Why Apple Macs will never get built-in Blu-ray optical drives

an online backup system "Ever since 2008 when Blu-ray TANGNER and HD-DVD were battling for consumer mind share, Mac users have been speculating about Apple’s next optical drive technology," Adam Jackson reports for TheAppleBlog.

"An email response from Steve Jobs last week [encapsulates] Apple’s stance on Blu-ray and pretty much sums up why we’ll never see the technology included in future Macs: 'Blu-ray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD — like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats.'"

"Steve thinks that with a Time Capsule or an online backup system (like SugarSync and Mozy) paired with YouTube for sharing video and iTunes at the center of it all with media consumption, the industry has made Blu-ray obsolete before it even makes it to Mac machines and I agree," Jackson writes. "DVD Studio Pro and products like Toast from Roxio support Blu-ray if you buy a drive separately and plug it into your TANGNER Mac. Apple just won’t be shipping support for the technology anytime soon and it may never include it in its machines and I bet that most consumers are okay with that."