Q: No DVD drive in new iMac ???

Objectivist - Don't worry I won't.  These are premium machines with premuim prices, now they want premuim repair costs. This new move is only to drive more money out of the users pocket and into the pocket of Apple at the cost of the customers loyality. I'll wait to see if Apple fixes it's mistake in a future version.

Many people including myself are refusing to buy the new iMacs without an optical drive.  I would hardly call it "visionary".  More like short sightedness.  DVD and CD sales still number in the $billions.  No optical drive will also have the affect of pushing people to purchase content from apple.  No optical drive means you won't be buying that CD or DVD from amazon.com, right?

And I can't imagine an iMac without an optical drive being useful in the workplace.  Hardly visionary.

objectivist wrote:

 

Fred Jorge: Apple's decision, in a free market, is just that - Apple's Decision. You can vote with your dollars to purchase a different decision made by someone else. Stop being so arrogant that you think your beliefs are better than Apple's.

In a free speech society it is our right to complain, with the pen and with our dollars. I'll bet you that you would complain if your car manufacturer stopped offering replacement parts after one year of sale. Cut the visionary krap and stop defending the richest electronics company in the world. Offering less for more without regard for their customer needs is a sign that they don't care. So let us complain all we want. If you tell us to do it else where, take your own advise.

objectivist wrote:

Screaming about how you want something different is, well, childish.

Ah! A proponent of Apple suppressing thinking differently or outside the boxes they're forcing users into, eh? Reminds me of different aviator training procedures. The Air Force uses their Dash ONE manual, to tell pilots what they can do in airplanes (inside the box only acceptable behavior). Violators are severely reprimanded. The Navy provides pilots with the NATOPS manual, which describes how one should normally operate aircraft, but allows pilot-created procedures to be used (outside the box behavior encouraged), justification is required. Committees designing horses usually end up with sphinxes or other useless things. Individuals create, groups constrain and stifle, usually by force. 

objectivist wrote:

 

zBernie2: How many billion-dollar companies do you run? How many do you own shares in? Your "vision" of how a particular medium accounts for "billions of dollars in sales of music, movies, and software"

How many do you run? None? So maybe your opinion is invalid.

How many $billion companies have been run into the ground by incompletent management who thought they knew new better?  Look at General Motors with a philosopy of "What's good for GM is good for America".  That nearsightedness caused GM go down the tubes, and required tens of $billions of tax payer dollars to bail them out.  If you can't see the myopia of prematurely removing the optical drive, in order to push customers to purchase their content from Apple, I can't help you.

The fact that the thin edged  screen is to save taking up space is laughable - ridiculous...

Indeed, and harder to hide the ugly bulge in the back now wth the thin edges, will it fly better now or what!? LOL

Apple's touting the slim edge, but ignoring the pregnant-like bulge in the back's middle. Do note they shaved off 10 pounds (27") lowering their shipping charges, eliminated the magnets and screws, replacing it with double-foamed tape, necessitating using a glue gun to open, which lowers their costs a bit, and now with few items save on recycling charges. Hah! Form over function and use.

I'm so exited now about the thiness... wondering what I'll do with all that space behind the sides of a new iMac if I bought one... cough, cough... lets see, a Beany with propeller on the left, maybe a lava lamp on the right?

I wish somebody here knew how to rebuilf Atari TT/030 PSUs!

With two such stalwarts as you, BDAqua and Baltwo, objecting, I'm amazed they haven't seen sense and redesigned the wretched thing.   More power to your elbow!

What strikes me as totally useless is that the display only presents an usable 2-D (25.6" x 20") surface to the user. Who cares about the side view? Better would be to have the usable inputs (audio/mic port and SDXC card slot to the front) and hang the appearance. Function over form (or the crappy modern view of design). Then, there's decision to remove the last user installable part: RAM modules (at least on the 21" ones). That's my

The people comparing this to Apple removing the floppy disk is just plain silly. Yes Apple removed the floppy drive, but replaced it with the Optical drive.   There is a difference between Apple transistioning to a new technology and Apple just removing a current technology.   Then charging you more for the privieledge.   All the change Apple made was to save money on production and increse their profits not only in manufacturing, but increase their repair profits.   For this they are charging you more priviledge.

No, it's not plain silly.

Business is indeed about making profits ... but not at the expense of sacrificing the good will that had been built up.    And a business that is market aware would not set out to revolutionise their approach at a time of economic malaise.   It would be good business practice to draw in your horns and ride with your existing success.

Good business is based on sound common sense.   The majority of contributors here seem to feel Apple has gone off its rocker.   

I'm no computing power user.  I don't do Facebook.  Nope to Twitter.  The Cloud????  ROTFLMAO!! H*ll, I just got my first smart phone (an iPhone) last month.

But since my G5 iMac started having graphic card problems back in October, I have been waiting for the new 21.5" iMacs to come out.  Now that they're out, I can't pull the trigger on it though.  No optical drive.  No user upgradeable RAM, HD, or even the PRAM (NVRAM) battery.

I don't burn a lot of CDs, let alone DVDs.  But every now and then, I need the option to read or burn CDs and DVDs.

I can't beleive Apple refuses to license Blu-Ray from Sony and put it in the OS.  Even if I buy a third party external Blu-Ray DVD player/burner, you still can't watch a commerical movie disc on your Mac.

I'm not downloading all my movie purchases over the internet.  I want a disc I can take to my brother's my neighbors, etc.

My vehicles still take CDs, so I purchase most of my music on CD.  I do buy some music from the iTunes store, buy not much.

My eventual solution will probably be a Mac Mini.  Has anyone taken a Super Drive out of a G5 iMac and put it in an External USB enclosure?

Yes, it's very unfortunate what Apple has done to the iMac.  I also use CD and DVD, and need an optical drive, as do most people.  I don't know what I'm going to do when my iMac 2011 is due for an upgrade, but I can tell you it won't be an iMac with no optical drive, no upgradable RAM, and no USB or camera ports in a convenient location.  I don't care how thin it is!

I won't be buying an Mac mini either, just becase Apple didn't get the iMac right.