I don't mind carrying on this 2000 fad LOL! I moved to macs because they were relatively future-proof and blu-ray is the future. Streaming media as well. since macs are sold worldwide streaming media may not be an option to people without a fast internet connection and a generous/unlimited broadband package. blu-ray should at least be offered an option. BD burner approx $200, BD reader approx $120.
We have had this discussion elsewhere. At any rate, Blu-ray has enormous potential. However, it is just that--potential.
I own a nice Blu-ray player and am acquiring Blu-ray discs to play in it. Of course, my old DVDs play just fine. But, people need to understand that Blu-ray is not yet a consumer-friendly entertainment technology.
Case in point: The
Avatar Blu-ray package advertised the movie as the movie that
Blu-ray was made for. I had performed one firmware upgrade after I purchased my Blu-ray player earlier this year. I purchased
Avatar soon after it was released. After inserting the disc into my player, it took its usual excessive time to boot-up. It started out with a gorgeous picture. As it played, the scene labels would not go away despite my best efforts. As the movie went on, digital break-ups and other video annoyances grew greater and more bothersome. By the time the movie was complete, it had been my worst home movie experience in memory.
A day or so later, I checked the firmware upgrade and found that a new version of the firmware was available. I downloaded and installed this second firmware update. I replayed
Avatar. This time, all of the annoyances were gone. Everything was beautiful.
However, this beauty was not possible when I purchased my player earlier this year. It was not possible when I purchased my
Avatar Blu-ray disc a month or so later. It was only possible after two firmware upgrades. My annoying first-time Blu-ray experience with
Avatar was my Blu-ray player performing as it was designed to perform at the time.
And what of the firmware upgrades? My Blu-ray player is Internet-enabled. It is connected to my router via Ethernet. However, it cannot download firmware updates over this connection. I must download the update to my Mac, unzip the downloaded file, store the firmware image on a Flash drive, insert the thumb drive into my Blu-ray player, and then upgrade from the thumb drive. I suspect that the player cannot download the zipped file.
I consider myself to be fairly proficient in matters technical. Dumb designs may anger me, but they do not stop me if there is a way to succeed. This is, however, an unreasonable expectation of the average consumer.
For all of the caterwauling about the lack Blu-ray on the Mac, virtually all of the complaints come from people who want to convert their Macs into expensive Blu-ray movie players. There is only the very rare and half-hearted plea for the data storage capacity afforded by recordable BD.
The Mac's primary mission is that of a computer. Each component of the computer should further its primary mission. Blu-ray does not do that. I am not aware of any developer on any platform that ships software on Blu-ray. At 25-50 GB of storage capacity, Blu-ray would seem to have enough potential as a data archive medium. However, my experience with DVD-R is that DVDs are unreliable as data archives. I cannot believe that Blu-ray is any better. It represents a much larger failure mode.
Blu-ray has at least five times the storage capacity as DVD. What is ignored is that the time required to write a given amount of data to disc should be about the same for Blu-ray as for DVD. Therefore, Blu-ray should require about five times as long to burn to full capacity. Blu-ray would save physical space, but it cannot be expected to save time except the time required to change discs.
In summary. If Apple were to include Blu-ray as part of its systems, then it is expected that Apple would also keep the firmware of its Blu-ray drives up-to-date via
Software Update. However, time is quickly passing Blu-ray by. Blu-ray is no longer a credible back-up medium for today's high capacity hard drives. I maintain my back-ups on a 1.5 TB external hard drive. It has 30 times the capacity of double-layer Blu-ray. As a software distribution medium, removable storage is obsolete. It is still required for retail OS upgrades. For commercial software, Internet downloads are where it's at. The last time I used a DVD in my computer was to install Snow Leopard.
Adobe InDesign? Download from Adobe.com.
If Apple can untangle the licensing knots, then I most certainly have no objections to upgrading the SuperDrive to handle Blu-ray. I simply understand that it will not materially affect my computing experience.