Ditch the CD!

[Doshy]

I really enjoy the planetarium feature on the disc each month, not only to help me find interesting things to observe, but also for the discussion that it usually features too.

+1

[jonathan]

A cynic might suggest that the lack of an optical drive in Apple products is a deliberate marketing strategy to encourage people to use Apple's "cloud"-based services because once you've done that it makes migration from Apple products in the future more difficult and that it may reflect a general view in Apple that their target market is not people who are not affluent enough to live somewhere there is high bandwidth internet connectivity.

James

You could say exactly the same about Microsoft and Windows, who are all of a sudden now pushing the same cloud-based storage and digital software delivery in Windows 8, and also tablet-style Windows 8 computers (which are not upgradable aside from maybe an SD card for storage, shock horror!)

[jonathan]

All my computers have optical drives, two of them Blu-Ray, but I'd still ditch the cover CD.

Oh, and apples are not the only fruit (Or computers for that matter), who cares if they don't have an optical drive?

My point was that their entire range no longer use them. They ditched it as they ditched the floppy, and then soon afterwards PC manufacturers followed suit. A few years from now I doubt anyone will be hankering after software on a CD, not for current systems and software anyway, DVDs will probably be by special request only.

[JamesF]

You could say exactly the same about Microsoft and Windows, who are all of a sudden now pushing the same cloud-based storage and digital software delivery in Windows 8, and also tablet-style Windows 8 computers (which are not upgradable aside from maybe an SD card for storage, shock horror!)

The thought had crossed my mind, certainly. Fortunately I am not particularly dependent on either.

James

[JamesF]

My point was that their entire range no longer use them. They ditched it as they ditched the floppy, and then soon afterwards PC manufacturers followed suit. A few years from now I doubt anyone will be hankering after software on a CD, not for current systems and software anyway, DVDs will probably be by special request only.

I think floppies really died because there was a more convenient and robust removable storage medium. I'm not particularly convinced that USB sticks are a viable replacement for CD/DVD/Blu-ray yet. I think it's likely that tablets and netbooks might well come without a CD or DVD drive (my Aspire One is years old and doesn't have anything like that), but I imagine some sort of optical disc storage is going to be around for quite a while yet.

James

[reddoss]

As I have had two of my DSO image published in the Hot Shots section of the cover disc, it's a NO from me. Keep the CD as it has many other useful features such as the free software etc.