I'm an Apple fanboy- no surprise to my friends and family. Many years ago, Apple had the cajones to introduce USB to the masses and to drop the floppy disc when the first iMac was unveiled. Many years later,
they have remained steadfastly against including Blu-ray capability in their hardware.
Now the clock is ticking on physical media altogether. Mac Mini's have no DVD drive anymore.
No more burning and no more movie playback from your stack of DVDs. MacBook Airs are becoming standard now, which means the clock is ticking for the last of the consumer devices- the iMac. I have no doubt that next year's iMac refresh will not include the optical drive and we will have been pushed over the cliff of digital downloads. Sometimes bold moves are necessary, but this feels premature. I like knowing I can watch my DVDs on a computer, and that I can burn home movies onto DVD for family members that haven't dipped their toes into streaming/downloads (and may never do so). I'm not worried- I usually get years of mileage out of my Macs. My kids will get my current iMac when the day comes that I need to replace it. Still, sometimes Apple exercises a bit too much tough-love for it's die-hard fans. Sure we can buy external devices that plug in with Thunderbolt, but that reminds me of the clunky '90's when I had an external CD-R drive. Did the new Mac Mini get smaller by losing the DVD drive? Does the iMac need to be any thinner? I don't think so- we've kind of reached the point of terminal smallness in my opinion- anything less might be difficult to handle for highlanders such as myself.
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