No DVD drive in new iMac ???

I do believe it was a pretty dumb move for Apple to remove the optical drive, when they could have still kept but put it somewhere different if a thin edged-iMac was what they really wanted, they could have put the optical drive in the base of the stand which would've looked good, unless it was not possible...well clearly it wasn't lol.

The old coffee cup holder:

If I were them, I'd put an optical drive in the next generation of Time Capsule / AppleTV and set it up as a WiFi-enabled media and data server. But I'm not Apple.

I keep hoping for the iLife home media server (for up to 5 computers) that has 1 iPhoto Library & 1 iTunes Library to share between your home mac's

Add 4TB of backup space and I'd certainly buy one.

You know what I mean, don't you!?

(Darwin is based on BSD unix and is just a kernel and is not free)

Apple give more attension on how things look rather on how they work. You cannot even watch an avi file out of the box!

I am amazed at how easy it is for Apple to brainwash people into believing that

optical drives are somehow antiquated. There are still many $billions of

dollars in sales of CD''s, DVD's, and software, all available on optical drives.

How about RedBox? You can't beat video rentals for $1. Myself and many others

I've conversed with often use the optical drive burn videos and photos to disk

and send them relatives, play movies, RIP CD's and DVD's, and various other

uses. The vast majority of people in various threads agree that it was

premature of apple to remove the optical drive. To compare the elimination of

the optical drive with the demise of the floppy drive is a bogus argument.

Optical drives are also still widely used in the enterprise, so Apple has

effectively shot itself in the foot regarding making headway into the business

market. Nobody cares how thin the iMac is, because you only look at it from

one perspective anyway. And placing the flash card reader on the back was sheer

insanity! Couple this with the fact that there is no consumer replaceable RAM

on the 21.5" model, and this makes the new iMac so dysfunctional, I would not

even considering purchasing one!

In summary, eliminating the optical drive was a shortsighted blunder by Apple,

in an attempt to limit choices and push consumers into purchasing content from

Apple. Instead they are pushing consumers away from them.

True. Apple consider ease of use and overall customer exprience to be important factors in modrn technology. We can't all have computer science degrees in order to start up our word processors, unlike the obscure skills needed with other operating systems.

AVI files are a proprietary format introduced in 'Video for Windows'. You could just as easily have complained that Windows machines won't play h.264 MOV files out-of-the-box. I prefer my computer to be a reliable tool on which I can do proper work, not spend much of my time getting the **** thing to operate without blue screen of death crashes.

zBernie2 wrote:

In summary, eliminating the optical drive was a shortsighted blunder by Apple,

in an attempt to limit choices and push consumers into purchasing content from

Apple. Instead they are pushing consumers away from them.

If you are right we will all see Apples sales drop, but most likely you are not right, thanks for your contribution though.

And, to be fair we (the people of the forum) only represent a small number of Apple users. Most, Apple users most likely do not know this magical place even exists.

Jeff Nitschke wrote:

And, to be fair we (the people of the forum) only represent a small number of Apple users. Most, Apple users most likely do not know this magical place even exists.

And I'm thankful for that. As it is I don't have enough time in the day to read, let alone answer, all of the threads in this forum and still play with my toys. 😀

I'm also thankful that many of the threads in the forum come down to "In my opinion your opinion *****." and I can safely skip those. 😉

If we were talking about NW Breweries "In my opinion" might mean something.

I've discussed the elimination of the optical drive issue in NUMEROUS forums, and the vast majority of the people feel it was premature, and more of an effort by apple to push people to purchase online content from apple. Most also agree that placing the SD card slot on the back was asinine as well, resulting on a much less functional iMac. And most agree that all of this inconvenience for the sake of a thin design which no one cares about since you look at it mostly from the front anyway, is also asinine.

Opinions matter, especially when those opinions may reflect the buying habits of the customer base.

Amen... I can't even see the sides of my very thick eMacs moving a foot each way!

Not only do they not come with a DVD drive; not only do you have do buy an external DVD drive (so much for that elegant, minimalist desktop landscape...), but there is no way to use a remote control for this state-of-the art setup, because there is no infrared capability. So you're forced to sit at your desk holding your mouse, or your trackpad, to operate this state-of-the-art setup while "relaxing" with a video. But the iMac looks so cool from the side!

I am so over Apple's "looks over functionality" aesthetic.