The future Apple software copy is going to be an USB stick

[henry72]

I can imagine Apple is going to sell their software copy on the USB.

Imagine when they design the USB, that would be really awesome, different logo on the USB, like Aperture (All black), iWork, iLife (Colourful?) etc...

I'm sure they're going to sell 10.7 Lion with an USB stick next year, as well as a DVD? (Maybe not? I don't care). It's really a benefit for any of us, because the installation will be much much faster than DVD

 

[koopa35]

I can imagine Apple is going to sell their software copy on the USB.

Imagine when they design the USB, that would be really awesome, different logo on the USB, like Aperture, iWork, iLife etc...

I'm sure they're going to sell two version of 10.7 Lion, USB stick as well as DVD.

I agree with two version this next release for lion. after that i see only new versions coming with new macs on usb. and for people to upgrade with older macs will get from mac app store.

 

[rkmac]

I'm sure they're going to sell two version of 10.7 Lion, USB stick as well as DVD.

I can see Lion being available on both USB and DVD.
It would be really handy for me if it comes on USB as it's a massive pain having to put the optical drive back into my laptop just to do it.

 

[henry72]

I agree with two version this next release for lion. after that i see only new versions coming with new macs on usb. and for people to upgrade with older macs will get from mac app store.

I guess the older Macs got an USB port too??

 

[koopa35]

I guess the older Macs got an USB port too??

yes older macs have usb ports. so it wouldnt be a problem but then we would have an issue with piling p usb sticks for every new release. I say mac app store is where we will see them if its not being shipped with a new mac

 

[Leo Fischel]

I hope DVD drives will cease as soon as possible. I have never liked them. DVD drives are:

1. haevy
2. loud
3. fragile
4. ugly

DVDs:

1. lose data quickly
2. bad to store
3. usually not rewriteable

IMHO, of course...

 

[netdog]

The MBA is just the first machine to lose the standard optical drive.

And it's about time.

 

[henry72]

yes older macs have usb ports. so it wouldnt be a problem but then we would have an issue with piling p usb sticks for every new release. I say mac app store is where we will see them if its not being shipped with a new mac

I agree Mac App Store is the way to go eventually, but I reckon the Mac OS X will be sell as an USB instead of the DVD. I would be really happy about that
You can tell lol

 

[ArcAngel66]

I just want one as my own USB drive... Maybe I'll transfer the backup onto another USB drive and use this one as my own USB flash drive... If thats even possible

 

[henry72]

I hope DVD drives will cease as soon as possible. I have never liked them. DVD drives are:

1. haevy
2. loud
3. fragile
4. ugly

DVDs:

1. lose data quickly
2. bad to store
3. usually not rewriteable

IMHO, of course...

Totally agree!! Exactly!!!!! is an "OLD School" drive. No one will want this anymore!!!!!!

For the ppl who really do, get an external. Please don't say something like I need it for burning music for my car etc... because most of the people DON'T need it!!! Don't make them to carry something they don't need it everyday. When you think about it, it sounds really stupid

I just want one as my own USB drive... Maybe I'll transfer the backup onto another USB drive and use this one as my own USB flash drive... If thats even possible

lol... I woudn't mind that if I could, but I guess is READ ONLY

Maybe they're going to sell (Apple USB Stick?) Wouldn't surprise me
I would buy one if the price is acceptable

 

[alskdj]

How'd you get your Air so fast? Mine is due to arrive on the 29th, in NZ too.

 

[bolsen78]

I hope DVD drives will cease as soon as possible. I have never liked them. DVD drives are:

1. haevy
2. loud
3. fragile
4. ugly

DVDs:

1. lose data quickly
2. bad to store
3. usually not rewriteable

IMHO, of course...

I agree with you as well!! I never used mine most of the time that I have had the MB. I did at first to burn CDs but now I can just hook up my Iphone i the car and listen to music. But for software and such I would rather load it from something else than an optical drive. They are noisy and they heat up the laptop fast. Also wear out the battery fast. Well mine did if it were a game. Or they could also makes stuff that would be downloadable from their site and not a USB but either way I would want anything but an optical drive again as I found it to be useless.

 

[reviewmonsters]

I'm excited to see this. CD's, etc have always been good to me but this seems a good step forward alongside the Mac App Store.

 

[ProstheticHead]

I hope this is true. DVDs are so 5 years ago.

 

[AppleGoddess]

How'd you get your Air so fast? Mine is due to arrive on the 29th, in NZ too.

Mine came Friday.

 

[JD92]

...

 

[Keltren]

That little detail - i.e. OSX on USB actually has me more exited than anything else about the keynote - I'm really hoping we'll see driveless 13" Macbooks Pros around the January timeframe, it would solve all the current problems preventing the 13" finally move away from C2D's:

- Enough space for a i5/i7 and a dedicated GPU
- AND Larger Battery to compensate for the additional power drain.

I'd guess they'd only offer OSX on usb (lets face it a USB stick is still way more expensive than a DVD so apple will want to avoid it unless absolutely necessary) - the rest would probably be on the app store.

If you take all the clues (i.e. intel refresh in early january, appstore launch, osx on usb) it might actually be feasible...I'd instantly buy a driveless 13" i5 Macbook Pro in any case

 

[ct2k7]

That little detail - i.e. OSX on USB actually has me more exited than anything else about the keynote - I'm really hoping we'll see driveless 13" Macbooks Pros around the January timeframe, it would solve all the current problems preventing the 13" finally move away from C2D's:

- Enough space for a i5/i7 and a dedicated GPU
- AND Larger Battery to compensate for the additional power drain.

I'd guess they'd only offer OSX on usb (lets face it a USB stick is still way more expensive than a DVD so apple will want to avoid it unless absolutely necessary) - the rest would probably be on the app store.

If you take all the clues (i.e. intel refresh in early january, appstore launch, osx on usb) it might actually be feasible...I'd instantly buy a driveless 13" i5 Macbook Pro in any case

Also licensing.

 

[KnightWRX]

DVD drives are:

4. ugly

I can't even see the DVD drive in my MacBook.

DVDs:

1. lose data quickly
2. bad to store

IMHO, of course...

1. Wrong
2. Wrong

Optical media is actually quite good for long term archival purposes. Better than hard drives and better than USB sticks. They also don't "lose data". Either the disc can be read or it can't. DVDs will degrade after a period of about 50 years. I still have CDs from the 80s, they still play as perfectly as the day they were bought.

Seriously guys, you don't need to spread misinformation about optical media. Crank down the enthusiasm a bit. The MBA doesn't have an optical drive, you don't want one, match made in heaven. But to wish Apple completely discontinues the things is wrong. Other people might want Macs and might have a need for optical media. Let's not chase them away and give them the freedom of choice.

 

[thinkdesign]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIEMobile6.0) Sprint T7380)

USB stick as alternative to cloud storage of photo archives: With whatever's the biggest not-outrageously-overpriced USB stick presently available, how many 10 megapixel photos could I store? Perhaps this is the wway to go for me to keep my 10,000+ size photo archive largely OUT of my Air's 256GB flash memory?

10,000 can really be multiplied x 2 since when I have time to do the editing work... there'll be the original file plus an edited one for each photo. So really it's 20,000+ photos.

If there's room, perhaps this big capacity USB stick could hold stored videos too? Or a 2nd stick coulld hold them, again just to keep them from filling up the Air's memory? (I occsionally need to extract a small bit of a video, to present a quotation in a lecture. I hope a new 13" 4GB RAM 2.13ghz Air will be able to do that sort of light video editing?)

My last USB stick need is -- finding very small capacity, physically very small, and very inexpensive USB sticks to use --- for when I need to give someone a copy of one of the pix / and maybe a couplle of 30 second "video quotes", that illustrate one of my lectures.

Thanks for any advice on these questions anyone with experience in these things, can offer.

 

[flynz4]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIEMobile6.0) Sprint T7380)

USB stick as alternative to cloud storage of photo archives: With whatever's the biggest not-outrageously-overpriced USB stick presently available, how many 10 megapixel photos could I store? Perhaps this is the wway to go for me to keep my 10,000+ size photo archive largely OUT of my Air's 256GB flash memory?

10,000 can really be multiplied x 2 since when I have time to do the editing work... there'll be the original file plus an edited one for each photo. So really it's 20,000+ photos.

If there's room, perhaps this big capacity USB stick could hold stored videos too? Or a 2nd stick coulld hold them, again just to keep them from filling up the Air's memory? (I occsionally need to extract a small bit of a video, to present a quotation in a lecture. I hope a new 13" 4GB RAM 2.13ghz Air will be able to do that sort of light video editing?)

My last USB stick need is -- finding very small capacity, physically very small, and very inexpensive USB sticks to use --- for when I need to give someone a copy of one of the pix / and maybe a couplle of 30 second "video quotes", that illustrate one of my lectures.

Thanks for any advice on these questions anyone with experience in these things, can offer.

I think that in general, physical media of all types will die. Installing the original OS might be an exception for a while.

Regarding your questions on photos... 10,000 images is not a very large photo library... but it is generally much more than you would probably want to store on your MBA. At 10MB each (your estimate)... they would consume 100GB... and if you were to double it as you mentioned... you would nearly consume your SSD's capacity.

Personally, I use a different machine (27" 2TB iMac) for my photography which easily holds my much larger photography collection. After reading and appreciating your posts for some time now... I would suspect that you would believe that 10,000 photos is more than you would want to present to someone without boring them to tears... even if you have a rich and varied portfolio of specific subjects.

Personally, I think the solution (for me) is to have a single machine (not an MBA) which is the repository for all of your photos. The original copy of every photo I have ever taken is stored there. It is double backed up (locally via Time Machine, and to the Cloud via Crashplan+). There is zero chance I will ever lose those images.

I personally use Aperture 3 to organize, rate, edit, enhance, and design smaller collections of photos that are easy to publish and present. Using A3's rating function... it is trivial to create a number of small collection (say 50 - 100 photos) on a particular theme... selected from say 1000+ photos of various quality. This culling and then publishing of photos makes my photo collection much more interesting. It is only those smaller collections of high quality photos that I would move to my MBA... as well as publishing to the web or print.

/Jim

 

[HLdan]

I don't see Lion coming on anything other than the USB stick or the Mac App Store. What for would they need to ship it on DVD anymore? Everybody with an Intel Mac has a USB 2.0 port. No need to make a DVD version.

 

[bouncer1]

I hope DVD drives will cease as soon as possible. I have never liked them. DVD drives are:

1. haevy
2. loud
3. fragile
4. ugly

DVDs:

1. lose data quickly
2. bad to store
3. usually not rewriteable

IMHO, of course...

Absolutely. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be hugely misguided.

And good riddance to them.

I will be more disappointed with cds going, but you can always stick an external burner and burn a cd for your home stereo there. I like the physical medium too for music. But for films who cares. As for data, dvds an blu rays are the laughing stock of the data world at the moment when pretty much everything else be it sd cards, usbs, ssds, hds....even frigging data cassetes have tons of advantages over them.

Btw, I don't know if it's been said but I really like the aesthetics of these apple usb drives, they lose all the bulk, they are ultra portable and fun looking.

I think apple might just have redesigned as an aside the usb stick as functional and not fugly accessory.

 

[Blue Velvet]

What for would they need to ship it on DVD anymore?

Because the unit costs for producing a DVD are substantially lower than for a USB key. Snow Leopard was about 7.5Gb, Lion could be larger; not an easy-sized file to put up on the App Store when hundreds of thousands want it at the same time, as well as locking those out who don't or won't have iTMS accounts. Besides keeping high margins, Apple are all about simplicity and ease of use, which is why I expect Lion to come on a DVD.

Feel free to bookmark this post and in about nine months time, tell me I was wrong.

 

[ct2k7]

As of right now, I'd rather have loads of DVDs than loads of USB drives. Especially if they all look identical. However, I hope OS X 10.7 will ship on USB Flash, though it may cost more.