Will Apple finally launch Blu-ray at Macworld?

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 14 January 2008 06:41

Opinion and Analysis

A blue Mac? We haven’t seen once since the original ‘Bondi Blue’ iMacs in the late 90s, but if the rumours that Apple are finally about to include Blu-ray players (and potentially burners) in the Mac range pans out during this week’s Macworld, a ‘Blu’ Mac could well be back!
Although officially supporting Blu-ray from the start, no official Blu-ray player/burners have been shipped by Apple in any of their desktop and portable computers.

Now, with intense speculation that HD DVD is the ‘high definition dead video disc’ following Warner’s high-def defection, a tinge of blue may finally appear on Apple’s white, silver and black computers.

The speculation before each year’s Macworld always rises to wild levels as Steve Jobs’ keynote draws ever closer, even more so now thanks to the Variety report that Universal, New Line and Paramount are considering ditching their allegiance to the HD DVD standard, potentially putting an end to the optical disc format war once and for all.

Shaw Wu, analyst at ‘American Technology Research’, has previously predicted a Blu-ray Mac would be launched, but given that this ‘prediction’ is a no-brainer thanks to Apple’s membership of the Blu-ray Assocation, this is hardly a surprise.

Instead, Wu has decided to make his predictions more outrageous by predicting Apple will launch a combo Blu-ray/HD DVD reader. Perhaps they’re going cheap now that HD DVD seems close to death.

What will be far more important than any ‘read’ only device is the inclusion of a burner.

The ability to read – and burn – 50GB discs is what will excite the Mac-loving masses far more than any wussy player, so the pressure is on for Jobs to bite the bullet and help make Blu-ray the true successor to the DVD – while also launching the much rumoured ‘ultra thin MacBook Nano with flash drive’, alongside whatever other surprises Steve Jobs has in store for us all.

One thing we’re not likely to see, however: An ultra-thin MacBook with an internal Blu-ray drive. Or an iPhone with a built-in Blu-ray drive.

But an iMac and the Mac Pro line with a Blu-ray drive of some kind? It’s been expected for so long now that if Blu-ray goes missing once again, it will be one decision that really will seem to have come from out of the blue.