Why no optical drive in new Mac Mini?

I bought my Mac Mini because it was affordable and functionable. My constructive suggestion is to put the optical drive back in because it seems like there are a lot of customers out there who would use it. Why deliberately make something less useful then it could be? It can't affect how much people access the app store and etc THAT much can it?

Sometimes I feel like Apples attitude is 'Do it the way we want you to do it or get stuffed.'

>Sometimes I feel like Apples attitude is 'Do it the way we want you to do it or get stuffed.'

That's always been Apples attitude. It's what made Steve Jobs a legend. He knew what you wanted before you did. DVD's are dead. You'll see the light soon enough.

DVDs are not dead.

They are to me and Apple. Haven't used one in over a year.

Kinda like saying PCs are dead because I don't use them and neither does Apple. Dead to me and Apple isn't dead.

I don't burn them often, but people do burn DVDs and submit them to me for screening.

I bought a Mini some months before the recent change and have an optical drive, but I have to admit that I don't really use it much except when I rip a CD to my phone,like every other week or so. Considering that Apple seems to want to get the Mini closer to regular PC prices, that they upgraded the other parts of the unit, but lowered the price, losing the drive doesn't seem like a bad deal. You can easily buy a third party external drive for about 50 bucks if you want or need one. It would be interesting to seem some figures on how many Mini users actually use the drive. Not many years ago, I couldn't imagine not having a diskette drive either.

If you don't have Blu-Ray because you can't afford it, I can fully understand that. The players are still a bit pricey, as is a HD TV. If you can afford Blu Ray and choose not to purchase it, because inferior streamed video is fine for you, then you are either misinformed, or not enough of a movie lover to care. Either way, that's fine. I will say this with no reservation. Blu-Ray is currently the best way to own a film at home by far.
If Apple could have Blu-Ray, they would put it into their Macs. A Mac Mini with a Blu Ray would be the best media box/living room computer ever. Without Blu Ray, a Mac Mini is a gimp media box.

> That's always been Apples attitude. It's what made Steve Jobs a legend. He knew what you wanted before you did. DVD's are dead. You'll see the light soon enough.

My sentiment exactly.

I think this was Steve Job's last joke, sleight of hand, stroke of genius, or whatever you wanna call it. He knew when to ditch the floppy drive, as he knew now that it was time to do away with the optical.

Now, these transitions don't take place overnight. A lot of folks got an external floppy drive and continued using their floppies for a while, or simply continued using their old floppy-equipped computers. (Heck, I know people who are STILL using their floppy drives.) Not to mention that not everybody can afford to get new machines every year, of course. All my computers are a few years old (including my two ex Core Solo minis), all of them have optical drives. And I own two external DVD burners, because I still need them, and will for a while, and also because they are very affordable --I got my newer one from Newegg for around $20.

And I'm sorry to say, Blu-Ray technology failed to kill the DVD simply because Blu-Rays stayed too pricey for too long, and now that they are finally getting affordable the writing is already on the wall. And I heartily agree that streamed or downloaded video is not still even close in quality to Blu-Ray. But it's still winning. (Remember Betamax?)

Felix

I must admit, I missed it entirely that the optical drive was removed. I had the new Mini at home for a month before I went to use the optical drive. I could have sworn it was on the Mini when I set it up - ***?

I ordered a Samsung USB drive from Amazon for $49.00. It works like a charm. Admittedly, I've used it twice now.

redhanwen wrote:

I bought my Mac Mini because it was affordable and functionable. My constructive suggestion is to put the optical drive back in because it seems like there are a lot of customers out there who would use it. Why deliberately make something less useful then it could be? It can't affect how much people access the app store and etc THAT much can it?

Sometimes I feel like Apples attitude is 'Do it the way we want you to do it or get stuffed.'

So you would rather eat with a swiss army knife because its more useful than a regular knife?😉

I don't get why you have this attitude....

You can buy an optical drive to plug in... do you honestly think they would throw the optical drive in and charge you nothing for it? That's like making everyone pay $50 more for it because a handful want it. Why not just buy it if you really need it and let the rest of us save some dough?

Personally, even though I never use a cd drive, I would much prefer to tuck my mini away from sight and meerly have the cd slot on the desk anyway as to not have it near potential accidents (kids, liquids, etc). But to each their own.

"So you would rather eat with a swiss army knife because its more useful than a regular knife?"

Haha.. Hells yeah! One of those cool ones that have a spoon and fork too!

I'm gonna chime in here too. Apple definitely marches to their own drum. Nobody will be able to convince me that a desktop computer sans optical drive makes any sense except to maximize a profit by forcing you to purchase the external Superdrive. Heck, even including the MDP to DVI adapter instead of a more standard VGA adapter forces you to shell out yet another $30 for an Apple adapter. Very frustrating.

I can no longer rip CD's to my iTunes (and I have HUNDREDS of them), along with any other standard use for an optical drive.

The $599 price point is a nice one. Charging $599 for a complete headless Mac would make a LOT more switchers but when they realize (after all is said and done) that they're still spending upwards of $800 ir makes the decision a LOT more difficult.

Please Apple, PLEASE include a DVD drive in the Mini. I love using iMovie and love burning my work to DVD to share among friends and family. I LOVE having a hard backup of my installation OS. I LOVE growing my music collection with music I've already bought. I NEED an optical drive!

>I NEED an optical drive!

Then go buy an external. Not everyone needs one. I certainly don't and prefer the lower price point. Superdrives have always been lousy drives anyways.

btw, you felt the need to reopen a thread that was dead for over 2 months just to whine?

I had my Mac Mini one month before I discovered there was no optical drive and that was only after I turned it upside down and looked for the new slot location. Wow, no wonder it was less expensive. So, two days later Amazon delivered a Samsung DVD Reader/Writer for $49.00 - works terrific and I'm in business ripping again.