WOW. The new iMac's do not have a DVD drive after all

[Tegeril]

A USB external drive costs about 30-40 dollars at newegg. You don't have to buy the Superdrive. I'm glad to see the move away from optical. My last PC build I did not include an optical drive.

It is a step in the right direction, but it will cause a little grief from people that still rely on them (such as loading some software like Adobe products.)

Adobe products are all available for download online now.

 

[JackBurton]

sure link me a mp3 player that can hold 250 gb of music and has FLAC support

ill save you time - you cant
FM tuners sound like shit,
dont have line in
CDs cost pennies,

Do you have a USB port in your car? CD's are a pain. I don't get why people still use them in their cars. I guess if you have an older car that doesn't have a USB port maybe. My wife just uses her iPhone that is setup with iTunes Match and uses bluetooth to connect when she's in her car. All of her music is available at any given time (40GB+, but if you had 250GB it would work the same way) and she doesn't even have to physically connect anything. It autodetects when she starts the car and she's good to go. Never even has to take the iPhone out of her purse.

I hated the days when I had to burn a CD to play in my car. It was just a pain.

 

[sourceninja]

sure link me a mp3 player that can hold 250 gb of music and has FLAC support

ill save you time - you cant
FM tuners sound like shit,
dont have line in
CDs cost pennies,

Why flac support, your car stereo isn't that good. Have the program that loads your mp3 player convert them to a good bitrate mp3 on the fly. You keep the original lossless source and your player holds the lossy, but still sound just fine mp3/aac files.

 

[TheStu]

Why flac support, your car stereo isn't that good. Have the program that loads your mp3 player convert them to a good bitrate mp3 on the fly. You keep the original lossless source and your player holds the lossy, but still sound just fine mp3/aac files.

He still doesn't have line-in...

Wait, Anubis, do you have a tape deck? Those generally sound fine.

 

[JackBurton]

If we're talking about the Macbooks sure, I can totally agree to that. But this is a desktop that isn't going to be moving anywhere, it is plenty small already and could have easily fit an optical drive.

The optical drives just adds unnecessary bulk to the system. The iMac was designed to be a sleek, minimalistic machine. And removing the drive accomplishes 3 things: Improves the overall look of the machine, removes a device that most people rarely use, and pushes people toward digital distribution (where I think things SHOULD be moving toward).

Look at it this way. If Apple did include a DVD drive, what are you going to use when you want to watch a BD movie? You're going to purchases an external BD drive. Now you have an optical drive built into the machine that you will rarely if ever use, but you can't get rid of. It's just better off without one.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

He still doesn't have line-in...

Wait, Anubis, do you have a tape deck? Those generally sound fine.

That's what I use. My car has a CD player but it's broken so tape deck for me. Sounds "fine".

 

[Anubis]

He still doesn't have line-in...

Wait, Anubis, do you have a tape deck? Those generally sound fine.

nope just a 6 disk in dash changer

 

[TheStu]

nope just a 6 disk in dash changer

Well, keep on burnin' then. Any other option isn't cost effective.

 

[0roo0roo]

sure link me a mp3 player that can hold 250 gb of music and has FLAC support

ill save you time - you cant
FM tuners sound like shit,
dont have line in
CDs cost pennies,

what kind of car sound system justifies flac?

unless you have a rolls royce where the interior is so sound dampened that its like a traveling studio room you will have road noise and the rest, never mind the default awful acoustic environment inside the car. then you have to have thousands at minimum on the audio hardware and tuning...

cd audio is just tiresome and inconvenient unless you like listening to the same thing over and over...

 

[lokiju]

I heard this rumor with no DVD on the new December 2012 iMacs.
And its true.

http://www.apple.com/imac

I wonder of they will offer an external BR drive?
I wonder how you are suppose to load software?

But I like the option to get a 3TB hard drive.

I'm thinking this is a big NO. http://www.macrumors.com/2012/10/26...rs-arent-asking-for-built-in-blu-ray-anymore/

 

[dagamer34]

I'm thinking this is a big NO. http://www.macrumors.com/2012/10/26...rs-arent-asking-for-built-in-blu-ray-anymore/

I think he meant an external SuperDrive. They updated it for USB 3.0.

I haven't used an optical drive in years, except to rip Blu-ray movies (which I deleted when I realized I never watched them). It's time for most people to move on.

 

[vi edit]

I haven't used an optical drive in years, except to rip Blu-ray movies (which I deleted when I realized I never watched them). It's time for most people to move on.

Do you have kids? Simple question, yes or no?

 

[JackBurton]

I think he meant an external SuperDrive. They updated it for USB 3.0.

I haven't used an optical drive in years, except to rip Blu-ray movies (which I deleted when I realized I never watched them). It's time for most people to move on.

Apple doesn't need to offer one. All you need is one of these (USB powered).

 

[Spicedaddy]

Their computers are becoming harder and harder to service, and the 2 things that break the most are HDD and optical drives. Replace HDD with SSD, take out the optical drive, and you just saved a bunch of warranty claims.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Their computers are becoming harder and harder to service, and the 2 things that break the most are HDD and optical drives. Replace HDD with SSD, take out the optical drive, and you just saved a bunch of warranty claims.

I thought SSDs were still just as failure prone as HDDs, they just broke different?

 

[HomerSapien]

I have a mac mini and purchased the superdrive for the sole purpose of keeping the toddler from destroying physical dvds. The cable on the superdrive is about 6" long and almost makes it utterly worthless.

I cant imagine actually using this thing with a laptop. The only place I can place it is on top of the mini. This would be even worse on an imac.

Anyways, I actually like the new slim design as I have a really small desk to work with and could use every inch of desk space.

 

[Ichinisan]

i thought people still burned CDs to play in their car?

I know I do.

Really? What a colossal waste of time!

Do you have a smartphone?

Also, don't forget about making DVD for families or friends.

You know what works better than DVD for sharing family videos? YouTube.

 

[Ichinisan]

I've been using Facebook as naught but a photosharing site for a while. Flickr has albums too. Videos get uploaded to YouTube and set to "private."

Facebook shits all over my images when I upload them.

Shits all over them. Shit.

 

[Ichinisan]

It is honestly much better without the Optical/Superdrive. Most customers don't use an Optical Drive nowadays and especially considering everything is downloadable, i really don't see a point to keep including it into products.

Wouldn't mind if someone would effectively encapsulate ATAPI commands and come up with a standard for sharing a single optical drive over LAN...without breaking compatibility with sensitive copy-protected software.

 

[Ichinisan]

ive burnt 15 CDs to play in my car in the last 3 weeks

Colossal waste of time.

What he said.

 

[Ichinisan]

sure link me a mp3 player that can hold 250 gb of music and has FLAC support

ill save you time - you cant
FM tuners sound like shit,
dont have line in
CDs cost pennies,

Smartphone or Android-based player (like the one Samsung makes).

Rip your CD player out and wire up your own line-in jack. This will take you less time than it takes to build and burn the 15 discs you claim to have burned "this week."

 

[Spicedaddy]

My car has a 6 CD changer that supports MP3, so 700MB x 6 = 4.2GB of music. Plenty for me, plus I can use the controls on the steering wheel, see the names of songs, etc...

I'll plug in my iPhone to the aux input once in a while (StreamToMe rocks!), but then I have to control everything from the phone, lose battery life, etc.

So yeah, CD and DVDs are still useful in some cases.

 

[Ichinisan]

My car has a 6 CD changer that supports MP3, so 700MB x 6 = 4.2GB of music. Plenty for me, plus I can use the controls on the steering wheel, see the names of songs, etc...

I'll plug in my iPhone to the aux input once in a while (StreamToMe rocks!), but then I have to control everything from the phone, lose battery life, etc.

So yeah, CD and DVDs are still useful in some cases.

When you're driving is the perfect opportunity to charge your phone.

I hooked up a Belkin AirCast Auto that I got for $30 on-sale from frys.com over a year ago. It's a big button with a tiny pinhole microphone. It also connects to my car's AUX jack. The Bluetooth version has a micro DC power plug with a USB port you can use to charge your phone.

My phone connects over Bluetooth and it's always charging through USB while I drive.

I can push the big button to play / pause / resume music, answer a call, or end a call. I can double-tap the button (with precise timing) to skip a track. I can hold the button for 1 second to activate Siri / voice control and do almost anything.

It really does work better when your phone handles everything.

If I'm listening to music and the MapQuest iOS app is going to play a voice prompt, my phone automatically reduces the music volume in anticipation of the voice prompt.

My twin brother bought a new car this year. Between us, we've never had another vehicle with a working CD player...and now we're at a point where we would have almost no use for it.

 

[Eug]

I heard this rumor with no DVD on the new December 2012 iMacs.
And its true.

No surprise there. I would have been quite surprised if this new iteration iMac had an optical drive.

I wonder of they will offer an external BR drive?

No, and Phil says people have stopped asking for these drives finally. Hoewver, I already have an external BR drive, and an external DVD drive. In fact, up until recently I generally used these instead of my built-in optical drive because I had another monitor beside my iMac, which meant I'd have to move the monitor to put in a DVD. Irritating.

I wonder how you are suppose to load software?

Download or USB. Or even external DVD drive.

But I like the option to get a 3TB hard drive.

I'm disappointed that you can't get it in the 21.5" model. Lame. While external optical drives are fine, external hard drives are not ideal, for various reasons.

i thought people still burned CDs to play in their car?

P.S. My 6-CD changer is busted. 😡

 

[TheStu]

No surprise there. I would have been quite surprised if this new iteration iMac had an optical drive.


No, and Phil says people have stopped asking for these drives finally. Hoewver, I already have an external BR drive, and an external DVD drive. In fact, up until recently I generally used these instead of my built-in optical drive because I had another monitor beside my iMac, which meant I'd have to move the monitor to put in a DVD. Irritating.


Download or USB. Or even external DVD drive.


I'm disappointed that you can't get it in the 21.5" model. Lame. While external optical drives are fine, external hard drives are not ideal, for various reasons.

P.S. My 6-CD changer is busted. 😡

The stereo in my car has CD/MP3-CD, USB & SD. The only other thing it has is the Aux connector, and that is all I use.