You can thank all of the guys hooked on "convenience" and are willing to be led like sheep over the course of their personal computing careers for Apple's boldness in taking such a step. My purchase of Windows 7 may well be my last ever from Microsoft. It is unlikely that I'll ever purchase Apple hardware as long as there are alternatives. Contempt for desktop users may score them points with kids but for me, I'll keep my optical drives thank you very much.[/citation]

MS isn't blocking mods to get start menus in Windows 8. MS simply blocked hacks that got it back by using MS's code because MS removed the code for the start menu. You can still get a start menu by installing a new one and there's nothing short of removing the desktop shell completely or only allowing specific programs to run in it that can stop such programs from working. MS is not doing either of those (although Valve and Bliz would like you to think otherwise, but they're just showing us how their CEOs are assholes who fear competition like Apple does). ViStart/ViOrb and Classic Shell are two such programs and they work just fine in all versions of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.
 
OK, maybe if PC games, movies, and software titles were distributed primarily on flash drives, this move would make sense. This seems like Apple trying to be ahead of the curve in terms of software distribution just for the sake of making extra money on external optical drives. I call BS.
 
[citation][nom]face-plants[/nom]OK, maybe if PC games, movies, and software titles were distributed primarily on flash drives, this move would make sense. This seems like Apple trying to be ahead of the curve in terms of software distribution just for the sake of making extra money on external optical drives. I call BS.[/citation]

...Those things ALL are already distributed digitally, specifically by Apple with the Mac App store, and iTunes. They aren't trying to be ahead of the curve, they're just sticking to their business model.
 
I do not use my DVD drive too often, but a few times a month. For example, when I want to transfer music to my cars HD or update the firmware on the navigation. These things need DVDs. Sure, I could order one from the dealer and pay 50 bucks. Or I could burn it myself.
My wife watched DVDs on her laptop all the time. Nearly every single day in fact.
Keep in mind that just because you don't use something, does not mean that every other person in the world is like you.
 
Oh and one more thing, I still prefer having all my important files backed up to bd-r (blu-ray recordables) in addition to external HDD. It's quite easy to delete files off a hard drive but if you keep optical discs in a case, they're quite safe. Especially if you use the millennium recordable media that doesn't degrade in a decade like most other blank discs.

Also, isn't the desktop publishing and audio/video editing crowd one of the main markets that Apple computers are supposed to cater to? You're going to tell musicians and video pros that they don't need to burn cd's and dvd's anymore? The more I think about it, the more insane this move seems to be.
 
theabsinthehare , I guess I'm still thinking about a large portion of those who buy software that still go out and get a physical disc. There are artists that aren't available in iTunes as well as lots of software. Then again, I'm using logic and completely forgetting Apple's aspiration to have their customers get content from iTunes and nowhere else.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom