Steve Jobs Suggests Blu-ray Not Coming to Mac Anytime Soon

[dragonfly47]

MacRumors.com Article

"Bluray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD - like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats." - Steve Jobs

Downloadable from the iTunes Store, no doubt...

[AaronSCH]

I'm starting to somewhat agree with him...

[tilapiah6]

I love my iPod Touch and iPad, but come on Steve! The day won't come for years when the average American downloads a movie over buying a physical copy. Sure, there's money to be had in downloadable vidoes, but there will always be a demand in actual hard copies, and Blu-ray will be the successor of DVDs. Piracy will be the commonplace before buying protected videos on iTunes.

This just further shows how money hungry this guy is. Everything has to be his way, and he doesn't want to let anybody else make any money that he doesn't get a percentage of.

[travelbug]

steve jobs and apple will trash talk about anything that goes against their interests. its that simple. the disgusting thing is many fanbois believe what they like its a religion.

[Codyblaze]

I just wish that there was some kind of aftermarket way to upgrade the drive on my macbook to a blu drive. I don't care what Jobs decides to do, but come on Mac third-parties! There should be a market for this upgrade.

[tilapiah6]

That's absolutely not true about Apple fanboys. At least not all of them. I, for one, hate it that Jobs conducts business as he does. It's underhanded, selfish, and downright backwards. He will cut off anything and everything that he cannot personally make a profit from. That's horrible business. If the iPad and iPod Touch weren't the coolest gadgets I've ever owned, I wouldn't dream of having iTunes or anything Apple/Mac in my house. I use iTunes to sync those devices, and then close it immediately. FFS, he can't even make iTunes run decently on Windows. This is a logical choice that he's made about not including Blu-ray drives on his precious Macs, given his history.

[prerich]

Steve....even if you do 720p - if your audio quality is not up to snuff...you can't win me over.

[aphex]

I don't even care if downloads win out in the future, there's no reason for blu-ray not to be an overly expensive optional drive on imacs, etc. It wouldn't cost them crap because they'd charge $500 for the option I 'm sure.

[Hep]

He lost at least one iMac purchase from me over this attitude. Hopefully he'll realize someday that you can't always dictate what the customer wants, sometimes you have to listen. If other manufacturers release less restrictive yet equally cool gadets in the future, I think the lesson will come quickly.

[azereus]

Slightly off topic but here's a great animation that perfectly describes ALL Apple fanbois. As long as there's sheep out there like this, Jobs can do as he pleases and the sales will be there for him. It's sad really.....

Link

[tlmaclennan]

Of course he won't add the competition to his product line. It's like Sony adding a HD-DVD player to their product line when the format war was going on...

Problem is that Steve Jobs is on the right and wrong side. Many consumers cannot take full advantage of Blu-ray as they don't have surround sound or speakers/receivers to take advantage of the HD audio and they don't have quality HDTVs...or an HDTV at all. I can see how internet downloads appeal to the typical consumer over Blu-ray.

But Steve Jobs always has been an advocate of quality. Surely he can't believe that his crappy iTunes downloads are anywhere close to the quality that Blu-ray produces. Hell I'd say it's not even on-par with DVDs since you only get the movie without the extras.

iTunes downloads may be a very popular format, but it will in no way end the optical discs. The only way I see that is if internet downloads become an industry standard and I don't see them making the same mistake that Steve Jobs is until the standard internet connection can handle the speeds necessary for Blu-ray quality and future formats.

[kefrank]

His comparison to DVD-A and SACD is way off. Blu-ray is already more successful in its market than those technologies were in theirs.

[STARSCREAM]

I won't accept downloads unless they have near blu-ray quality video and audio. Heck, you still can't even get just dolby digital 5.1 from streaming Netlifx!

[SpaceDog]

I don't see a point in upgrading my MAC to a new one until they have blu-ray burners and blu-ray capability in Final Cut and Studio Pro. You'd think as important a product line Final Cut is, they'd have blu-ray throughout it and Mac Pro hardware.

[Socko]

I love to edit my HD video footage on the Mac, but once my project is done I've to copy it to my Windows machine to burn it on bluray. Come on Steve, that SUCKS! it's 2010 dammit.

[Blue Bull]

Wasn't Steve Jobs the one that had to tell everyone in the audience to turn off their wi-fi so he can download his demo? Mr.Jobs must be smoking some high potent herb.
1. Macs already come with DVD drive so why not have a blu-ray option?
2. I'm somewhat happy with my internet speed but the US is ranked like 37th for internet speed and structure. Unless he is going to get named chairman of the FCC, I don't see anyone else in a rush to make improvements.
3. Just wait till the cable companies start charging for the amount of internet you use, that will really be a wake up call!
4. Cyber security or lack there of. What will happen when somebody hacks into this cloud?

I say he is totally off on this one. Optical media will be around for a good ten year and hopefully there won't be any kind of cyber disaster that will set downloading back.

[ZoetMB]

I've been a big fan of Apple since the beginning, but I think Jobs is wrong on this issue. If he doesn't want to build a Blu-ray drive into the Mac, he can at least have the OS support it.

I agree with Jobs that the masses won't care about Blu-ray on the Mac. The masses have proven time and time again that they don't care about quality. Almost no one cares that they're listening to compressed digital audio over a 1/4 watt amplifier and as he pointed out, hi-res physical audio formats have failed.

But as others have pointed out, Apple has always pushed quality and have defended their aggressively high prices by claiming they had better quality. Therefore, I think Apple should support Blu-ray. In addition, Apple has been trying for years to make the computer the hub of home entertainment. If the computer is the hub, then it needs Blu-ray. If this was South Korea, I'd say we don't need Blu-ray because the network infrastructure in South Korea is robust enough to support high-resolution downloads. But here in the U.S., it kind of sucks and it seems to be getting worse as ISPs are not building out as fast as their customer base is consuming more data.

I don't actually think this is about money for Apple (unless Steve thinks that if Blu-ray fails, more studios will provide the iTunes store with HD movies). I think this is Steve's stubbornness about what he feels is the appropriate technical strategy for the future. And I think that Apple's incredible success over the last few years has made him and Apple even more arrogant than they've been in the past.

[KrugStillo]

Originally Posted by Blue Bull

Wasn't Steve Jobs the one that had to tell everyone in the audience to turn off their wi-fi so he can download his demo? Mr.Jobs must be smoking some high potent herb.
1. Macs already come with DVD drive so why not have a blu-ray option?
2. I'm somewhat happy with my internet speed but the US is ranked like 37th for internet speed and structure. Unless he is going to get named chairman of the FCC, I don't see anyone else in a rush to make improvements.
3. Just wait till the cable companies start charging for the amount of internet you use, that will really be a wake up call!
4. Cyber security or lack there of. What will happen when somebody hacks into this cloud?

I say he is totally off on this one. Optical media will be around for a good ten year and hopefully there won't be any kind of cyber disaster that will set downloading back.

Interesting comment about the cyber disaster because I really think that is one of the major notions that is keeping digital downloads from becoming mainstream. Why would a studio put alot of money into something that can crash and cost them millions of dollars? That is why I love my BD's. If all the power fails I can go out and buy a gas generator and watch my BD's and DVD's. Extreme I know but think about it. It is possible. Now if a networking and internet come crashing down for some reason what would happen to all these digital applications that require yo to log on or use specific software that cannot be run without the help of the internet. YouTube, Netflix and Amazon can go suck a choad if something big like that happens.

I read somewhere that there is a major atmospheric anomoly that happens every so many years that is about to happen again and if the cell phone and internet companies are not prepared, assuming that they can prepare for such a thing, it could crash cell phone and internet use. Essentially it would crash the satelites that control wireless communications. Not sure what the deal is with this but this could be a major issue for Steve Jobs and his invisible empire. It's amazing to control something that in essence you can't hold in your hand. What I mean by that is wireless communication, not the devices but the actual signal. Whatever I just felt like ranting.

[Jeff Kleist]

The sun has an ebb and flow cycle, and when it's high tide the additional radiation can interfere with communications, but that scenario is the stuff of summer blockbusters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle

[KrugStillo]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The sun has an ebb and flow cycle, and when it's high tide the additional radiation can interfere with communications, but that scenario is the stuff of summer blockbusters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle

I hope so, or do I.