Apple Refuses to implement Blu-Ray Drive / burner

Apple introduced its newline of MacBook and MacBook pros yesterday and none of them were equipped with Blu-Ray drives. Apple seems to be the only laptop manufacturer that has no plans for the Blu-Ray disk? What gives? Does Apple know something that we don't? Did they need to implement more DRM into OS-X, Microsoft had to build into Vista, and they decided that it was not worth it?

Tags: apple, blu-ray, macbook, notebook, pro

Add a Comment

You need to be a member of Reviews, News, and How To Geeks to add comments!

Join this Ning Network

Comment by Persian Paladin on October 15, 2008 at 4:31pm: I don't see the problem with HD-DVD; i hate Sony personally. Their stupid damaging DRM on music, their pathetic mini-disc, their usurping of Sega's dreamcast with aggressive marketing, etc.

Comment by jamesjimmy23 on October 15, 2008 at 4:08pm: I agree with Mad Max. I read something on Cnet that Steve said that it wasn't that the didn't want to put them in their computers, it was just licensing. Once Blu-Ray is in the market for a little while longer they'll put them in their systems.

Comment by Mad Max on October 15, 2008 at 2:55pm: This has nothing to do with Apple wanting to or not wanting to put Blu-Ray drives in their products. It has to do with licencing. SONY hold the rights to the computer market and say who can and can't put the drives in their systems, and it appears that Apple are one of the companies they won't allow.

SONY were the first to put the drives in their computers, only in the last few months or so have there been other OEM machines that include them, that's because SONY wanted to get a head start and use it as an incentive for people to buy their PC's.

So, blame SONY, not Apple for this decision. OSX SUPPORTS Blu-Ray, you just can't get them as part of the package when you buy the Mac from Apple, you'll have to add your own after market.

Comment by MightySandwich on October 15, 2008 at 1:58pm: Considering that Apple offers HD content in the iTunes Store, it isn't all that surprising that they've elected to omit Blu-Ray drives in their computers. There are third-party devices that will allow you to read data from a Blu-Ray disk, and Toast allows you to burn to Blu-Ray disks as well (or so I've read). Short of running Windows on the Mac, I guess we'll have to wait for Snow Leopard's (alleged) Blu-Ray support. Apple has also cited Blu-Ray's relatively slow adoption rate as a reason for the omission.