Friday, January 13, 2006
No evil conspiracy here, folks, now move along . . .
MacBook Pro Superdrive not intentionally crippled - self-righteous geeks in disarrary - film at 11
There's been quite a bit of consternation at the fact that the Superdrive in the new MacBook Pro writes DVDs at 4X maximum speed, and lacks support for dual-layer (8.5GB) disc burning.
Why has Apple punked out on this feature, many wonder. Is Apple that cheap? Are they trying to subtract features in an effort to maintain profit margins while keeping the retail price of MacBook Pros the same as the old Powerbook G4? How could Apple be so stupid?!?
The answer, it appears, is physics. The new MacBooks use slimmer - or, one should say, even slimmer - Superdrives than the Powerbooks (and, presumably than most if not all currently shipping Windows laptops). As such, a 4X, non-dual-layer drive represents the current state of the art in that form factor. There simply is no such thing as an 8X dual-layer Superdrive that will fit in the MacBook Pro enclosure.
But, as Jason O'Grady reasonably points out in his column over at ZDNet, there most certainly will be such drives available in the near future - and you can count on Apple to pimp out MacBook Pros with them as soon as that happens.
So everyone, just chill, 'mkay?
There's been quite a bit of consternation at the fact that the Superdrive in the new MacBook Pro writes DVDs at 4X maximum speed, and lacks support for dual-layer (8.5GB) disc burning.
Why has Apple punked out on this feature, many wonder. Is Apple that cheap? Are they trying to subtract features in an effort to maintain profit margins while keeping the retail price of MacBook Pros the same as the old Powerbook G4? How could Apple be so stupid?!?
The answer, it appears, is physics. The new MacBooks use slimmer - or, one should say, even slimmer - Superdrives than the Powerbooks (and, presumably than most if not all currently shipping Windows laptops). As such, a 4X, non-dual-layer drive represents the current state of the art in that form factor. There simply is no such thing as an 8X dual-layer Superdrive that will fit in the MacBook Pro enclosure.
But, as Jason O'Grady reasonably points out in his column over at ZDNet, there most certainly will be such drives available in the near future - and you can count on Apple to pimp out MacBook Pros with them as soon as that happens.
So everyone, just chill, 'mkay?
