(And the Apple SuperDrive doesn't even need a power cord.)

It's a simple matter of plugging in the USB SuperDrive or any other DVD / BD burner. Pros who really, truly need to burn discs will be slightly inconvenienced. What do you think? Do you still need to burn discs, or read optical media? Is Apple making as strategic error by getting rid of SuperDrives? Sound off in the comments. I think we'll be able to handle this transition just fine. Will we miss SuperDrives once they're gone for good? It didn't take us too long to adapt to life without floppy drives. Without getting any sort of refresh, the $1,199 MacBook Pro is relegated to legacy model status and won't be long for this world. And I bet that won't be around for too long. Now it's down to one last Mac with an optical drive: the entry-level MacBook Pro. Design plays into every decision that Apple makes, too, so excising the drive makes it possible for them to build slimmer and smaller devices as well. But Apple's decided the optical drive is just no longer mandatory equipment. That's not to say there's no need for optical storage anymore, and that's why Apple continues to offer an external USB-based SuperDrive (the Mac works with any number of cheap commodity CD/DVD burners available from online retailers, too). With hundreds of GB to back up, you're better off using an external hard drive. Even as a backup and archival medium, optical drives are coming up short. Fewer of us buy software on disc, we download it from the Mac App Store and other services. And the world has definitely moved in that direction - fewer of us rent DVD movies, we stream them from Netflix or rent them from iTunes and other services.

When the old 'cheese grater'-style aluminum Mac Pro got discontinued earlier this year, that left two machines in Apple's product line with internal optical drives: both 'standard' MacBook Pros.Īpple envisions its customers as less and less dependent on optical media thanks to the increasing availability of fast Internet connections. Then in 2012 Apple introduced MacBook Pros with Retina Displays and iMacs, all of which got rid of the drives. Fast-forward to 2011 and the Mac mini, which was refreshed mid-year and was the first Mac mini model (outside of Apple's server model) to lose the optical drive.

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