Apple's MacBook Strategy: Optical is Over

PCWorld Magazine ^ | 7/10/2009 | Seth Weintraub

[Swordmaker]

Last month, most of Apple's MacBooks were upgraded with SD card slots. The most popular 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros both now have card readers. Apple even explains how to build a bootable SD card. Why on earth would Apple go through the trouble of explaining how to create a boot disk from an SD card? That seems way out in left field. They never did that for USB key drives.

I think there is more to it than that. Apple doesn't just do things like SD cards. "You can just throw in a USB SD card reader" had been the mantra up until this point. Apple didn't need to bother itself with these little things.

Now, I think things have changed. The SD card has become part of Apple's MacBook strategy. It should be arriving on the MacBook Air and the regular MacBook at the next updates...and it might even take the place of the DVD drive on the next MacBook.

That's right, I think the SD card is going to replace the DVD drive on most of Apple's laptops going forward. If you really need a DVD, you'll be able to buy an external USB Superdrive - but that option will mostly be a safety net.

Remember when Apple killed the floppy with the iMac? This will be the same thing. You could buy external floppy but how many of you really did?

Think about it. What would you rather have on your laptop? An easily rewritable 32GB SD card the size of a postage stamp that can hold about the same amount of data as 8 DVDs or a big spinning disk that can scratch easily and takes up about 1/4th of the internal usable area in your laptop?

It is a no-brainer; optical is over.

[Defiant]

Speaking of Bill Gates, check this out:

Software 1977

[Swordmaker]

I do video for my son’s sports team. I have to distribute the video to some extremely non-technical people. They can just barely get a conventional DVD player to work. The DVDs are $0.30 in bulk. No way I can distribute the video on SD.

Also, what’s the archive lifespan of a SD versus a properly stored DVD. No where near as permanent I’ll bet.

They're not gone yet... and external drives will be available for some time. What we're talking about is the removal of optical drives mostly from notebooks first... some time later they will become unnecessary on desktops as well.

[Star Traveler]

I use MacTheRipper for my software and it does a pretty good job of it. The programmer does a good job of keeping it up. But, I use a lot of DVDs that I don’t own but rent (you know..., like NetFlix), so I’m using the DVDs themselves a lot.

I know what you mean about the battery life, but I’m plugged in, when I’m using it with the DVDs and/or plugged into a big screen TV.

One of these days, I’ll get Apple TV and see how well that works for me.

[Terpfen]

Also, what’s the archive lifespan of a SD versus a properly stored DVD. No where near as permanent I’ll bet.

Optical formats aren't exactly permanent. Over time the surface pitting erodes or becomes unreadable, the read/write surface is extremely sensitive to everything from dust particulates to scratches, and the discs themselves can be easily bent or snapped.

Optical discs are great, but they do have their drawbacks. When Blu-Ray won its format war with HD-DVD, a lot of people speculated that Blu-Ray would be the last optical format. I'm starting to think they were right.

By the way, Flash storage lasts for the physical life of the card. As long as you don't break anything, or exceed the read/write lifecycle of the Flash chip, the data will be there whenever you need it.

[Centurion2000]

Maybe sooner than we think.

[Terpfen]

Of course, album art would be a whole lot more difficult on something the size of a small postage stamp.

Not really. It just means the boxes will be smaller, but they'll still have to be large enough to be visible on shelves, to protect the contents, and to contain any promotional material packed inside.

The Nintendo DS plays games on a custom format derived from the SD Card. The games ship in hard plastic cases that are about the same dimensions as a CD case but deeper, and with thicker plastic, particularly on the side edges. It's safe to assume that, if and when Flash media replaces optical discs for movie/music distribution, the box of a Nintendo DS game will serve as a reference when designing the packaging. Plenty of room for album art. Though I would suppose movie boxes would have a more rectangular shape that would resemble scaled-down DVD boxes.

[Terpfen]

Terrible Photoshop work there.

[backhoe]

By the way, Flash storage lasts for the physical life of the card. As long as you don't break anything, or exceed the read/write lifecycle of the Flash chip, the data will be there whenever you need it.

Thanks for the info- something I had been wondering about.

I still remember the first floppy drive I ever saw-- 160k, or something like that, and exclaiming, "Wow! Kiss that cassette deck goodbye..."

[dan1123]

So, how would I burn an SD card to watch on my TV?

My Blu-Ray player has a USB slot for that kind of thing. I can even put high definition trailers on an SD card and view them on my USB SD card adapter.

[SamAdams76]

Why do people start their posts with "ummmm...."

Strange.

[FreedomPoster]

I have a small (8G) SD card that folds in half and becomes a USB memory stick. It’s a really handy thing for a digital camera; you don’t need a cable or an SD reader to transfer the pics.

[WVKayaker]

I bought a 10 MEGABYTE Hyperdrive (GCC) for my first Mac in 1984. It was an internal drive which Apple didn't offer. I paid $2200 +/- installed!

One report I have faith in puts the backlog of orders for 512K upgrades at over 20,000, and further states that the Fat Mac now accounts for 30% of total Mac sales. Judging from the problems I had obtaining a Fat Mac under Apple's editorial program, I can believe it (they get my firstborn son, but it is still a great deal). Once you sit in front of a Fat Mac you're spoiled for life. (For more on that topic, see the Fat Mac review elsewhere in this issue.) Packaged with hard disk, some good 512K software, a set of leather driving gloves, and a case of Pepsi, it will be a tough offer to refuse.

Macintosh sales in general continue to increase, despite the overall industry slump. According to Info World, Apple is now gearing its automated facilities to move production to over 100,000 units a month. According to Time the Mac logged the most successful introduction ever of a new micro. ...

...General Computer unveiled HyperDrive, a compact 10-meg hard disk drive that neatly fits the Macintosh internally. Because the HyperDrive interface logic board is directly connected to the Mac motherboard, both serial ports remain free for modem and printer use--a great convenience. Macs equipped with the unit can boot from either hard disk or floppy.

The system software provided with HyperDriver allows the hard disk to divide into many "virtual disks" which automatically resize themselves to accommodate the user's files. As they interface in parallel, as hard disks ought to, the new units can also transfer data seven times faster than Macs with external hard disk drives.

HyperDRive is available in two models: one including Fat Mac memory expansion to 512K RAM ($2795), and one without memory expansion ($2195). This product will excite many Mac owners, and I hope to give you a definitive hands-on review of this one very soon. Micro-Design Hard Disk -AtariNews

[Terpfen]

Expression of apprehension.

[DainBramage]

Im waitng on the “hand/forehead scan” feature. I think the acronym is M.O.B.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

As a creator of high definition movie content, I can say this cannot happen soon enough.

To get a two-hour, high definition movie to fit on a standard DVD requires considerable compression and the quality of the original resolution really suffers. Even Blu-Ray requires compression from the HD master.

What I want is an SD card that can hold the entire HD movie master at 300 Gigabytes.

Creators have invested a fortune to create the HD digital content and the storage media needs to catch up to the quality of what has been created.

[zeugma]

Compact Discs (and its more advanced cousin, the DVD) at one time where the technology of the future, and now they’re beginning to look archaic. Now that you can buy thumb drives with more memory than a standard DVD there doesn’t seem to be much more point to them.

I'd have to agree that DVDs are getting to be more and more anachronistic for laptops.When you consider the added weight, the extra heat they generate, and the sheer size of the things, it seems that dropping them fom laptops would make a bit of sense. 

Personally, I still like DVDs for archival storage, considering how cheap the are in bulk, but I could easily see that change in the not too terribly distant future. One thing I dislike about memor cards these days, is that they have gotten too darn small to label! How the hack can you write something meaningful on a MicroSD card?

[Question_Assumptions]

I don’t think it’s so far-fetched. A while back, I saw an article on some patents Apple filed for DVD drives on the bottom of laptops with swing open doors and the MacBook Air doesn’t have one built in. Clearly the space used up by DVD drives is significant and on Apple’s mind. Their non-removable battery decision also, again, suggests that the space in the case is what’s on their mind right now.

[6SJ7]

Portable drive circa 1951...

UNIVAC drum memory

[6SJ7]

One difference between the two: as an “electrical device”, flash memory cards would not survive exposure to an EMP pulse; optical disks (non-electrical) would.

Good to know. I can still watch "Groundhog Day" after WWIII.   ;-)

[WVKayaker]

I can still watch "Groundhog Day" after WWIII. ;-)

... again and again and again and...