Monday, April 21, 2008

Implications of a Driveless Laptop


So driveless is not a word you say? Well Apple has decided with its MacBook Air that driveless is the way to go. What does this mean for all of those people out there that want to take a DVD on the plan ride and watch it on their computer? Or what if you have a game that you really want to load on the computer? Do I really have to have an external drive to get those things working on the MacBook Air?


It would seem the answer is Apple is pushing for a driveless line of notebook computers. At first I thought that this was an incredibly bad idea because watching movies is something that I love to do and do frequently on my MacBook Pro. But the more I thought about it the more this reminds me of how Apple got rid of the floppy drive before everyone else. Everyone thought that was a terrible idea because you may need it some time, but in retrospect it was never really missed. How does the lack of a disc drive relate you ask? Well this is Apple's push for you to use high speed internet to download what you need rather than rely on a disc drive and tangible media to use on the laptop. Can you say "forcing you to download movies from say iTunes?" This is a great way to get people to use Apple's already exsiting services to gain more profits for them and make people less cluttered.


I already have an external DVD burner so I can rip my movies onto my laptop as I frequently doanyway and then I would not have to worry about the battery draining drive spinning. In the case of the MacBook Air though, the decision has already been made for you and you get a great portable notebook computer that is thinner than it looks on TV.