“Apple has decreed death to 32-bit apps on Macs, but DVD Player is now the only remaining 32-bit application included within macOS High Sierra’s already 64-bit default software stack,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “It means an essential software component used by thousands of Mac users to watch video on their machines has no future.”
“I guess it’s easy to argue that with so much media content streamed or purchased online these days, there’s less need for an optical drive than there once was,” Evans writes. “These days, the only way to get hold of a DVD reading/writing optical drive is to invest in a $79 Apple SuperDrive — and if you use a modern MacBook Pro equipped with Thunderbolt 3, then you need to get a USB-C to USB Adapter to connect the device to your Mac.”
“This lack of compatibility at the high end of the Apple-verse is surely a clear message that the future of the Apple accessory doesn’t look bright,” Evans writes. “This fate isn’t entirely unexpected. Apple’s been phasing out optical drives in its Macs since it introduced the MacBook Air in 2008.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Time marches on.
Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. — Steve Jobs
SEE ALSO:
The right way to convert your Blu-ray or DVD movies for Apple TV and iTunes – October 17, 2017
How to rip DVDs and Blu-ray discs with MakeMKV and Handbrake – March 13, 2017
HandBrake 1.0.0 released after 13 years in development – December 27, 2016
The super what?
I can’t remember the last time I used a cd or dvd.
So mine, should I want to use it, won’t work? Even though the connecting hardware is present?
No it’ll work fine, the OS plays dvd natively in recent beta builds without DVD player, and there are a couple hundred third party 64 bit options. For data it’ll work exactly the same, and nothing changes. Also I suspect that DVD player will remain until macs with optical drives (2012 Mac Pro & MacBook Pro) until they are no longer supported. About 3 years, given recent history.
Thanks. So they will be killing it by no longer offering it then…
I just remembered…
It’s also intentionally firmware crippled to only work with certain Macs and not at all with PCs. They actually put effort into it to cripple it!
Just get a usb bluray player and burner from Amazon
Yep. Even the ones in my old Mac Pro stopped working or the door that opens it (an unnecessary Apple design feature that turns ugly in old age) refuses to work properly.
You’ve have no other choice with current portable models now for some time. I still rip the occasional CD and burn Blu-Rays of projects for promotional purposes.
Third-party external drives are still available if needed. Some can be had for less than $30.
Fake news.
Just to be clear they are getting Rid of the DVD Player software, not the ability to connect to the Super Drive.
Correct, and the DVD software will probably still be there until macs that have built in SuperDrives cease to be supported. (2012 non retina MacBook Pro’s & Mac Pro’s)
Then I just won’t upgrade. Still use it because others use them.
Agree..
i have a ton of archives on optical disks that i access once in a while..
What should i do.. rip them to a hard drive… ??
Apple is becoming way to minimilistic at the cost of convenience and ergonomics… ( these are work tool after all )
Their clutter free philosophy only looks/sounds good in a vacuum. Its not a ‘clutter free’ philosophy….. Its a ‘clutter scatter’ philosophy.
A real Apple work station/desk, now, is cluttered with dongles and external drives hubs and wires instead. Messy ..
It seems like greediness, disguised as the quest for thinness, to me.
Not to a hard drive, use a flash drives. Flash drives are better as they’re hardier than optical, take up less space to store and are less likely than optical recordable media to become unreadable in the next 10-20 years.
Yes, I use the dvd drive in my iMac at least two or three times a week.
Macs have superdrives still?!
About 2 years ago I bought my wife an external Blu-ray player for her 2013 MacBook Pro. We found third party software for watching Blu-ray movies. Works very well.
I lost access to my iTunes library when I did a clean install of High Sierra using the new filing system and leaving my external drive plugged in. (Lost access to Time Machine too thanks to daisy chaining the thunderbolt drives.). Decided it was easier to re-rip ~400 CDs than try to recreate my library from the files the data recovery software found.
Thanks to the USB3 interface, the Blu-ray drive is much faster than my SuperDrive. Given there are third party alternatives Apple should drop production of the SuperDrive. It is not so super anymore. In addition those of us who prefer to own physical copies of our media, seem to be shrinking in numbers.
Oh and Apple had to give me a brand new iPhone 6 Plus after THEY botched a battery replacement at an Apple store.
Apple has disappointed me in so many ways over the past few years. If you are reading this then you know all the issues.
Long live physical media, “dumb” speakers, wired headphones, and the 3.5 mm jack! 🙂
about 3 times a year I need to burn a cd-dvd data disk and send it someplace. It would suck not to have that anymore.
I guess I need to order about 10 small usb thumb drives just in case… they cost about $6 each. I still have about 50 blank dvds…..
I use the DVD player a lot. Downloading works nice for recent movies but it is not an option for many medical or technical videos.
Unfortunately, DVD player will play a lot of videos that VLC will not.
Recompiling an app into 64 bit takes very little work. So it could be done quickly and inexpensively if Apple so chooses. The fact that Apple has yet to do speaks volumes.
High priced computer that are slowly becoming less and less useful to those of us who aren’t interested in the latest flick from Hollywood.
P.S. I’m not an Apple hater, just a frustrated user. In the last year I have purchased over $10,000 in equipment from Apple. I am well aware of their strong points and weaknesses.
Any USB DVD drive will work with a Mac. Far less expensive than the Apple-branded drive. I think the one I keep on standby costs $21. It is an LG. I haven’t used it for quite a while and when I do use it, it is for document transfer, not watching DVDs. One hinderance with Apple’s built-in DVD playback software was that you could not Airplay it to an Apple TV. If you use something like VLC, you can Airplay your screen and not have to worry about that. I think this is one thing they can let go.
Optical discs are not dead. To this day, BluRay and SACD offer the best quality video and audio of any source, period. Apple doesn’t care, quality is no longer “in their DNA”. Expensive thin passion is what Apple sells now.
Apple long ago chose to push low quality media rental instead.
In the drive of my Mac this very moment is a CD: Dave Meniketti, “On the Blue Side”. It sounds infinitely better than any music service offering from Apple, and Superdrives don’t cost a monthly fee.
Apple is just trying too hard to be Big Brother, forcing rental computing and destroying the reputation it built when it cared about PERSONAL computing.
Steve Jobs described the licensing requirements (software as well as fees) as a “Bag of Hurt”.
Almost as big a mistake as hiring Cook.
cheap on Apple’s part.
a tiny fractional licence cost above what Apple already pays for all the other discs Superdrives support.
“Apple has disappointed me in so many ways over the past few years. If you are reading this then you know all the issues.”
Nobody considers scale when they complain about Apple’s “service” or product quality.
When Apple had half as many buyers/users of its products you hardly ever heard of product quality issues. That’s because <1% problem rate didn't amount to very many and as a consequence was reported in the blogosphere proportionately. Today the same problem rate against a much, much larger user base results in many, many more problem reports, even though actual problems expressed as a percent of sales hasn't changed.
You can actually see Apple's problem rate expressed in its quarterly 10Q filings as Warranty Expense. Expressed as a percent of revenue it has actually declined (minimally) over the past 5 years.
Apple's quality control "problem" is actually an expanding user base. Larger user base results in more problems being reported, while the problem rate has not changed.
You don’t have any evidence that “the problem rate has not changed”. Total BS. Anyone using Apple devices for the last 5-10 years has seen the software/OS quality-control degeneration firsthand.
You have it right, and High Sierra is the worst POS upgrade Apple has forced on us yet. I’ve been a Mac enthusiast for 30 years and managed fleets of Macs and iOS devices for about 15, and today I stopped the gradual rollout of macOS 10.13.4 to my current fleet due to all the compatibility and performance issues being reported by my users the past two months. Apple has now become an epic time suck in true MS Windows tradition. And ChromeOS keeps getting better. WTF, Tim Cook?
I use the portable Apple Super Drive to rip CD’s to my MAC mini music server…that had better continue…I don’t see why it would not…Where the hell is the latest MAC Mini????
I can’t believe how many people want to peel their wallets open to buy MAC products and yet the updated products do not exist??? WTF???? Maybe Apple needs more money to do that????? Yea that’s the reason…😳
I have been using the DVD Player for watching movies since the iMac G3 going all the way back to 1999. If Apple hates its users, I guess they’ll keep diminishing usability until us ever growing disgruntled Mac users go elsewhere 😡
-“These days, the only way to get hold of a DVD reading/writing optical drive is to invest in a $79 Apple SuperDrive — and if you use a modern MacBook Pro equipped with Thunderbolt 3, then you need to get a USB-C to USB Adapter to connect the device to your Mac.”-
Apparently the author pulled that one out of his ass and did not do his homework.
The Apple SuperDrive is NOT your only option.
Pioneer makes a BluRay and DVD USB 3 drive, I happen to own one and it works just fine. The DVD app is not required.
https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Computer/Computer+Drives/BDR-XD05B
*snap* I posted links below to two Sonnet optical drives / Thunderbolt 2 docks with storage bay. They’re much more expensive than the Pioneer option.
∑ = Evans apparently didn’t do his homework.
That Pioneer BluRay/DVD/CD Drive is a standard stock option at most Best Buy stores. I use mine to rip BluRays for my home movie library.
There are a lot of ‘Journalists’ out there just pulling stuff out of their arse. Catch stuff like this all the time.
Other World Computing make their own USB 3 Blu-ray/DVD/CD players for sale on their website, alongside the Sonnet drives I linked. I’ve been using their small portable model for years. It works great with ye olde Apple’s 32-bit DVD Player, as well as VLC, MPlayer, Toast, HandBrake, iMovie, QuickTime, and at least a dozen other apps with built-in standard player code. Only the Sonnet drives have a native Thunderbolt port. But buying a USB-C to USB 3/2 cable for isn’t going to break anyone’s bank at $19 standard price.
…the only way to get hold of a DVD reading/writing optical drive is to invest in a $79 Apple SuperDrive — and if you use a modern MacBook Pro equipped with Thunderbolt 3, then you need to get a USB-C to USB Adapter….
NO. Perhaps I’m confused by Evans’ messy semantics. But here are are a couple Thunderbolt optical drives contradicting Evans’ statement:
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technologies/ECHODKBD0TB/
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technologies/ECHODKPRO0TB/