Another format dies
I remember when the iMac was first launched there was a lot made of the fact that it didn't have a drive for a floppy disk.
Industry pundits all proclaimed this a massive mistake. Of course it wasn't as the floppy is now long gone.
Same sort of fuss surrounded the launch of the Macbook Air which had no disc drive.
At the time Apple said it was to help keep the weight down and the profile slim.
Of course critics argued it was a major oversight.
Today comes news that Windows 7 may be sold on a USB stick.
This is apparently in response to the fact that most netbooks don't have a disc drive.
Which obviously means that once again where Apple go others follow.
And that the disk as a format may already be on its last legs.
posted by Stan Lee at 11:24 am
5 Comments:
last week i finally got to see some awesome usb-style innovation: batteries from usb. they connect to your comp and/or hub charger and then used as ordinary AAs... no need to continually buy cheap crap batteries ever again. if you need them at all, of course :)
i once handed in a gallery application on a USB, instead of a CD. it felt very mature at the time. i think i might start doing that again.. heh.
May I forward this to my university? I still had to hand up an assignment on a floppy disk three years ago.
There's only one Mac exclusion which has never caught on...the right click
@katherineliew if you think it is bad handing in assignments on CD then you better hope you don’t work in business to government. Regularly I have to hand in tender responses that must be 3 hard copies (1 marked original and 2 marked copy 1 and copy 2) as well as a soft copy of CD.
@Stan. I think that no CD drive is slightly different to no floppy as CD’s/DVD’s still get used in other media. E.g. burn DVD’s for watching on t.v. This may take a little longer to die but new TVs now have PC input.
It just means that users have to buy a DVD burner … I bet the computer isn’t cheaper without a DVD slot.
I have one of those nice sleek Dell mini netbooks ... and when I had to reinstall the operating system, I had to come up with an elaborate system to get it to work.
While I am all for simplicity, sometimes it is just the manufacturers being cheap. And while I don't actually want a CD/DVD drive on the netbook, I do want convenience. Oh, and I want it now!
@Daniel Not CD - 3 and a quarter floppy! Thankfully we're a family of hoarders.
I suppose I should have been glad it wasn't a 5 and 3/4!
@Gavin I'm surprised nobody's taken up the niche of external CD/DVD drives yet...
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