@kylo4: amen bro

plus unless it is significantly cheaper why would I not want to have the physical media in my hands for the same price.

for example the EA Spore issue!

Jraktal

@OletheaEurystheus:

umm this is simple

PC's have been offering blu-ray options for a while now and while not all offer a blu-ray option many do offer it for as low as $799, many folde like to plug it into their 50" Plasma to watch movies! especially since a blu-ray player starts @ $399. a laptop that does the same is an attractive proposition.

DRM is a pain but for the foreseeable future it is with us and its not like apple Zealots are not used to pay a premium for their toys.

I see the reason is this, Apple refuses to give any money to anyone but themselves this is about their bottom line. all this does is hurt their loyal zombies.

Jraktal

@yoshi: Especially because of the bad grammar ;)

mangochutney

@domerdel:

They were asked about HDMI. Their display adaptors can provide a higher resolution than HDMI supports

Gadgetdon

I thought this statement by him, was one of the single biggest revelations (god does that sound relgious?) from this little event. The lappy refresh was okay, that's cool, but this whole blu-ray issue has been beaten to death, it's still crazy that it's up in the air. I don't think Apple is going to adopt a "new" format, but I do think they are trying to think beyond physical formats, I think that is the point.

beekerstudios

@JEmlay: Because the MBP can't run a 1080p HD display! I just played 1080p content from my MBP last night. 1080p on a 17" screen still looks 1000x better than SD on a 17", what a completely retardo thing to say!

beekerstudios

@berribrand: exactly digital downloads is a fantasy who wants to buy a HD digital copy of a movie, you'll reach your cap after 4 or 5 downloads. and in the great white north its even worse than that.

Jraktal

ok ok, photoshop contest time - illlustrate just what a 'bag of hurt' looks like! I'm thinking the gen 1 ipod headphones, Sylar, something really spikey and the new National Debt Clock that goes into the quadrillions of dollars. annnnddd... go!

lpranal

@mangochutney: You don't have a clue what you are talking about do you? Because apple doesn't have DRM functionality or ways to encrypt/decrypt data, because that all happens on the chip level, because you can't copy a BR already on a windows pc, because apple hasn't supported the playback of h.264 content for years, or furthermore brought it to the forefront with itunes, ipods, iphone, etc.

You really think Apple would have to rewrite it's OS from the ground up to support BR.

You are a tard!

beekerstudios

@kylo4: Kylo, keep in mind that we here in the US have a portion of the wireless spectrum that is reserved (by FCC mandate thanks to those auctions that Google initiated about a year ago) for free usage in immediate the future that we should start to see rolled out in the next 5-7 years for people with low incomes in the US (which might be a majority of the US if the economy continues on it's downward spiral). I believe (hope) that this will be wildly spread and used by everyone in the US in the next 10 years after fully being built out (provided the Wireless providers don't form some sort of consortium and keep this held up in the courts, which is likely to happen...). There may be a data cap on this service, but still it's promising as far as usage limits are concerned in the near future. Just imagine what it would do to service providers prices and instated "caps" in the future if you could get it for free!

Ambiguous Blob 2.0

@Jason Chen

Please remove Biggy's post about calling "Jobs a bag of death."

If you want a vote, I am in favor of removing it.

yoshi

I know exactly what he meant by "Bag of Hurt". See I grew up with an older sister and when she got pissed at me she would hual off and kick me...well the result was a "Bag of Hurt"!!

VideoVampire

Sony finally won a format war. Now they're taking their revenge.

guiscard

Translation: Apple doesn't want to decrease their already massive profit margin for the sake of the customer. We'd rather just repackage the same worn hardware and charge more for a "new" product without actually spending money to improve our products.

As a company, that is their choice, but let's cut to the chase.

Wollymolly

@domerdel: This is just typical Apple business. Wait until the next Macbook refresh when they introduce HDMI and all hail it as the second coming... Then Blu-Ray will be next and wow, Apple revolutionizing the game.

They sandbag for a reason, people are always going to buy their overpriced product. Why put all your eggs into one basket now when you can keep laying an egg one at a time and have people still foaming at the mouth for them.

Don't get me wrong, I own Apple products, but this is just getting ridiculous.

DoMiNaTi0n

Can you please get this notion out of your head that digital downloads will take over in the future? It will not happen and here's why: Bandwidth caps. Already in place in Canada by Rogers, the biggest monopoly for internet services and making its way over to the USA, this is to prevent cable companies from losing money. My cap is 60GB, the highest one is 90GB. One movie is around 1GB at an avi quality. Factor in other internet usage statistics and combine them with the sheer amount of movies/television shows you'll be getting and you see where I'm going with this.

It is a nice idea, but physical media will be around for a very long time until these caps are removed, which doesn't seem likely.

kylo4

Digital downloads... bwahahahahahahahahah... And fiber optics has what market share?

berribrand

@yorktronic:
Exactly... I'm not sure if it's just leftovers from HD-DVD fanboys or what but people have to be crazy to think a compressed to all hell digital download version of any movie is going to rival blu-ray in quality... especially on a 50+ inch HDTV.

And I'm sure ISP's are really going to stand by and let content providers use their pipes to make money while selling something that is almost direct competition... RIIIIIIGHT.

d1gw33d

Talk about a rabid bunch of idiots posting. This is the same reason you dont see it on the PC side much either except for a few choice models and externals. Blu-ray required you to change the motherboard on internal drives to prevent copying (yay DRM). Until that is dropped and it likely will be, it makes no sense to go for it. The Mac OS can do Blu-ray and has been able to since 10.3, they just dont want to pop it in because

1) up until a few months ago there was still a Blu-ray v HD-DVD battle going on
2) they along with Dell and HP are hoping to persuade Sony to drop the DRM hardware requirements. This has been ongoing for over a year now.

OletheaEurystheus

Translation: "Blu-Ray would cut into our insane profit margin, and unless we could convince you, our loyal followers, to pay an additional few hundred dollars on top of the already, absolutely-out-of-control expense of the laptop, we'll be holding off on that piece of tech."

wiggatron

they would have to charge a lot more than they already do if they integrated blu-ray

but is it not even an available option? if not... why the heck not?

diablofreak

1080p on a 17" screen or smaller doesn't really help much. In fact, it's a major waste. Unless you're someone that wants to kill off DVD and own nothing but BD?

JEmlay

@Marcelo: lol, same thought.

mangochutney

Other takeaway, We've got our own plans which we know people will buy because it's from Apple and it will have an "i" in front of the name. I mean if it was iBlu-Ray then maybe...

dukemang

Perhaps the "licensing issues" he's talking about have to do with the complex and draconian DRM that Blu-Ray has attached to it? Maybe this is Apple's diplomatic way of saying that they don't want to deal with things like HDCP, the licensing they have to pay to Sony to let them but a BR drive in there in the first place, the upgrades to their graphics cards they'll have to make (not to deal with the resolution, but to deal with the DRM), and so forth.

Marcelo

"Bag of hurt"? Is that like a can of whoop-ass?

EricAlder

@superhumanben: I completely agree. Besides, Apple was one of the Bu-ray supporters from the start. They should have been the ones to pioneer the implementation of Blu-ray drives... or at least right behind Sony with the movement.

I've been waiting over a year for a new MBP, and among my list of hopefuls was Blu-ray and HDMI. Pipedreams, I pretty much knew they were though... so I'm not disappointed today, rather I'm quite psyched.

G-Ram

They don't incorporate BluRay because of the hardware.
They don't do it because they'd have to change their operating system from the bottom up, as well as change their motherboard layout.
The studios/companies require that any PC (in the sense of personal computer, not Mac or PC) uses special encryption methods to ensure that the media cannot be copied or corrupted on its way through the machine.

In Windows those are just security holes waiting to be exploited.

mangochutney

WTF, is that Steve Jobs or just his skin? Holy Cow.

And to say Blu-ray isn't taking off when the last 3 Blockbuster releases sold pretty much the same if not a little better on Blu-ray than they did on DVD then you are just being a sissy boy and couldn't work the technology.

efenili

@evangelistc01: LOL! Stupid, but funny as hell! Nice one sir, very nice indeed.

Ambiguous Blob 2.0

@Ambiguous Blob 2.0: He will soon look like Hulk Hogan. You wait and see.

evangelistc01

@Herman: i guess today is april first

lilaliendog

Jesus, Steve looks emaciated! Like South African Refugee Camp emaciated... Am I the only one thinking this looking at that photo?... I mean, I know he was thin and a little ill looking at the last event, which caused all of that controversy, but he looks skinnier than he did in his last public appearance which caused all of that hubabaloo.

Ambiguous Blob 2.0

@Herman: You mean *MORE* expensive...

lolwut?

@evangelistc01:
that's not the issue (to some of us)... You can't PLAY a blu-ray movie even if you had that external drive. You could only burn BD via toast.

domerdel

@Herman: Because Macs are the pinnacle of cheap...

superhumanben

Replaced by digital downloads? What?

yorktronic

@Herman:

Lol

Suttin

Blu-ray would have made the laptops expensive.

Herman

Saying you're going to wait for Blu-Ray to take off when you're a company the size of Apple just seems irresponsible. Everyone and their brother seems to be holding off for Blu-Ray to go through the roof. No one seems to want to take a chance. And this is part of the reason it ISN'T taking off. Because too many people are afraid to just take the leap and go with the Blu. Sure there's going to be something that'll replace it. There always is... but at this point, how much more clear can you get a picture?

superhumanben

is it still a bag of hurt for Mac Pros? This is really killing me. Also big thumbs down on lack of HDMI for displays... they finally get an update... yet they're still not up to date IMO.

domerdel

I will NOT buy any new computer until it has a blu ray drive in it, Period.

dalejrfanfreak

Steve is a bag of death!

Biggy

If blu-ray is that important to you, then just get an external usb cd/dvd drive that supports it. Personally, I don't see it as a major factor that sells laptops - I could care less about blu-ray.

evangelistc01

BD rocks, shut the fuck.

Substance_D

The drives are only like a hundred bucks how much can it cost them to buy um in the millions?

mikecoscia

@Biggy: Thanks for this moronically illuminating comment!

ellito

@Herman: You mean "would have made them actually priced right"

KLanD

LMAO!! In other words, they won't let us market it as IBluRay so we won't sell it!

God, you do everything else to burden your customers. I mean seriously.. enough with the mini monitor port already.

KLanD

@beekerstudios: "… beyond physical formats …"

Or how a daoist master would say:
"There is no format."

mangochutney

Guys, it's simple, and you don't want to hear this, but I'll be straight with you.

If Apple figured that enough people needed/wanted Blu-ray in MBPs so that Apple would actually gain more than they lose, they would've made it an option. The simple fact that they didn't, by itself, pretty much proves that you are a minority, and the cons of offering that option overweigh the pros.

Dearhaw

Who wants a Blu-ray PC drive with the assloads of DRM and CPU overhead required to do HDCP with.... no thanks.

axiomatic

@mikeg916: I think I read that the new Macs have a Displayport port. Same specs as HDMI minus the licensing fees to Sony. WIN / WIN

axiomatic

Is it just be, or does Steve Jobs look older/weaker than my grandfather in that picture?

latterman

@Ambiguous Blob 2.0: great!
there goes the stock price again.....

mikeg916

@Gadgetdon: that would be a moronic statement on their part then.

As HDMI supports EXACTLY the SAME resolution as DVI.

so do they have some magic resolution that is to high for DVI then?

Doubtful.

mikeg916

Translation: We didn't come up with it, so we're not using it until people demand that we do.

Guess Blu and white don't mix.

Evil J

@domerdel: Mini DVI to DVI to HDMI? If you want it that bad just do that...

Scott.Gardeski

Nah, i don't think its hardware, DRM, or licensing. If you look closely at what has been announced for Snow Leopard, you quickly realize that a lot of those things have something to do with Blu-Ray: - Multicore: blu-ray decoding is cpu hungry in general - OpenCL: the new nvidia chipsets will be used to offload the cpu hungry h264 decoding to the GPU - Quicktime X: a refined media architecture is necessary to deal with a this new multicore, opencl and aacs etc. stuff. We didn't get Blu-Ray playback simply, because: - there is no Blu-Ray player software ready yet (due to Snow Leopard still to be released) - the old macbooks are not HDCP capable and thus can never be used to play back Blu-Rays on an external display device - the CPUs of the first generation Macbooks struggle with the high performance software decoder CoreAVC for h264 decoding (you can test this if you try HDTV channels using EyeTV). I guess that in addition to the Snow Leopard necessity, Apple also wants to wait a little while before they tell first generation Macbook owners that their hardware is officially outdated, Snow Leopard probably won't run on it and people have to buy new laptops in order to get the new stuff. Price is certainly nothing worth talking about, they could've easily made the Blu-Ray drive an option for like $80 bucks more.

FiorenzaNermie

Old Man Jobs has such delicate wrists.

KeeganHoddie

@kylo4: Slightly off-topic, but if TekSavvy is available where you live, they have DSL with 200GB/mo and unlimited cap options. In Toronto, it's a lot faster than Rogers ever was for me. No hidden fees either. Even 200GB/mo isn't enough for high-def digital distribution though. To be fair, digital distribution of big content is also not likely to catch on in North America until fast 100mbps+ internet is cheaper and more widely available. Until then, I'm quite happy with Blu-Ray but I don't really care if it's in my laptop or not. I just like watching high bitrate 1080p movies on a big screen. :)

Brandson

@Substance_D:

Sorry, part'ner, but round these parts we likes to say "TFSU".

michaelwiggins

@mikecoscia: Not much at all. The cost he is talking about is that you must pay a licencing fee to the Blu-Ray Consortium if you want to include their technology in your product. Apple being as popular as it is, negotiations might result in unfavourable terms if they jump in right now. So Jobs is saying that it's not the right time just yet. This being the man who made the entire music industry his bitch through sheer force of will, I tend to agree.

Tracert

Jobs made sense, Not a lot of people are buying Blu-Ray just yet, Me personally I'm still with Regular DVD or digital-downloads for HD contents.

Darksider1972

@dalejrfanfreak:

You going to hold your breath and stop your feet, too?

freakshow1

@Dearhaw: Stop talking out of your ass. Apple do not give their customers what they want, they give them what they decide they should have - and absolutely nothing else. Unfortunately there are enough iSheep out there to make this attitude commercially viable (that and a huge markup).

PS - iPhone copy/paste ... iPhone removable batteries ... enough USB ports on any Mac laptop ever ... any useful features on the Air ... what do all these have in common?

DelSource

@Darksider1972: Not a lot of people are buying Macs when compared to PCs either, but that doesn't stop him acting like Apple are the masters of the fucking universe does it. And guess what? Macs are way too expensive.

The words "pot" and "kettle" immediately spring to mind. But don't worry, the fanboi armies will protect their leader.

DelSource

well worst is bluray didn't really take off after the death of hddvd.

Justifan

@Jordan Lund:

Hmmm... pic failed.

[media-2.web.britannica.com]

Jordan Lund

Separated at birth?

Jordan Lund

@superhumanben:

Well, look at Blu-Ray sales. There are 6 million players in North America thanks to the Playstation 3, but the biggest selling Blu-Ray movie, Iron Man, only managed to sell 500,000 copies the first week.

The #1 selling title in the history of Blu-Ray reached less than 10% of Blu-Ray owners. It doesn't sound like a platform that even OWNERS are supporting.

Jordan Lund

@FiorenzaNermie:

I agree. There is no software player on the mac and making one isn't easy. PC's sort of do it but it requires a certain video card.

Remember the old powerbooks.. the DVD player in there was a cludge and only worked in OS 7 or 8 or whatever we had back then. I'd rather wait to get BD on my mac until it's just going to work.

Oh and whoever said that BD is being replaced with downloads soon is smoking crack. Crappy downloads maybe. But BD quality downloads are a ways off. If you don't care about quality then I guess it doesn't matter. You can download now, blow it up to HD and call it HD. But BD quality means 25 - 35 megs per second which isn't coming without physical media for a while. Especially with all the bandwidth limits.

Even if you did download it, what are you going to do with the file? Put it on some kind of physical media? Or just download it each time you want to watch it and pay over and over and over again for the same movie...

badweasel

The lack of Blu-ray is one of the main reasons I didn't buy a Mac when I bought a new laptop last month. Blu-ray support was a mandatory requirement for me, and no damn external drives.

MegaZone

@DelSource: i'll take "things the average consumer doesn't care about" for five hundred, alex.

srdailey

Um, blu-ray has already taken off Steve. Nice job on not including it.

nuggetz

BD would be nice, but not if I can't watch a BD movie on my laptop due to crazy DRM. Blank media would also have to be priced reasonably. Personally, I have to side with Steve (can't believe that just happened). If BD is too restrictive, there's less reason to move from DVD to BD.

newgalactic

@DoMiNaTi0n:
Ack, previous my comment didn't show up. Guess I'll just have to type it up again.

There's no chance in Hell that Apple would add HDMI. That would just give them some frivolous licensing fees, force them to make design compromises (for example, they're unable to make a miniature variant of HDMI), and while HDMI Type-B could drive a 30" monitor, nobody uses it, so we're back at square one.

It's much more logistically sound to just go with the budding open standard just as everyone else is getting ready to transition to it as well.

DisposableInterloper

@G-Ram:
Look at it this way: HDMI is soon to be old news now that DisplayPort is beginning to get adopted by the masses. Dell, now Apple, soon everyone else edging towards it.

As for Blu-Ray, I'd wait until Snow Leopard.

DisposableInterloper

@mikeg916:
Every last piece of consumer electronics uses HDMI Type-A, making it electrically compatible with single link DVI-D.

30" monitors require dual link DVI, leaving Type B as an option. However, although it would provide enough bandwidth for Apple's 30" monitors at full resolution, no consumer product uses it, so there'd be no point to licensing HDMI only to face the exact same criticism they have now, in addition to making design compromises.

Now that would be a stupid move on Apple's part, wouldn't to say? It's not hard to grasp why they just decided to go with DisplayPort instead.

DisposableInterloper

@srdailey: If you say so. I mean, it's not like we've ever seen an iPhone or Mac user ever mention these things, let alone Giz dedicated to any of them. Oh no, wait, we have!

Clearly you speak for the iSheep, not the average consumer.

DelSource

@Justifan: Actually sales of Blu-ray discs have doubled since the demise of HD-DVD. And recently Blockbuster said that some new releases were selling more Blu-rays than DVDs.

DelSource

@dalejrfanfreak: I'd buy a laptop without one, but I've been waiting on upgrading my G5 iMac for about 18 months now. I'm glad they said something so at least I know I won't buy an iMac today only to have a Blu-ray model come out tomorrow.

closethipster

@JEmlay:
BS, you are full of it. The average person can't tell a difference between the two on small screens. Unless of course you enjoy looking at a clean picture during pause.

1000X....OH PLEASE. What a drama queen!

JEmlay

@DelSource: what everyone on every tech forum doesn't seem to get is that we are not the average consumer. we're tech geeks. i wasn't attack your points, merely stating that those things don't really matter to the "average consumer." ie, not us.

srdailey

I had to search a bit for this thing, but I finally found an article I read about making an operating system fit for BR and all the unpleasantness that goes with it:
[arstechnica.com]

mangochutney

@beekerstudios: Well, I maybe I exaggerated a bit. Still BR-implementation is a bitch.

Of course Apple has its own DRM, but no AACS support yet.
Read this, young man, before you call me a tard:
[arstechnica.com]

mangochutney

What about all the people with HDV and harddisk HD footage?? I've been waiting literally YEARS. 1st to see what the winner of the HD-DVD race would be, then for apple to implement it. We need iDVD and BluRay NOW! Come on Apple. Support your high tech customer base!!

ConradZephyrus

Steve rocks, blu-ray is not a necessity for a laptop.

AlessandraScylla

Once again comes Steves Jobs and declares what ever is not available on Mac, you don't need it. No cut & paste on IPhones (you don't need it), higher bus speed (you don't need it !)....new technologies (you don't need it) just let us "Apple" use old technology and impress you with a few graphical tweaks and smart programming...good night !

LilybellHippodamia