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The future Apple software copy is going to be an USB stick
- Thread starter henry72
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I recently read that article on gizmodo about apple becoming big brother. The way that i see it what they are trying to do with the Mac app store is to kill the optical drive, in order to make better hardware. The software could come on an sd card. Physical media really is dead. What I want to see is how this stuff is going to trickle into the next MBP, I would love to see a machine without a CD drive.
This is the future or machines with one exception, why no 3g or wimax?
This is the future or machines with one exception, why no 3g or wimax?
It could be space considerations, or that they don't want so much of an overlap with ipad and iphone. I am not sure. It could be all that together. In any case it's easy nowadays to just tether via bluetooth from the iphone, why pay for yet another 3g card? I am not saying this to sweeten sour grapes, 3g and wimax would be great on the airs and I am sure we shall see them soon.
Funny how you did not reply directly to my post when I stated I thought otherwise. That poster made a lot of factual mistakes. Optical media is superior for long term storage contrary to the post you agree with.
Please explain to us why you think Flash memory is a substitute for long term storage.
Uh, contradict yourself much ? SD cards are physical media... And what use is an SD card to 11.6" owners ? USB based SD card reader, USB based DVD reader, same difference.
Seriously, the Mac App Store is there to distribute stuff you can drag to the Applications folder to install and drag to the trash to remove. Most software is distributed as mpkgs that install multiple components besides the App itself. This software will not be available on the Mac App Store.
You guys are seeing way too much into this.
Funny how you did not reply directly to my post when I stated I thought otherwise. That poster made a lot of factual mistakes. Optical media is superior for long term storage contrary to the post you agree with.
Please explain to us why you think Flash memory is a substitute for long term storage.
Uh, contradict yourself much ? SD cards are physical media... And what use is an SD card to 11.6" owners ? USB based SD card reader, USB based DVD reader, same difference.
Seriously, the Mac App Store is there to distribute stuff you can drag to the Applications folder to install and drag to the trash to remove. Most software is distributed as mpkgs that install multiple components besides the App itself. This software will not be available on the Mac App Store.
You guys are seeing way too much into this.
tomato/tomatoOE you know what i mean
few steps and few years to get to that point
Portable Hardware
1) 13" MBP - remove the optical drive
2) keep the drives in 15"/17" MBP and iMac
Apple's own software
3) iLife and Mac OS Lion Ships in DVD and USB Drive (remember current iLife does not ship in USB Drive) and other software
4) see how successful the Mac App Store
Other Major developers
4) Other bigger developers like Microsoft (office for mac) needs to follow suit
Cheaper Accessories
5) bring down the external super drive price to say like $49/$29
6) make the MacBook Air super drive work with other Macs also (heard it works only with MBA, is it true?)
you will need still DVD drives but occasionally - it is like one Super Drive for the house hold and share among the macs.
and add your thoughts
Portable Hardware
1) 13" MBP - remove the optical drive
2) keep the drives in 15"/17" MBP and iMac
Apple's own software
3) iLife and Mac OS Lion Ships in DVD and USB Drive (remember current iLife does not ship in USB Drive) and other software
4) see how successful the Mac App Store
Other Major developers
4) Other bigger developers like Microsoft (office for mac) needs to follow suit
Cheaper Accessories
5) bring down the external super drive price to say like $49/$29
6) make the MacBook Air super drive work with other Macs also (heard it works only with MBA, is it true?)
you will need still DVD drives but occasionally - it is like one Super Drive for the house hold and share among the macs.
and add your thoughts
I was going to make this thread a few days ago in the OS X Lion section. I really hope they start offering all software on USB sticks like this one. FCP could be two USB sticks instead of 10 DVDs.
Essential point. Guaranteed that Adobe CS6 with extras, a 6+Gb install, will also be on DVDs.
Question is: what do Apple gain by going USB-only release? Not much.
Less people on the Internet will be butthurt when they eventually remove optical drives from their other notebooks.
1 pressed Blu-ray would be cheaper than 2 USB sticks... but that's a whole other discussion.
Yeah, it makes it much easier to install on the Air I reckon Apple will soon have a USB flash stick option (really nice eye candy sticks) AND an option to download from the app store
If Apple products all had SD card slots they could make a SD card version too.
I reckon Apple will soon have a USB flash stick option (really nice eye candy sticks) AND an option to download from the app store If Apple products all had SD card slots they could make a SD card version too.
You are right Apple solved that problem very well. However all drives that slide out of the notebook are ugly and also "knifed" (I mean the slot) are not as need as Airbooks without that wound.
Yeah, I also own a few cds that haven't lost any data for the last 15 years. BUT, these are bought and not burned! Burned CD/DVD can lose data after a few month ...
And how do you store DVDs nicely? I had some of these DVD cases in which you can store them in such foil pockets inside the case - UGLY
.What I have totally forgotten: I hate to start a burning software before saveing data on a device!
Ok, I have to admitt that I never need DVDs. Therefore, my opinion could be slightly biased
Best, Fischel
Apple has been putting SD mmc card readers on a lot of their new Macs. Maybe they'll just put the software on MMC cards eventually? Not sure what is cheaper, an mmc or a usb stick
You can put Mac OS X Installer on flash drive now.
1) Put your install disk in the drive, wait for it to mount.
2) Put in your flash drive of at least 8GB.
3) Open Disk Utility.
4) Click on Restore tab and make the Mac OSX Installer the source, and the flash drive the destination.
5)Click Restore and wait.
I've been doing this for a while, and it does make the installation process substantially faster.
Two points:
1) Can you boot a Mac off a USB Flash Drive? I don't know, but if you can't boot off the Flash Drive (or off the SD memory card) then DVDs will be the media of choice for awhile yet.
2) People are using the cost of DVD media vs more expensive USB Flash Drive as a reason why Apple won't move to Flash Memory media to distribute it's software. I think they can actually save money by going to a USB Flash Drive to distribute software. Whatever the cost of the USB Flash Drive is (and it will be cheap, since the it doesn't need to be very robust), is more than saved by Apple not having to put in the optical drive. For Apple the save more than on the drive than they spend on the restore USB Flash Drive. After that, the cost of the USB Flash Drive for other programs will just be added to the cost of the program. Apple has essentially downloaded the extra cost onto the software makers, and they save money by not having to provide and/or do warranty support on optical drives. Plus, they get to take that space and either make the computer smaller and lighter, or add more battery.
Plus they get to sell Apple branded external optical drives for a profit.
But, as I said... the replacement media has got to be bootable. Is it? I don't know....
1) Can you boot a Mac off a USB Flash Drive? I don't know, but if you can't boot off the Flash Drive (or off the SD memory card) then DVDs will be the media of choice for awhile yet.
2) People are using the cost of DVD media vs more expensive USB Flash Drive as a reason why Apple won't move to Flash Memory media to distribute it's software. I think they can actually save money by going to a USB Flash Drive to distribute software. Whatever the cost of the USB Flash Drive is (and it will be cheap, since the it doesn't need to be very robust), is more than saved by Apple not having to put in the optical drive. For Apple the save more than on the drive than they spend on the restore USB Flash Drive. After that, the cost of the USB Flash Drive for other programs will just be added to the cost of the program. Apple has essentially downloaded the extra cost onto the software makers, and they save money by not having to provide and/or do warranty support on optical drives. Plus, they get to take that space and either make the computer smaller and lighter, or add more battery.
Plus they get to sell Apple branded external optical drives for a profit.
But, as I said... the replacement media has got to be bootable. Is it? I don't know....
Lion better be available on a flash USB drive otherwise most of us Air users will be buggered
Mac App Store?
My thoughts exactly. And it just proves DVD drive is seeing a way of Floppy 1997 -- it is just going away as far as software installations are concerned.
If someone wants to have an optical drive available because of CD's or something it's just another story. Just as with iMacs and floppies.
And it seems Macs are not getting BluRays either. It's just going to be something that has zero moving parts such as Flash storage or portable SSD. Or downloads. The writing is on the wall...
Not anytime soon
Some of you are jumping the gun a bit to quick. DVD isn't going anyway anytime soon, trust me. We got atleast 3+ yrs left.
1. A DVD cost about 10cents to buy. (perhaps less with volume).
2. an 8GB USB Storage is $10/retail, perhaps $3/5 wholesale?
anyone care to explain why any company would want to increase their distribution cost by over 1000% ????
Some of you are jumping the gun a bit to quick. DVD isn't going anyway anytime soon, trust me. We got atleast 3+ yrs left.
1. A DVD cost about 10cents to buy. (perhaps less with volume).
2. an 8GB USB Storage is $10/retail, perhaps $3/5 wholesale?
anyone care to explain why any company would want to increase their distribution cost by over 1000% ????
Because they can eliminate the cost of the optical drive? Apple sells their computers as a package... HW/SW. Save the cost of the OD, spend some more on the restore media. Make more money by putting something into the OD space that consumers want, like a bigger battery.
I agree that the added cost of the media becomes a problem, but only to other SW makers. They don't save any money on the HW, but get to decide whether to eat the added cost of the media, or pass it on to the consumer.
I may not agree with Apple's logic, but I can see it.
There's 2 kinds of burnable media. One is archival quality. It's a bit more expensive but barely. And months ? Seriously, I have burned CDs from the 90s that are still perfectly fine and aren't burned on anything but the cheapest blanks I could find. Learn how to properly handle your optical media.
BTW, I won't argue "ugly" with you. I'm not someone who places any value in the aesthetics of my computer stuff. I need it to work, not to look pretty while it sits there useless.
They aren't saving money that way, trust me. Duplication costs alone (you can press DVDs at a rate of a few thousands per hour on one press vs writing out data at USB2 speeds through a vast array to the flash media alone is worth it).
Don't forget that Apple also ships more than just the restore media in CD form and that the Mac App Store right now can't accomodate all their apps.
I think the savings might be more than we know. Fair enough, I don't know enough about flash media - but I'm sure it's not that hard to figure out a way to mass 'image' the media. It might be that the memory chips are imaged during their manufacture, and then the chips - with the content stored - are put into the physical USB holder.
The cost of the media - DVD vs flash - is just a small part of the cost of getting the media to the consumer. There are costs associated with shipping the media, with handling the media, with inserting the media into it's packaging, etc etc.
Just for argument's sake assume that USB flash is the same size/weight as the DVD media - at least as far as the cost of shipping and handling are concerned. And assume that the cost of the DVD blank is 10 cents, and the USB media is $3 (I'm just pulling #s out of the air, for argument's sake). The cost of handling the media is, what?? - - $5 to $8 ???
So, now the cost of moving to USB media is in the range of between $5.10 vs $8.00 TO $8.10 vs $11. If Apple absorbed the cost of the change (ha!), they would lose at most $9 per system (System Restore, plus whatever 2 SW packages that the user would - on average - buy for the system from Apple.)
If the optical drive cost more than $9, then Apple wins. And we haven't even talked about what features Apple could include in it's laptops if they didn't have the weight and space of the OD to work around.
There's one other way that Apple can save money by going to flash media. The media is rewritable. With DVD media, once that SW is discontinued, the disk is trash. With flash media they can take all of the unsold restore disks, and reimage them with the update. Or .... If you buy a new Mac from the store, perhaps they would have a flash media updater station where you could bring your install media up to the current version before leaving the store. Just thinking out loud here.
Of course, they may decide to go to SD media instead of USB. I don't know enough about the technologies to make any predictions, though.
all of this imho of course....