As we noted, Apple has officially released Mac OS 10.7, Codename “Lion” today. We’ll have more on that. However, that’s only part of the story.
First off, let’s go with the big addition of Apple’s new Macbook Air. Still starting at $999, this uber-thin-and-light may have the same outsides (with an added and much needed backlit keyboard), but the insides have been shifted dramatically. Now running Intel’s posh Sandy Bridge chips, the Mini has Thunderbolt and sharper screens. It lacks any kind of media port, but Apple’s amazing second quarter kind of shows people just don’t care. I’ve personally never been a fan of the Air — I’d rather buy a comparable Lenovo X series device — but with the power these now have under the hood, they’ve gotten more tempting.
Disclaimer: Product is not actually "Full of Stars"
Apple has also updated their budget machine, the Mac Mini. The Mac Mini now has a Core i5 chip, intigrated Inte,l or AMD graphics (depending on which you spring for), built in overclocking TurboBoost solution, and the usual Firwire and USB combos in the back. Apple also adds the Thunderbolt port found on the new Macbook Pros, as well as an HDMI port. With the HDMI port added, the new Mini is more of an AppleTV Pro than the last few (because yes, that’s what I’ve been using them for).
Guess what we did! Guess!
What’s more telling is what Apple has taken away. Seemingly to match the Air, Apple has done away with the Optical Drive. That’s right — no CD, no DVD, no nothing. Which is more telling when we get to the next item.
Apple has officially dropped their entry level laptop, the Macbook. Your Apple Laptop choices now consist of the Macbook Pro (starting cost $1,199.00) or the above mentioned Macbook Air (at $999). This move makes perfect sense.
Remember when laptops came in flavors?
Once upon a time, Apple only had PowerBooks. The iBook, as seen above, was as big a paradigm shift as the iMac in a sense as it was a Mac laptop for the masses. It was updated and matured, and it became the MacBook. The PowerBook had changes as well, to become the MacBook Pro. The first MacBook Pro may have screamed PowerBook in design, but since then MacBooks have basically been last season’s MacBook Pros, spec wise, in a different shell. With the addition of 13″ MacBook Pros as well as a 13″ MacBook Air, there’s really no need to support a third line that in a sense, competes with the other two. Goodbye, MacBook.
What I find interesting is where this leaves the average consumer. The three entry level Mac devices are now the iPad (which won’t be a true stand-alone device until iOS 5 finally comes out), the new Mac Mini, and the MacBook Air. All three devices are now optical driveless, meaning the optical disk is now officially no longer part of Apple’s consumer design philosophy.
What a lovely coaster, Steve.
I’m reminded of when Apple introduced the iMac and didn’t include a floppy disk drive. Pundits at the time cried out what a mistake it was and said it’d never work. Well, it did. Nowadays computers with floppies are a very rare exception, and you can even be charged extra for adding one (fun fact, Dell and IBM’s “Build to Order” services used to charge to not include them). It’s clear with their focus on the Cloud model that Apple thinks the CD/DVD is next. They don’t want you renting DVDs and watching them on your laptop. Tthey want you renting them from iTunes. CDs? What CDs? Haven’t you already ripped them all to iTunes? As for installing Apps, that’s what the App Store is for. If you have to swap files with someone, well, that’s what USB drives are for.
Anyone else still have drawers full of these bad boys?
I’m not sure if I disagree with Apple’s vision of the future. While I want to argue that locking things down to the App Store seems a mistake, the fact is I haven’t used anything but an OS install disk in forever and a day. After that, it’s all disk images anyway. My DVDs are all already ripped to a network drive, and that’s not including the stuff I bought via iTunes and other such services. Heck, I’d rather Netflix stream than rent a DVD.
My only quibble is that I think Apple may be a bit too far ahead of itself this time, and that while power users like myself may be ready to ditch the optical drive, the average user might need a tad more hand holding.
Then again, they could always get the MacBook Pro.
Hnh… yes, yours are already ripped to a network drive. But what about any other discs you might want to purchase? I can understand not including it on the Air. Weight, etc etc, so long as you can still use an external with it. I raise an eyebrow at dropping it from the Mini–particularly since a lot of people seem to use that as a home entertainment setup.
Dropping the Macbook secures my leaning decision to go PC with my next laptop purchase.
You raise very valid points. Apple is gambling that people will not buy more disks, and keep it all in their ecosystem with iTunes.
I question that gamble.
Actually, I recall the iMac was very frustrating to users when they ditched the floppy drive.
I knew many people who bought them for school work, only to find their assignments required handing in work via a floppy. One guy I know actually kept his old PC around to map his floppy drive as a network drive from the iMac.
Yes, its “where things were going”, as today we don’t really use floppy discs, but they were years too early. There wasn’t any point other than to be able to say “I called it!”, as people still very much wanted floppy disks then.
Yes, I can see DVDs going the way of the floppy- For most tasks, I don’t miss it on my Tablet or netbook. But I’m only OK with that because I *DO* have an optical drive on my full sized laptop and desktop when I need it or want it.
Just because they “called it” and happened to be right doesn’t make it a good decision. If anything, I’d say Apple’s decisions to declare stuff dead early (floppy disks, optical disks, FLASH, etc) don’t contribute to them being a commercial success at all. Rather, they are a commercial success DESPITE these limitations.
I’d actually go a third direction on this one. Apple is neither succeeding because of nor in spite of these early advances, and that’s not really what they’re trying to do either. Apple is trying to drive these changes for their own reasons, whether the market is ready or not.
The thing is, Mordy, Apple’s not being “first” here. People have been using Netbooks now for years now, with no media drive and doing just fine. Apple’s just “running with it” in a way no other vendor has yet.
So if anyone gets to say “called it” it should probably be Asus.