Apple has discontinued the sale of the white Macbooks today. Now a version of the Macbook Air is $999.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388773,00.asp

Is the Macbook Pro next?

Macbook has cannibalized MBP 13 inch's sale for awhile. Apple has increased the entry level for Mac convert. The discouraging thing for me would be Apple's intention to get away from dvd drive. Look at the new mac mini. I hope the next MBP still retain the dvd drive.

Folks said the same thing way back when apple decided to stop using the floppy drive ^^^

Now that Netflix has decided to screw over DVD users (with their 60% price increase), my DVD ripping will now drop from rare to never. So I'm happy with Apple's move...why pay for a drive that you'll never use?

I'm honestly curious, since I hear this a lot (that users don't care about/need a cd/dvd drive)... Do you plan to just throw out any current CD/DVD media you own then? Or to re-buy it digitally?

I guess the floppy to CD stuff never affected me, since I was technical enough to get my data off the floppies, young enough that I didn't have much in the way of media on floppy, and because I can still plug a floppy into my computer anytime I want, if I really need to use it. Seems like, especially with DRM, that's a much different proposition now.

I guess I get not caring about the use of it for the future, but I hate seeing currently usable hardware disappear today because people won't use DVDs in a decade (and yes, I understand you can get an external drive).

For music, I have everything ripped since CDs have been worse than files for five years. For movies and console games, I still have stuff in the living room that can play them, but I'm probably not buying more, and ripping is too much work for a movie.

I haven't bought computer games on optical media since Steam came out in 2003. On-line software distribution doesn't have the awful DRM that disc-based does, especially since the distributors I use are very consumer-friendly (Steam allows thirty days of offline use, iOS and Mac App Stores allow indefinite offline use).

I removed the DVD drive from my MacBook over a year ago, and I haven't missed it. Apple isn't removing it because "people won't use DVDs in a decade," they're removing it because they don't think people who don't use DVDs today need to subsidize and carry extra weight around for people who do.

I haven't bought an audio CD in years.
I haven't bought a DVD in years.
I did watch Netflix DVD's...no more.
I have bought movies from itunes, and will continue. I'll also continue to stream Netflix.

I have a usb DVD drive, but I think I've used it once.

Like the parallel port, why continue to add something that is used once in a blue moon?

Hm, fair enough. It's interesting to me, given that most of the people I know still have a huge collection of physical media. I can certainly understand that we may not be (aren't?) a representative sample of anything, but it seems like the choice to remove a physical media platform entirely is 'premature'. But then, I can certainly just buy an external if more laptops start to move in that direction.

Everyone's mileage varies, but I've used a CD-Rom (or DVD) maybe 3 or 4 times in the last year, despite being a computer professional.

I do find I use USB sticks somewhat frequently and portable USB hard drives daily.

Lots of my co-workers freak out at the idea of not having a CD-Rom drive so I've always had a USB one in my desk but just realized recently when I stumbled across it that I can't remember the last time I used it.

But what about your Blu-Rays?

I watch Blu-Rays from my home theater collection on my Vaio TT all the ti...oh, right. Never mind.

Also I burn CAD/CAM and photos/image files to CD/DVD all the time to give to clients, colleagues, friends, etc. Should I just buy a bunch of 1 or 2 GB SD cards and give those away instead? A Laptop without a CD/DVD burner is useless to me and carrying a USB optical drive defeats the purpose of a 2.8 lb laptop.

I would say that on it's face it is a dumb move but of course Apple's motivations are to kill a costly third production tier and force their customers into buying the more expensive MacBook Pro.

I am sure that many an Apple - ahem - fan, will applaud the decision and thank Apple for relieving them of the burden of having too many choices.

Let me see you use your Mac Mini on the plane sometime.

The Macbook Air is a dream for travelers and much, much faster than anything else.
Definitely worth the upgrade. You won't regret it!

Welcome to Earth. What planet do you come from?

Even though my ps3 plays Blue Rays, I still pop it in on my laptop. Seeing as I don’t play games anymore I find the convenience of having a blue ray drive on the laptop as it saves me the hassle of taking out the PS3 and hooking it up for a movie.

My 4 year old macbook is faster than macbook air.