Blu-Ray Drive For Apple Notebooks

Sean Jackson writes "Fastmac has beaten Apple to the Blu-Ray punch and has a new slimline Blu-Ray drive that works in PowerBooks, iBooks, Mac Minis, the MacBook Pro 17", and a few other systems. It's pricey ($800), but you have to admit that burning 45 GB is pretty sweet. Here are technical specs. Fastmac says that playing Blu-Ray movies isn't currently supported since there is no software player. However, several solutions are in the works and there is always a chance OS X 10.5 will support playing movies. Perhaps this means that Apple isn't far behind and will be offering Blu-Ray with the next MacBook and MacBook Pro revisions."

perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

However, several solutions are in the works and there is always a chance OS X 10.5 will support playing movies. Perhaps this means that Apple isn't far behind and will be offering Blu-Ray with the next MacBook and MacBook Pro revisions.

Perhaps, but it's purely speculation. There's a chance that OS X 10.5 will also come with a full installation of Windows Vista included in the box. Perhaps this means that Apple is planning on buying Microsoft.

See the problem with drawing conclusions from items that are pure speculation to begin with?

per dollar

[cinnamon colbert]

you can buy external hardrives at about 30 cents a gig, on special, so 800 bucks is ~~ 2400 gig of hardrive, or about 53 bluray disks, assuming you can efficiently fill the disks at 45 gig each, neglecting the cost of the disk..

as usual, for early adopters YMWV (your mileage Will vary)

New SuperDrive

[The_Abortionist]

For years, Mac buyers were troubled with a terrible choice:

-Get the base Mac with a CD reader; or
-Pay $200 more for the superdrive.

Often, the so called superdrive was behind the technology curve compared to a $50 PC equivalent.

I noticed that Apple did away with the Superdrive for a little while since it became too pathetic a choice, even for its dedicated customers. It seems that the Blu-Ray drive is giving Apple another chance at screwing its customers by charging 1-2 thousand dollars extra for something that will likely become standard for PC's within the next year.

Beaten?

[Mikey-San]

Fastmac has beaten Apple to the Blu-Ray punch and has a new slimline Blu-Ray drive that works in PowerBooks, iBooks, Mac Minis, the MacBook Pro 17", and a few other systems. [. . .] Fastmac says that playing Blu-Ray movies isn't currently supported since there is no software player.

Yeah, they totally beat Apple to the punch of selling a product that the OS doesn't support at all. Hurp. It's not that Apple can't get hardware from vendors, it's that they have to implement the software side as well, which isn't very likely until the next big OS update. I mean, we're kinda at the end of the Tiger line, here, after all.

Not all assumptions are equal

[Anonymous Coward]

Blu-ray support in Mac is a reasonable assumption. Apple buying Microsoft is not. What's the difference? The probability of it happening. You or a 5 year-old may think that probability can be reduced to "yes", "no" and "maybe", but actually it is a whole continuum of values between 0 and 1.

NotFUD

[plasmacutter]

2) Hollywood has agreed to not use ICT before 2012 at earliest if at all

Hollywood also empahtically stated they would not abuse the DMCA. Congress believed them and now consumer rights and computer/electronic producer rights have been reduced to loose poo on a stick.

GP's claim is not fud.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:FUD

[mrchaotica]

2) Hollywood has agreed to not use ICT before 2012 at earliest if at all

Right, they're waiting for more sheeple to buy into their shit before tightening the noose. And yet you're somehow trying to spin that as a good thing?!! FUD, indeed!