OK, this is totally, TOTALLY stupid, folks. Apple is in the downloadable media business, TRUE. And I think they are going to have HD content, TRUE (and I've been predicting an iTV like gadget for over a year on hdforindies.com).
BUT...I think the rason why there isn't a Blu-ray drive are manifold:
1.) I think Apple wants to intro a burner, not just a player - so wait for MWSF for that move, possibly paired with an 8 proc system
2.) they could go third party, but they have their favorites - they historically like to start with Pioneer - see past machines
3.) To NOT include a Blu-Ray (even the player) just to try to encourage downloadable, lesser quality content is just dumb. Dumb idea to think of, dumber to do.
4.) Blu-ray movie support is non-trivial - look at the home entertainment PC sector - you have to have a secured monitor, a secured optical disk, a secured OS, a secured player, etc. Not all the pieces are in place yet, and Apple doesn't like to release partial or incomplete or difficult to use solutions. When they ship a drive, it'll WORK, and not just be "sorry, data only, no movies" or some such nonsense.
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OK, this is totally, TOTALLY stupid, folks. Apple is in the downloadable media business, TRUE. And I think they are going to have HD content, TRUE (and I've been predicting an iTV like gadget for over a year on hdforindies.com).
BUT...I think the rason why there isn't a Blu-ray drive are manifold:
1.) I think Apple wants to intro a burner, not just a player - so wait for MWSF for that move, possibly paired with an 8 proc system
2.) they could go third party, but they have their favorites - they historically like to start with Pioneer - see past machines
3.) To NOT include a Blu-Ray (even the player) just to try to encourage downloadable, lesser quality content is just dumb. Dumb idea to think of, dumber to do.
4.) Blu-ray movie support is non-trivial - look at the home entertainment PC sector - you have to have a secured monitor, a secured optical disk, a secured OS, a secured player, etc. Not all the pieces are in place yet, and Apple doesn't like to release partial or incomplete or difficult to use solutions. When they ship a drive, it'll WORK, and not just be "sorry, data only, no movies" or some such nonsense.