If you still deal with optical media, Apple will happily sell you a SuperDrive for your brand spanking new iMac, but it’s not like the company is forcing you to buy one from them. Such an engineering decision helps the company “create products that are smaller, lighter and consume less power”. I understand that not everyone lives on the bleeding edge of technology, but Apple couldn’t care less about folks stuck in the old days.Īpple’s Phil Schiller says that “in general, it’s a good idea to remove these rotating medias” because they are bulky and use power. When was the last time you needed a CD/DVD drive on your iMac? It’s not like Apple has provided no means to access optical media.

Nevermind that I tried explaining that users can easily ‘borrow’ an optical drive wirelessly from another machine on the occasional necessity. The problem is, his customers don’t deal with app stores at all and instead rely on software distributed on optical media. My friend is a system integrator at a large IT solutions provider and deals with demanding clients on a daily basis, catering to their every whim. I could sense a nervous tone in his voice. “What’s up with this new iMac dropping the optical drive?”, a friend of mine asked me nervously the other day.

The question is, will other makers follow suit and remove rotating medias from their products? More importantly, what exactly does the new iMac tell us about a Tim Cook Apple? Then again, every Apple customer has always been an early adopter in every sense of the word. With the revamped all-in-one desktop, club Cupertino risks alienating the old-fashioned types by inconveniencing their daily computing, at least until the rest of the industry catches up. The new iMac without a built-in optical drive is the perfect epitome of such forward-thinking that, however, isn’t without its pitfalls. I guess you could say the company invented it. Apple is no stranger to abandoning features it thinks are heading for the graveyard of technology.

Apple dvd player on computer