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> Apple has an abysmal track record with such changes Really? Apple went all-USB, people complained. USB mice and keyboard became the standard. Apple dropped

> Apple has an abysmal track record with such changes Really? Apple went all-USB, people complained. USB mice and keyboard became the standard. Apple dropped the floppy drive, people complained. No floppy drive became the standard. Apple dropped the CD drive, people complained. No CD drive (on laptops) became the standard. Apple dropped full-size display connectors, people complained. This, too, became the standard on laptops.

c3833174 10y ago
> Apple dropped the CD drive, people complained. No CD drive (on laptops) became the standard. > Apple dropped full-size display connectors, people complained. This, too, became the standard on laptops. You need to step out of that Apple reality distortion field, not every laptop is an ultrabook.
- acdha 10y ago
  Next time you go to a coffee shop, airport or train station, etc. look at the laptops you see and count how many have an optical drive. Yes, some people do still have the older corporate IT bricks but even there the trend has clearly been to optimize for size and battery life. Display connectors are a bit of a confound since e.g. an HDMI connector is already a huge improvement over a VGA/DVI port but are clearly on a similar trajectory.
  - riprowan 10y ago
    Yeah but it isn't like Apple invented the idea of the ultrabook.
    - bryanlarsen 10y ago
      The ultrabook was almost entirely a reaction to the MacBook Air. Read initial press reports about the ultrabook, they make that obvious. Like http://www.pcworld.com/article/246691/ultrabooks_laptops_as_light_as_air.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/246691/ultrabooks_laptops_as_...
      - Tiksi 10y ago
        The MacBook Air was almost entirely a reaction to the eeePC. Probably not really, but just as much as ultrabooks were to the macbook air.
        TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
        Yes, the MacBook Air was a reaction to netbooks. But it was a different category of device, a high-end ultraportable. The same category of device that Ultrabooks fit into.
    - acdha 10y ago
      I don't see anyone making that claim. All of the major players experimented with small laptops – just as there were small PowerBooks, there were small ThinkPads, Vaios, etc. going back to the 1980s. – but for a long time the engineering tradeoffs were too extreme.
theandrewbailey 10y ago
People will complain about anything.
untog 10y ago
> Apple dropped full-size display connectors, people complained. This, too, became the standard on laptops. Not really. They had a few generations that just had a DisplayPort connector. Now Macbook Pros have HDMI plugs, which are full sized connectors these days.
riprowan 10y ago
> Apple went all-USB, people complained. USB mice and keyboard became the standard. LOL. Apple started with Apple Desktop Bus and then when that failed they tried unsuccessfully to force Firewire on their users and only caved and went with USB when literally the rest of the world switched to USB. > Apple dropped the floppy drive, people complained. No floppy drive became the standard. I don't think Apple was the first company to make a computer without a floppy. > Apple dropped the CD drive, people complained. No CD drive (on laptops) became the standard. I don't think Apple was the first company to drop the CD drive. Moreover how is "lack of something" a standard? > Apple dropped full-size display connectors, people complained. This, too, became the standard on laptops. You live in a bubble. Did you know that lots / most of non-Apple products use HDMI outputs? Apple has a long history of foisting "nonstandards" on its users (and then selling them God-awfully-expensive cables). Starting with ADB and SCSI, AppleTalk, Firewire, Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, etc. I've been an Apple customer since before the Mac existed, and I've had to put up with Apple's insistence of constantly opposing whatever connector trend was mainstream with the rest of the world.
- acdha 10y ago
  > LOL. Apple started with Apple Desktop Bus and then when that failed they tried unsuccessfully to force Firewire on their users and only caved and went with USB when literally the rest of the world switched to USB. You really need to learn about the subject before trying to “correct” other people: * ADB had a 13 year run starting in 1986: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Desktop_Bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Desktop_Bus * Firewire is a standard (IEEE 1394) and was intended as a replacement for high-performance SCSI interfaces, which is why it focused on transfer speed and scalability at the expense of cost — and was complete overkill for keyboards, mice, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#History_and_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#History_and_developm... * Apple was the first major manufacturer to standardize on USB and helped drive its adoption – in fact, it wasn't until the second generation iMac before they even added a Firewire port: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3#iMac_.28tray-loading.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3#iMac_.28tray-loading.2... This is particularly amusing for anyone who was around in the 90s because back then there were more than a few people like you were decrying USB as Apple's attempt to get consumers to waste a ton of money replacing perfectly good hardware just to have a new connector with, as they felt was obvious, no significant benefit to the user. As for the rest of your “points” do note that you're arguing against “Apple was first” claims which were never made. Each of the actual statements made are simply factual — every time Apple dropped a feature, people complained. They got over it and most of the market turned out not to care but that doesn't mean that there weren't opinion pieces, angry rants, etc.
antisthenes 10y ago
Lack of an optical drive is not a result of innovation by the hardware makers. The ability to install any OS from a USB (as well as USB capacity improvements), streamable music and Steam game libraries as well as overall penetration of broadband simply made including an optical drive pointless from a data density standpoint, especially on laptops, where space is at a premium. The exact case goes for the floppy.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  Sure, it's not an innovation, but dropping it early or first, to push people to move to alternatives, is a bold move.

c3833174 10y ago

> Apple dropped the CD drive, people complained. No CD drive (on laptops) became the standard. > Apple dropped full-size display connectors, people complained. This, too, became the standard on laptops. You need to step out of that Apple reality distortion field, not every laptop is an ultrabook.

acdha 10y ago
Next time you go to a coffee shop, airport or train station, etc. look at the laptops you see and count how many have an optical drive. Yes, some people do still have the older corporate IT bricks but even there the trend has clearly been to optimize for size and battery life. Display connectors are a bit of a confound since e.g. an HDMI connector is already a huge improvement over a VGA/DVI port but are clearly on a similar trajectory.
- riprowan 10y ago
  Yeah but it isn't like Apple invented the idea of the ultrabook.
  - bryanlarsen 10y ago
    The ultrabook was almost entirely a reaction to the MacBook Air. Read initial press reports about the ultrabook, they make that obvious. Like http://www.pcworld.com/article/246691/ultrabooks_laptops_as_light_as_air.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/246691/ultrabooks_laptops_as_...
    - Tiksi 10y ago
      The MacBook Air was almost entirely a reaction to the eeePC. Probably not really, but just as much as ultrabooks were to the macbook air.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
        Yes, the MacBook Air was a reaction to netbooks. But it was a different category of device, a high-end ultraportable. The same category of device that Ultrabooks fit into.
  - acdha 10y ago
    I don't see anyone making that claim. All of the major players experimented with small laptops – just as there were small PowerBooks, there were small ThinkPads, Vaios, etc. going back to the 1980s. – but for a long time the engineering tradeoffs were too extreme.

theandrewbailey 10y ago

People will complain about anything.

untog 10y ago

> Apple dropped full-size display connectors, people complained. This, too, became the standard on laptops. Not really. They had a few generations that just had a DisplayPort connector. Now Macbook Pros have HDMI plugs, which are full sized connectors these days.

riprowan 10y ago

> Apple went all-USB, people complained. USB mice and keyboard became the standard. LOL. Apple started with Apple Desktop Bus and then when that failed they tried unsuccessfully to force Firewire on their users and only caved and went with USB when literally the rest of the world switched to USB. > Apple dropped the floppy drive, people complained. No floppy drive became the standard. I don't think Apple was the first company to make a computer without a floppy. > Apple dropped the CD drive, people complained. No CD drive (on laptops) became the standard. I don't think Apple was the first company to drop the CD drive. Moreover how is "lack of something" a standard? > Apple dropped full-size display connectors, people complained. This, too, became the standard on laptops. You live in a bubble. Did you know that lots / most of non-Apple products use HDMI outputs? Apple has a long history of foisting "nonstandards" on its users (and then selling them God-awfully-expensive cables). Starting with ADB and SCSI, AppleTalk, Firewire, Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, etc. I've been an Apple customer since before the Mac existed, and I've had to put up with Apple's insistence of constantly opposing whatever connector trend was mainstream with the rest of the world.

acdha 10y ago
> LOL. Apple started with Apple Desktop Bus and then when that failed they tried unsuccessfully to force Firewire on their users and only caved and went with USB when literally the rest of the world switched to USB. You really need to learn about the subject before trying to “correct” other people: * ADB had a 13 year run starting in 1986: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Desktop_Bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Desktop_Bus * Firewire is a standard (IEEE 1394) and was intended as a replacement for high-performance SCSI interfaces, which is why it focused on transfer speed and scalability at the expense of cost — and was complete overkill for keyboards, mice, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#History_and_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#History_and_developm... * Apple was the first major manufacturer to standardize on USB and helped drive its adoption – in fact, it wasn't until the second generation iMac before they even added a Firewire port: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3#iMac_.28tray-loading.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3#iMac_.28tray-loading.2... This is particularly amusing for anyone who was around in the 90s because back then there were more than a few people like you were decrying USB as Apple's attempt to get consumers to waste a ton of money replacing perfectly good hardware just to have a new connector with, as they felt was obvious, no significant benefit to the user. As for the rest of your “points” do note that you're arguing against “Apple was first” claims which were never made. Each of the actual statements made are simply factual — every time Apple dropped a feature, people complained. They got over it and most of the market turned out not to care but that doesn't mean that there weren't opinion pieces, angry rants, etc.

antisthenes 10y ago

Lack of an optical drive is not a result of innovation by the hardware makers. The ability to install any OS from a USB (as well as USB capacity improvements), streamable music and Steam game libraries as well as overall penetration of broadband simply made including an optical drive pointless from a data density standpoint, especially on laptops, where space is at a premium. The exact case goes for the floppy.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
Sure, it's not an innovation, but dropping it early or first, to push people to move to alternatives, is a bold move.