Comments on: MacBook Pro refresh with SSD, Light Peak & no DVD in April 2011?

By: Hoby Van Hoose

Hoby Van Hoose — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 03:55:00 +0000

What about watching DVDs? What are software companies going to distribute on, flash sticks?

No optical drive worked for the Air because it was such a luxury (not your only computer) item. But the MBP?

By: DIN

DIN — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:21:00 +0000

Apple is a leader and is always ahead of the pack I know that this is the direction that most PC brands are heading. The only thing I use my Optical drive for is formatting my OCZ SSD and I have only done it once since I have own my MBP for 4 years. Now my wife has a Sony Vaio and have reinstall the OS 3 times in the 8months she has owned hers. I say leave the Optical drive for PC users since they need it more then MACs.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:38:09 +0000

A question here, what about the macbook? Some of us just don’t have a MINIMUM of $1700 dollars to spare, and being a student, the $999 macbook would be more within my range. I don’t think they will come with an SSD as standard, just because its stilll an expenseive technology, but I am hoping for perhaps a RAM rise to 4gb/Faster CPU perhaps to 2.5/2.6Ghz?/ and perhaps a higher res screen? Just my opinion!

By: Marcelo

Marcelo — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 03:42:17 +0000

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By: the teacher

the teacher — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:58:49 +0000

ok so people either hate mac or love it…and what ive seen is a lot of people complaining that macs are overpriced and u get more processing power on a pc which is true..to an extent…ok remember this..whenver u buy a pc nowadays they are stripped down, no programs not even microsoft office anymore. they are as barebone as it gets…also remember that your pc is working itself with over 1gb of ram needed just to run windows7 which is still very buggy and inefficient…on a mac ur getting a much more stable OS which doesnt crash often if at all…the reason macs dont need the processing power a pc has is due to the OS not needing it to work…you also get ilife installed which includes iphoto, imovie, and garage band. lets say u want this all on ur pc…your going to be paying 100 for photoshop another 50 for a movie editing software and around 100 for a program similar to garage band…not to mention the cost of a yearly antivirus subscription fee…apple products are investments and worth if if u calculate all the prices….macs have a longer life span than pcs do…why would u buy a new pc laptop every 2 years spending 400 and over when u could buy a mac for 1200 and have it last u anywhere from 6-8 years…im not a pc hater but these are just the facts..

By: Nikhil

Nikhil — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:00:45 +0000

y’all are fuckin stupid for buying an overpriced machine with minimal features, you can buy a pc for equal price with a better processor, hard drive etc.

By: RCH

RCH — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:04:49 +0000

You should never call someone stupid. Some people just want to have the best and latest technology. I sold my Mac Pro 15 inch in December and bought a 13″ Mac Air 256GB. Apple users are very tech savvy and just want the best. That’s why we don’t like the low quality or hum drum pcs. Why do you think Apples are so thought of so highly and their re-sell is higher?

By: xyz

xyz — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 17:05:53 +0000

ya remove the DVD drive, only used it twice when I reformatted my mac. replace it with more battery or a coffee holder that pops out, now that would be innovation.

By: crawler

crawler — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:37:00 +0000

I totally agree.

The main reason why Macs are way better than PCs is because there is only one manufacturer for both the software (Mac OS) and hardware thus potential conflicts are being addressed even before it hits the shelves.

The second reason why Macs are “better” is because the Mac OS is based on the *nix systems which is by far more stable than any Windows OS.

By: Nikhil

Nikhil — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:26:24 +0000

To call someone stupid without even meeting them is really stupid to say the least.

This is a forum to exercise options and thoughts on mac hardware/software not to rant on your pent up feelings that someone might have made a better decision than you…whoever you are and what you said to the couple is childish and reflective of your state of mind….my advice….get an education mate!

By: JohnB.

JohnB. — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:31:43 +0000

They should dump the internal CD/DVD burner and package an external Light Peak CD/DVD burner. Something the same size as the unit you can get with the MacBook Air. That unit only uses one USB cable. So one Light Peak cable should be easy.

Just my 2cents

By: brendan

brendan — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:15:26 +0000

i DOUBT that they will get rid of the cd drive. thats a compromise they had to make with the macbook air just so it could remain just as small, thin, and light. for a pro machine, they would NEVER remove it unless there was some special (being sarcastic here) thing that read cds/dvds without inserting them into anything

By: Juliia

Juliia — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:30:43 +0000

:D I hope they come out without the optical drive. I have a slim external drive anyways… like really how many times do most people use cd’s when they aren’t home. Even it its lots some DVD burners are slim so they are easy to carry.

lol I remember 3-4 years ago i bought the basic macbook for almost 2500$ haha or possibly did, I don’t remember

By: CC

CC — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:04:16 +0000

The idiot posts a link to wikipedia trying to back up his claims on who invented firewire. Maybe you should read it carefully.

FireWire is Apple’s name for the IEEE 1394 High Speed Serial Bus. It was initiated by Apple (in 1986[2]) and developed by the IEEE P1394 Working Group, largely driven by contributions from Apple, although major contributions were also made by engineers from Texas Instruments, Sony, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM, and INMOS/SGS Thomson (now STMicroelectronics).

Although Apple did not invent the technology totally by themselves, they did initiate the project (ie invent the concept) as stated. Inventions are not always developed by the inventor. The wikipedia article even says “Created by: Apple”.

Epic fail

By: Patrick Brinkmann

Patrick Brinkmann — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 09:46:56 +0000

People keep forgetting that music still comes in form of CDs. So if I want to get music from a CD onto my iphone or just into itunes, I need an optical drive. Great. Now I am visiting my cousin 190 miles away and just for the off chance I want to down load a track while I am there, I need to pack the clutter of an external drive, the cables (oh yes, plural! you need to connect the darn thing with two usb cables and the little USB sucker keeps unplugging all the time from the external drive),. I am speaking from experience. I had a non functioning optical drive in my MBP for over a year and it drove me crazy until I decided to get it fixed.
I am the happiest camper since feeling like I did when I got my first Powerbook 170 with active matrix monitor iand portable floppy drive back in 1991 priced at $4600. That was better than driving a Porsche.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 00:04:48 +0000

Actually, it makes a huge difference in the ‘speed’ of your computer. A lot of time you spend in applications are actually waiting on the disk. Most apps are not bottlenecked by the CPU these days.
A huge benefit, in particular, is launching applications and booting up.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:29:10 +0000

You’re just jealous :-P

By: furtherword

furtherword — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 20:51:32 +0000

Here (2 MBP’s, 1 MB), we all back up to the 1TB Apple Time Capsule via built-in Time Machine software. Totally wireless, totally automatic, totally on 24-7, updated hourly. Never have to think about it.

I’ve even restored my MBP from scratch from the wireless backup. It took overnight, but I certainly didn’t lose any sleep. ;-)

Since I run two businesses on my Mac I also have an external drive (Firewire 800) that I clone-copy to routinely. If my internal drive goes south I simply plug in the FW800 external, boot from it, and I’m back to work. Not sure, but I don’t think you can do that with a Windows machine, can you (i.e., boot from a external hard drive on the fly)?

By: Wow

Wow — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 06:05:39 +0000

Really? You realize that the speed of the drive does not increase the computing performance of your computer? You dont have more cores, you dont have i7 technology. Your totally wrong.

By: Enigma

Enigma — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 04:49:08 +0000

I would just like to say that I love both my Windows based desktop and my MacBook Pro. They both shine for the particular applications and setups I need them both for. I have a power desktop for gaming and long-duration CPU intensive tasks and I have my MBP for everything else. Let’s all calm down with the love/hate relationship. Both environments have their advantages and your preferences/needs will determine what suits you best. End of story.

By: My2Cents

My2Cents — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 02:14:14 +0000

Just adding my vote for civility and the right to disagree, respectfully.

Different people simply have different needs, different priorities and different tastes.

Personally, I’m an ex-PC user who is very happy with the Mac environment, but for some of my friends, this would simply not work. Which is perfectly fine.

Your needs will surely differ, but for me, unit weight is near the top of my priorities list, so I’d be happy with an SSD system with no optic reader, but I can understand that would not work for many people. On the other hand, I had a hard time without an anti-glare screen since I spend most of my time in environment with fluo lighting (sharp constrast with my home-based i-mac, on which I really appreciate the glossy display.)

But I gotta say after seeing the latest iteration of the MacBook Air, I’m really curious to see what the MBP will look like, hopefully not too late next spring.

Thanks for reading!

By: Jude Smith

Jude Smith — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:57:20 +0000

Fact that Macs are even more expensive than Vaios or Alienware aside, price isn’t the issue here, IMO. If we want to complain that Apple builds more expensive items than the PCs, we’re essentially missing the point unless we all happen to be Apple users.

In any case, all consumers have the right to indicate their preferences and opinions about pricing. You don’t need to have to own a product to be allowed to express your opinion about it.

By: Jude Smith

Jude Smith — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:52:45 +0000

“Windows-based crap” my arse. Don’t start arguments you know nothing about, just because you want to make a point.

By: java

java — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:04:09 +0000

I would like to learn how are you doing your backups.
Besides files that I generate, source files, documents etc that are basically MBs per month, there are photographs, videos that may be up to 1-2 GBs per month.
How are you backing up all these files without DVD recorder????????

I was really expecting to see as BlueRay recorder on a new MacBook Pro so I can backup 50 GB per disk.

By: UnderDoc

UnderDoc — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:05:08 +0000

At this point, I wonder whether you’re being ironic, a shill, or simply the usual iDiot…

See also my comment above on who invented SCSI and Firewire…

By: UnderDoc

UnderDoc — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:59:31 +0000

Technophile, you may like technology but you sure don’t know jack about it. Educate yourself on the origin of IEEE 1394 and SCSI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI

(bottomline: Apple did not invent any of them.)

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:38:46 +0000

Or hopefully just reducing the pricing of the ones that do not have those new features:)

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:37:42 +0000

Completely agree with Ted on this one. I also used to think I would never get used to a non-replaceable battery in my iphone – but after a few years of years NEVER even once thought about that again. Now do not see any problem whatsoever with built in batteries in laptops. And I am a heavy 12+ hrs per day user.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:32:57 +0000

Wow. Some of these comments are just insanely defensive/aggressive – and most of them completely miss the point.

Ie.
1) some people dont need a DVD drive no matter what you may think
2) Some people really like their DVD drive – good for them:)
3) Some people feel that Apple offers enough quality in both hardware and software and design to make it worth spending their hard earned money on a premium associated with that.
4) Some people feel that Apple only charges extra for their logo/brand and PC’s offer better value
5) Some people prefer quantity of ports/connections/choices/options that PC’s offer
6) Some people do not mind having less choices but getting exactly what they want in the package they want it.

And the point being there is room for both groups, no need for trolls to spout nonsense about what they think people need (DVD drives or whatever else) or dont need.

/steps off soap box

By: Ben Sant

Ben Sant — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 06:30:58 +0000

I think your are just a brainless to say that the macbook air is crap it has so many more features then a normal pc netbook with an intel atom processor
and these days you can buy usb superdrive for very low prices. computer snob
i think your the one with the problems

By: pattigurl

pattigurl — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 06:02:41 +0000

I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would still need to use a DVD player with Netflix, Vudu, Boxee, CinemaNow, hell even Amazon offers on demand downloads and streaming of movies available.

By: MarineSon37

MarineSon37 — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 05:15:06 +0000

Seriously…on a blog relating to computer technology you have to resort to calling a man and his wife stupid? Was that really necessary? Grow up and don’t act like such a cyberjerk will you dude?

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 01:34:14 +0000

You can always carry an extra battery if you want, but with 10 hours of battery life on board, it’s rarely needed. There are plenty of magsafe battery supplements to get you up to 20 hours. But if you have a newer MBP, you’ll understand it isn’t needed, Apple solved that about 2 years ago.

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 01:30:50 +0000

It will still be an option, just like it is on the MacBook Airs, but a good 90% of Mac users never use an optical drive so it’s time to get rid of it. Wireless & USB sticks have taken over, so anyone complaining just isn’t a modern computer user.

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 01:25:04 +0000

but remember, Steve Jobs sets all rules for the entire industry. now that wireless is so fast it shows there is no longer a need for blu-ray, if you don’t like it, go to SC Cards.

the point is, blu-ray is dead, steve and everyone in the apple world knows this, so learn how the future is going to be, or suffer.

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 01:19:16 +0000

But Blue-ray died out, so it’s time to get rid of all Optical discs. Only Apple has enough power to set this direction… so expect to see the same crybabies who are still upset Apple ended the floppy disk bemoan the death of Opticals.

Sorry, time marches on, if you are stuck in the past, Apple and their users have no time for you…

Apple brought the world optical discs in 1986, now they are taking them out. Good riddance.

By: John H

John H — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 21:49:10 +0000

Relax, they haven’t even released the model you mentioned yet.

By: John H

John H — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 21:45:17 +0000

People buy overpriced PCs too like the Vaio series or Alienware. Why are you so emotionally involved when people prefer to purchase expensive Macs? Its not like these people are spending your money.

By: Technophile

Technophile — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 18:13:56 +0000

Agree, but with a small correction. Apple actually invented SCSI and Firewire.

By: Steve K.

Steve K. — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 18:12:04 +0000

I think it’s pretty clear Apple will never return to removable batteries at this point. None of their devices have removable batteries.