The Case For A MacBook Pro Without An Optical Drive

When Apple introduced the MacBook Air without an optical drive, everyone freaked out. “How on earth will we be able to watch all of our DVDs and listen to our CDs?” cried the internet. And sure, totally disowning physical media with a disk drive-less laptop may have been a little preemptive of Apple back in 2008, but the times have changed since then. We live in a world of digital media and digital software distribution. The success of services like Netflix and the Mac App Store proves that.
With rumors saying that Apple will introduce new and improved Macs in the coming weeks, what can we expect? Faster processors? Solid-state hard drives? Retina displays? While these features certainly seem to be on the table, there’s also the chance that Apple’s next-gen MacBook Pro will sport significant physical changes. Namely, we could finally see the optical drive retire from the MacBook line once and for all.
The MacBook Pro’s physical design has basically stayed the same since its aluminum unibody design was introduced way back in 2008. There hasn’t needed to be new a design because the current one is already fantastic — no other laptop has yet to match it in terms of build quality or design precision.
Apple introduced the new and improved MacBook Air with a gorgeous, tapered, ultra-thin exterior in October of 2010. The sleek, lightweight design of the MacBook Air is widely considered to be the future of Apple’s MacBook line. Heck, Apple even calls it the “future of the notebook” on its website. Call me crazy, but that sounds like foreshadowing.
The current Air weighs only 2.38 pounds, and the casing is only about half an inch thick. This engineering feat is accomplished with the help of Apple’s decision to ditch the optical drive out of the gate. You have to buy an exterior SuperDrive to read disks on the Air. And who really uses their SuperDrive that often? I know I don’t remember when I used mine last.

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