I’ll be disappointed if the new iMacs don’t at least have a Blu-ray option

Posted by Dennis Sellers Oct 6, 2009 at 8:25am

By the time you can read this, Apple may have announced new iMacs, Mac minis and MacBooks. And I’ll disappointed if the iMacs don’t at least have a Blu-ray option in the high-end models.

Admittedly, Apple can argue that there’s no good reason for offering Blu-ray. According to a recent study by iSuppli Corp., Blu-ray drives have shipped on only 3.6 percent off computers in 2009 and adoption will only reach 16.3 percent by 2013.

“They eventually will find success,” Michael Yang, senior analyst for storage and mobile memory at iSuppli, says. “However, during the next five years, that success will be limited in the personal computer segment.”

The report states the two major limitations of Blu-ray are cost and a lack of a library of movies on the part of owners (though, of course, Blu-ray players also play DVDs). Of course, Apple has never been afraid to be ahead of the curve—and it is a member of the Blu-ray Association. And more and more movies are coming to Blu-ray as prices come down a bit. The real reason (or so I think) is that Apple doesn’t want you buying movies on any discs; they want you buying ‘em from the iTunes Store.

Also, as noted by Silicon Valley Insider, Blu-ray drives were once prohibitively expensive, and still are not cheap. But they’re now reasonable.

If Apple isn’t willing to offer Blu-ray drives, it needs to make it possible where third-parties (such as OWC and NewerTech) could offer drives that both record and play Blu-ray discs. Windows PC users have that choice—and some of us Mac owners want it as well.

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