MacBook Air Apparent: I Have Never Used My Computer’s Optical Drive | Hacker News Reader

MacBook Air Apparent: I Have Never Used My Computer’s Optical Drive

techcrunch.com

31 pointswyclif43 comments

I use the optical drive mainly for reinstalling OS. An old habit carried over from the Windows time. Later I discovered that OS X is probably the easiest OS to install from alternative media. (It is probably also the easiest to run from alternative media too. Tried portable hard drive and USB stick. Works flawlessly.)

I did three clean installation of OS X 10.6. I tried both installing from DVD, and installing from an image of the DVD residing on a partition of a portable hard drive (created with the system default Disk Utility tool) via USB. The hard drive option is much faster, quieter, and cooler (pun intended).

I am always wondering if Apple will ship an OS on a tiny USB stick instead of a stupid DVD disc some day.

I hate optical discs and drives. Mechanical and fragile. I want to go all solid state.

You can install Windows 7 from a USB flash disk (or external hard drive if you wanted to) with the Windows 7 USB tool. Works great and installs much faster than from a DVD. Even on my desktop, I haven't used disks to install software in forever. Hey, you can even download a trial of Office, Photoshop, or almost any major software, and then activate it with a key from a physical package. Works great.

I tried that too on some PC's around. It's a nice feature given the need to reinstall the OS more often... There are some compatibility issues with USB booting on different BIOS, but other than that it is really helpful.

Now the next question is how do you run Win7 from a USB stick...

I've done it with XP back in the day, but never tried it with Win7. That might make an interesting project...

First the Iphone is supposed to be for on the go, then the Ipad is supposed to be in between the Iphone and the Mac Book Pro, now he wants something in between the Ipad and the Mac Book Pro. Kudos to Apple for convincing people they need all this.

I think this article is about what you don't need. Apple has a long tradition of omitting "features", which is applauded in hindsight but cause quite a stir at the release.

(Examples: floppy and optical disc drives, modems, firewire and ethernet ports, expansion slots, physical buttons, ...)

"how will the iMac survive without serial, parallel, and ADB ports?"

hmmm.. I interpreted it differently especially when he says "This is exactly the type of system I want". Netbooks have been offering computers without optical drives I think since the beginning, so no innovation there. My comment is based on the fact that, the Ipad was deemed the netbook killer and this system that he is talking about is basically a netbook running Mac OS. So when the Ipad came out they convinced people, they needed a gadget that sits between your desktop/main laptop, and mobile device.. and this would kil the netbook. Now MG is stating that the Ipad really is good for just certain things, and now he needs another gadget for when not using his Ipad or Laptop. I think Apple's message works well on their loyal fans, and that should be congratulated.

The MacBook Air is an alternative to the MacBook Pro not another device being wedged between the iPad and MackBook Pro. I carry both an iPad and MBA sometimes. Together they have a pretty nice mix of functionality and weigh less than the MacBook Pro. I actually use the iPad as kind of a secondary display sometimes while using the MBA. I suppose my point is there's no reason light/ultra-portable has to be the exclusive domain of the iPad. Lots of people who have zero interest in the iPad want a light/ultra-portable laptop instead.

It's almost like they're innovating & creating new markets.

I vowed that my next computer will not have an optical drive in it.

As for MacBook, you can make some use of that space with optibay http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

Or, you know, Buy a Thinkpad. My ultra-bay has had a hard drive in it for years. But I can on the fly swap that out for the CD unit. Or a battery pack. It's built to be useful and not just to look pretty.

Gloating about your notebook of choice just makes you an asshole. I don't want to swap out the components in my notebook every week, that's not a useful feature for me. It's objective!

Instead of lame invisible magic scrolling areas on the side, what if I want a large trackpad with lots of gestures, 2-finger scrolling & right-click? Or a slot loading DVD drive instead of a shitty tray one? Backlit keyboard? Magnet based power adapter so the dog doesn't drag my notebook off the table? LED battery life indicator on the side? 1" thickness? 5-8 hours battery life? Or just want OS X? And yes it looks good.

If you don't care about those things that's fine. I think it's even worth sacrificing an eSATA port even though I'd like one. Different people are willing to make different compromises.

As everyone says the CPU, memory and disks are the same now. Only difference is software and other hardware features. I don't understand why people have a mental block about looking at Apple's hardware objectively. "It looks good so it's clearly not meant to be useful!" ... wtf?

Let me guess, the Vaio Z isn't useful either because it looks good and doesn't have a swappable SATA bay. Even though you can get it w/ dual SSDs and a Core i7. Give me a break.

Apple do a lot of things right. But they optimize hard for the 80-90% rule. Maybe even 95%. If you want to do anything in that 5-10% -- you have challenges.

Woz wanted power and flexibility and options. Jobs wanted beauty and simplicity and ease of use. There's nothing wrong with simplicity. In fact - most of the time it's a benefit. But lets call it for what it is -- Apple's design ethos will choose simple over flexible almost every time.

That's true. In the Sculley interview that was posted the other day a recurring theme was that Apple is a design company first. I think that's good. I like products designed for humans even though my inner geek likes to solve puzzles (figuring out a bad interface is like solving a puzzle, it tickles the same part of our brains).

Some lament the fact that you can't change hibernate/sleep settings without running a few defaults commands in the terminal. I like that the machine does something sane out of the box and I don't have to think about it. I just focus on what I want to get done. Again, people care about different things. I care less about tweaking & tinkering as I get older and lazier.

Kind of tough to run OS X on a ThinkPad :\

I bought a dv7 from HP, has two hard drive bays and a bluray in it (I need bluray because of my job).

I like that idea... makes having a dedicated SSD and a dedicated HDD a real possibility with a laptop.

If I had the money for it, I'd go with that setup in an instant - I use my optical drive roughly weekly, all but once or twice a year where it can easily wait a day for access. Or I can just borrow someone else's system, and install stuff over the network (done that a few times).

I have the optibay with a ssd. Good stuff but I had to drill holes in the tabs to mount all the screws(the hole was just off an 1/8") The bummer is that my late-2009 15" MBP cannot handle the raw speed that 3.0Gbps can give so it would over saturate the bus and lose connection. downgrading the firmware to force a 1.5Gbps bus speed made it rock solid but a bit slower. Still so much faster than the 500GB 7200RPM Seagate though.

I also have the external cd drive that I have used a sum total of 5 times since the conversion.

Have the exact same setup — 2009 15" MBP with an SSD and Optibay. However, I didn't have to drill any holes, and I moved the Seagate to the Optibay and the SSD to the standard HDD slot, and I've never had any bus issues whatsoever at 3Gbps — it's rock-solid. Latest Sandforce chipset. Odd.

Interesting. I didn't try the SSD in the standard slot but maybe I will have to revisit this. Thanks!

Hah, that's the exact drive I've got now, loving the space over the stock drive. Speed difference is a bit noticeable, more-so on Windows, overall probably worth the extra cost.

So this is where I groan over MG groaning about having to carry a couple extra pounds in his purse.

And perhaps I'm missing some greater MG-context, but using the first person singular pronoun that often in a speculative review of a device (or whatever) is a bit off putting. Which is to say, whiny hyper-personalized reviews don't really cut it for me.

A smaller Air would be awesome, and I think would be a better sale than the current one. It's not quite comparable, but I still miss my 12" Powerbook because I could take it frickin' everywhere. It was even smaller than almost any book I carried (textbooks).

If they shrank it a bit more, they could start to compete more directly with both ultralight laptops and netbooks, but with more power than either, rather than being just a smaller, lighter, slower, and more expensive laptop. Though yes, part of the appeal of netbooks is how cheap they are.

My 15" I have now is nicer for work... but then again I can always attach an external monitor if I really want size. But in the vast majority of cases where size matters, I'd prefer my laptop to be smaller so I can always have it with me, and not use up most (or 110%) of the available space.

I agree ... I have a 13.3" and an old, broken 12.1" and I really feel the difference. I also have an 11.6" and love the size but it's a netbook so it's pretty crap.

A high quality 11.6" would be awesome if the price is nice.

When you say you feel the difference, I'm curious if you mean in terms of size or weight or both. I ask because believe it or not the 13.3" MacBook Pro is actually ~0.1 pounds (0.06 kg) lighter than the 12.1" PowerBook G4.

Sources:

13.3" MacBook Pro Tech Specs: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs-13inch.html 12.1 PowerBook G4 Tech Specs: http://support.apple.com/kb/sp48

I don't have Macs, I have/had PCs.

They need to have a Macbook Air Pro

Ethernet

Better graphics card

I would kill for a 200+dpi screen on a 12 or 13 inch screen

With no optical the machine should be much lighter and the battery last longer. Throw in built in 3g and I'll even splurge for the overnight shipping.

The optical is used so rarely offering a $99 external USB seems like the perfect solution.

Edit: formatting

It seems the author of this article doesn't have netflix.

The first thing I see when I go to netflix.com is "Unlimited TV episodes & Movies instantly over the internet"

Of course, why would they want to clearly state that Instant only includes a fraction of the titles available on DVD?

On my queue, there are about 125 movies. About 30 of them have "Play" buttons.

Or perhaps he watches Netflix Instant?

As I remember it, people were mostly annoyed that it only had one usb port. I got my x61 2 years ago and never worried about the lack of optical drive, but it has 3 usb ports I certainly could not do without.

In fact, the lack of an optical drive doesn't even make it on this list: http://apcmag.com/macbook_air_top_10_things_wrong_with_it.ht...

In my experience (as an MBA owner) people who buy it don't really carry around a backpack full of USB devices to plugin. Kind of defeats the purpose of buying an ultra-portable. Sometimes I dock it to a USB hub at home though.

I love my MacBook Air, and am dreading the release of a new improved one which I'll be deliberating over buying for months.

That said, a little bit smaller and higher-res screen, 500g lighter, 4GiB of RAM and a 3G modem would be almost irresistible.

Well--for one I use optical drive to install linux and do recovery with a live disk, but besides that, he's absolutely right. I think one USB optical spare would be critical for a lot of geeks

I would love a MBP that doesn't include an optical drive, but it isn't going to happen for a while. The problem is DRM on DVDs. I'm perfectly capable of ripping my movies, but without access to a DVD ripper that's as easy to use (and included for free with the OS) as iTunes, the average person hasn't figured out how to rip DVDs and still needs an optical drive to watch movies. The Air is going to be stuck in a niche for a while, unfortunately.

The Air is what Jobs shipped when he couldn't ship the iPad yet, but wanted to focus on elegant ambient computing.

As a tool for doing work though, people that spend most of there time working on the go aren't able to really do this with an Ipad, sure the MBP is fairly compact but to carry all the time the air definitely has a market.

The last (and only) use I've had for the optical drive was to install the operating system. Which makes me think that there's no use for the optical drive at all once you'll be able to upgrade to Lion through the App store.

I feel the exact same way, but I don't want to give up any specs. I like my Core i7, 8gb, and 250+ GB SSD. Time will solve it but waiting can be hard when you can see the future on the horizon.

I seldom miss the optical drive in my netbook either, although occasionally I feel the urge to watch a DVD. Fortunately with Netflix instant and Hulu I can usually get my fix.

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