Why no optical drive in new Mac Mini?

Hmm. Probably the drive you received is defective. In this day and age, external optical drives are usually plug and play for a Mac, no matter the brand. As a matter of fact, I got a cheap Samsung from Newegg for about $20, and it "just works" in all devices and operating systems --PCs, Macs, Windows 7, Lion, Snow Leopard, Linux Mint 12...

I have to disagree with everything. I will still buy a new mini (ivy version) when it comes out and just use my external if I have to buy a new mini. Lack of cd or dvd will not prevent me from buying a mini. But it is still useful.

I don't agree everything is available from the app store. What if I have to buy microsoft word. It has to be cd. Microsoft doesn't have a download system yet right?? And cd is very handy anyway for backup.

I hate download. What if I crash my computer then I lost everything and I have pay to re download it all.

And we got a new printer when my dad bought a new late 2011 macbook pro. I could download drivers from their website but it is so much easier to stick in a cd rather then going to hp.com and spending hours searching for a driver. (and possibly restarting a few times (corrupt download) ) or waiting for the site to come back online. Or 1 year from now (sorry its outdated and we no longer offer dirvers). It's so handy to have a cd. Downloading is a pain. And backup hard drives don't last for ever either (at least for me). Unless I get SSD. The more solid the better. But ssd is too expensive just to backup my programs. And flash and sd also have limited shelf life. Not saying cd doesn't either. But cd is far better than dealing with all the wires and backups. Just stick it in and you're good to go.

Plus everything is not available on app store. Some specialty stuff will never be available on app store and olny on cd.

Plus how can you argue with the other guy. There has to be a reason the external super drive was sold out at the apple store. People still use one I guess.

The sensibility of Apple products is that they are clean and uncomplicated. Having to go out to make a purchase of a third party CD/DVD drive and the resulting of stuff hanging off the Mac Mini detracts from its appeal as a clean, simple device.

I currently have an older Mac Mini that I use as my source for playing DVDs on my television. The appeal of the Mini was that it was very easy to attach, it is small, and it adds hardly any clutter to the room setting. I use a Gyration RF keyboard, so I don't even have any USB wires. I don't have a huge television at all by modern standards. Even on my modest TV there is no video streaming service that is anywhere close to providing the visual and audio quality that is comparable to DVD. I am not lucky enough to have fiberoptic Internet service where I live. The best we can get is cable or DSL which tops out well below 10 megabits/second. Perhaps in Cupertino everybody has light speed Internet service and streamed content matches DVD quality, but much of the rest of the planet still has slow Internet service that will probably remain slow even long after the new Mac Mini is obsolete.

To be suitable for its market, the Mac Mini needs to have an internal optical drive.

azdawg99 wrote:

>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.

My option to buy Blurays/DVDs instead of wasting my monthly internet limit on pc/mac games that are only getting bigger and bigger says different

Apple really screwed us by not including disc drives on their computers. Jumping the gun with this was insane. I have many needs for the disc drive. Forcing us to spend more on an external drive is selfish and greedy. We already pay a premium. The least they can do is make it so it's all in one, sleek and easy to use. Now we have to spend more, take up more space on the desktop and integrate. It's not the Apple way and I for one am disgusted with this issue.

Yes, it is a not too subtle steering of the Mac Mini's users to iTunes and iCloud as sources of content. If cloud services uses were all one used, then there no need for an optical drive.

On the other hand, I live in Ohio, which does have a good telecom backbone, but our last mile speeds are 10 megabits/second at best, and the majority of us have Cable or DSL that is more like 4 megs download / 1 meg upload.

With modest connectivity, it kind of negates using iMovie and uploading anything of significant size to cloud storage. Only college kids have the luck to live in dorms that have gigabit ports that connect to multi gigabit Internet bandwidth. Cloud storage is fine if one has a rock'in connection like that. The rest of us, not so fine.

Also, I have quite a few (mostly elderly) relatives that still consume their video content on DVD; it is much simpler for them. It would be nice to be able to burn a disc I could mail or simply take with me on a visit. I know, I can attach an external drive, but it would be more elegant not to have to attach an external drive. Why not make it an option to have an internal drive? I don't think anybody would care if the Mac Mini case were a few millimeters thicker.

OH MY GOD!!! Really?

First: I love the apple OSX operating system, and their products are great quality, but....

With the over exorbitant price you pay for your mac anything, your going to sight the cheaper price for lack of an optical drive? With the lack of a built in optical drive in the mac mini since 2011, the price of the base line mac mini is still $599, so where is the price drop? Not to mention the slightly upgraded mac mini with an I7 and larger HD is $799, still I don’t see any savings here.

How many of you apple fan heads are really in tune to loosing the capability of using a BUILT in optical drive with your system and that you have to go and shell out another hundred or more bucks for when you do need one?

Who really wants an EXTERNAL ANYTHING? Gone should be the days of the Atari and Commodore 64 type computers with their external tape drives, its external floppy drives, or the PC's with its external CD drives and all their cables and clunkyness. Optical drives are still very much a part of todays lives with cd's for burning music and pictures, DVD's for home made movies and slide shows and at home music creation and backing up large files, not to mention the software that is still being produced can that cost into the hundred of dollars even thousands that is not in the APPLE APP STORE aka CASH MACHINE. What do you do when you had to remove programs to make space but then want to reinstall but have to rely on the internet connection or iCloud to get your paid for software from? Lets hope you don’t owe them $1.25 for a downloaded song that didn’t clear the bank, because you wont get your wares.

Optical drives are a standard in with all Personal Computers of today for those purposes and are included with other non mac systems still. APPLE SHOULD STOP TRYING TO NICKEL AND DIME US FOR EACH TINY LITTLE FEATURE WHEN THEIR HARDWARE IS PAID FOR AT SUCH A PRIME PRICE, THEN TAKE FEATURES AWAY AND TRY TO BRAIN WASH US INTO BELEAVING IT TO BE A COOL CONCEPT IN THE NAME OF DESIGN AND FUNCTIONALITY when it all comes down to more big bucks for them.

I LOVE MY 2009 MAC MINI GUNNED OUT WITH 8 GIGS RAM, A 512GB SSD, AND BUILT IN O P T I C A L DRIVE!!

Message was edited by: PMare

Message was edited by: PMare