Apparently, optical drives (even Blu-ray) are so passe…

With the release of the Macbook Air, Apple is striking new ground in the move away from ‘wires’. Instead, a completely wire-less approach is apparently now ‘plat du jour’ - and clearly, this approach is focused on driving revenue opportunities from downloads (starting of course, with Movie Rentals). So rather than in-built super-slim Blu-ray drives, perhaps Apple’s next round of Macbooks and Macbook Pros won’t have in-built optical drives at all?

After much discussion and analysis of Steve Job’s Keynote across the web, Apple’s underlying strategic direction is starting to become more apparent. Of all the items announced, it turns out that the really important move is actually iTunes Movies Rentals.

In reality, this is a huge play. The iTunes music store has been facing more serious competition recently, and along with various spats with the likes of NBC, something needed to be done to reposition iTunes back in the centre of the game. With the introduction of time-bounded Movie Rentals, Apple has cleverly managed to change the game again. Along with healing the previous rifts with all the major Movie Studios, Apple has once again declared that it is determined to be the center of your future media universe - and earn from it.

Of course, whether this plan works out as intended remains to be seen. Initial reports seem positive, but remember - at least initially, this service will be very US focused. (For example, currently there is no mention at all of Movie Rentals on the New Zealand iTunes Store.)

It also throws more light on the other key announcements - the Macbook Air, the AppleTV update, the Time Capsule, and the iPhone update:

(1) The new Macbook Air is pointedly sans physical Ethernet port or optical drive. Of course you can buy the external USB Optical drive if you must, but Steve was keen to emphasise that you ‘won’t really need that’.

(2) The AppleTV update now makes downloading content both direct (no need for another Mac or PC) and very easy. It is essentially now a set-top box, but surprise - no optical drive added.

(3) If you have no writable optical drive, you better have a solid method for wireless backup - hence the new Time Capsule.

(4) Further improvements in Wireless Apps on the iPhone (Google Maps and Webclips) simply strengthen the un-tethered ‘always connected’ wireless paradigm.

And what about the Certified DivX I was hoping for to compete with recent announcements from Sony and Microsoft? Um… nope. We only want you downloading movies that we (Apple) provide.

So, given this strategy, I suspect the next rev of Apple Laptops may NOT have internal optical drives either. Apple may even play up the extra thin-ness that would provide. No doubt the external, purchasable extra DVD drive will be offered, as with the Macbook Air, but probably not a convenient internal Blu-ray drive. Otherwise you could easily watch great HD content without Apple making a dime! No, no, no - Apple wants the most easy and convenient way for you to get quality HD content on to your Mac to be via iTunes.

Personally, I think we are a long way away for this being a viable concept yet. My current broadband contract (in New Zealand) is limited to 10Gb/mth - so any more than 1 HD movie per month (around 4Gb each apparently) and I’d be paying additional charges. Currently, many, many any others would also be in this situation too. Here at least, pricing of unlimited data plans would have to come down first…

However, if you asked Steve Jobs if he thinks the Blu-ray/HD-DVD war is over yet, I suspect he would say ‘Who Cares? The future is wireless iTunes downloads!’

Update (21 Jan 2008): Apparently, HD downloads are not all they’re cracked up to be due to huge compression. Check this post out at Gizmodo.

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