Quickly: Someone warn Apple!

By your logic then, Apple should just build a basic computer with nothing on it and you the user can attach the parts that you need. That way you can have fifty products connected to the back of your computer. Image attaching your own camera, attach your own hard drive, attach your own disk burner, speakers, etc. Then the system looks like a PC with a million wires connected to it. Yeah, I call that a great leap forward. Apple will probably be happy cause they would nickle and dime you to death on each additional product. ****, they could even sell you an app for that.

John Pavilonis wrote:

By your logic then, Apple should just build a basic computer with nothing on it and you the user can attach the parts that you need.

You just described the mini, eh?

But seriously? By my logic Apple should look at what is essential for the experience and include it - but nothing else. Ten years ago, even five, an optical drive would be essential but today? Important to many but hardly essential. It is the floppy disk of the current generation.

By your logic Apple should never have removed the serial, ADB, VGA, and SCSI ports because some people were still using them. iMacs would still have floppy drives. What has always made Apple unique isn't what they have developed and included in their devices but what they have decided not to. And what they have decided to remove as well.

As I said, let the games begin...and in a couple years we'll all look back and wonder what the fuss was.

In my opinion, it is a big mistake for Apple not to include a superdrive on its main desktop computer. I can understand the design decision to exclude optical drives from a laptop, where weight and size matter. But portability just isn't an issue with a desktop computer, and excluding a very useful feature from the iMac (particularly given Apple's focus on media) I see as a step backward.

CDs and DVDs might be considered by some to be "old media." However, they're not that old. Moreover, DVDs are a better storage solution than the "cloud" (in which the integrity of one's files and one's privacy is at the mercy of a third party controlling its servers in the cloud) and hard drives, which being magnetic media with moving parts, can become corrupted and fail.

Moreover, aside from losing a useful ability to write files, losing the optical drive will render it impossible to read files from CDs or DVDs, such as from any back-up disk, or to rip tracks from CDs into one's iTunes library. I have hundreds of purchased CDs that I'd like to rip into my iTunes library someday, many people (myself included) still buy CDs, and not all music is available for purchase in iTunes and must be acquired on CDs.

It might be argued that the solution is simply to attach an external optical drive to the iMac for those who want that function. Assuming such drives exist that are as fast as the built-in superdrives the solution flies in the face of the design decision obviously behind the new iMac because it will require a large number (probably a majority) of iMac owners to junk up the look of their computers with external peripherals. Moreover, an external optical drive is noisier than internal drives.

Losing the optical drive on the iMac is really a poor decision. I think it should be reversed in the next product refresh.

"By your logic Apple should never have removed the serial, ADB, VGA, and SCSI ports because some people were still using them. iMacs would still have floppy drives."

I disagree that an optical drive is like ADB, VGA, and SCSI or like floppy drives. ADB, VGA, and SCSI had no significant utility aside from allowing computers to "talk" to peripheral devices or other computers. These have been superceded by better technology that accomplishes the same tasks and so are properly obsolete. Also, the floppy drive has no significant utility other than serving as a storage medium for small files and had no practical use other than with a computer. It too has been superceded by a host of other storage media that accomplish the same purpose more efficiently, and so is properly obsolete.

What's different about an optical drive is that CDs and DVDs have practical use other than with a computer. Removing an optical drive from a computer, thus, is not like replacing computer-specific technology (such as ADB, VGA, and SCSI or floppy drives) with better technologies that accomplish the same tasks. Rather, removing an optical drive takes away the ability of a computer to interact with non-computing technologies, which renders the computer less useful.

Perhaps cloud storage and storing computer-related files on solid-state media could be seen as a better solution than storing files on optical disks, but these newer technologies only improve (arguably) on the computer-specific aspect of optical media. What will be lost is the ability to import music from one's own CDs, burn playlists to CDs, burn movies to DVDs, and interact, in a way that Apple revolutionized, with non-computer media technologies.

HAPPY WITHOUT OPTICAL DRIVE.

I use my iMac and MBP at home. I'm retired. And I do not need optical drive.

All my CD music have been imported years ago and I do not buy CD any more since 2-3 years.

I make pictures, like to edit with Aperture, and the same with Video HD (FCPX).

There is no need to use DVD. Quality is too low if you do not use Toast to burn few minutes of BD.

BD could ber a solution but expensive and why ? It will take hours to burn. And on USB Key or HD I have no problem with Full HD and you transfer the files in minutes. Tunderbolt is here: file transfer is fast and will improve,

USB 3 Key are now on the market.

Very easy to transport video and photos (or any file) with USB key or smal external HD. Now every new TV has USB port.

No problem for music in cars. many read SD cards and have cable input or BT connection with an iPhone/oPod.

There are already SD cards up to 32/64 GB. In 1 or 2 years we will have SD cards up to the size of our internal HD nowadays.

I like sailing: I see people use CDs on a line over their boats to avoid birds and their xxxx. Probably CD are not even usefull for this use.

Future does not wait... you need to feel it like the increasing wind, before it strikes you or it will be too late.

It's nice that you no longer use or need CD's/DVD's. Some people can get away with not having an optical disk, but I personally need one for work, life, and privacy. I would rather have one than not have one. This was a bad move on Apples part. Disks are not dead yet. The little USB jump drives are nice, but don't plug into my car, are expensive, and don't plug into my home entertainment system. Apple just built a product that has less functional use for me. We'll just have to see how the purchasing public respond to this change.

Over the years I've acquired three external DVD drives. One used with an old laptop, and an Apple Superdrive I use with my 2012 MBA. Both of which are USB powered. I also have a large OWC DVD drive. All three DVD drives are much better than the one that came with my 27" mid 2010 iMac so I rarely used the internal drive.

I will definitely be replacing my iMac with a new one come December. Personally I won't miss the DVD.