This follows Apple's design philosophy of everything doing exactly what it needs to do to function, and nothing more, or the "nothing left to take away" design approach. The MacBook Air's superdrive is designed to provide a SD for an MBA. Thus, it does absolutely nothing else. No hub, and not compatible with other Macs.
For Apple, the 'correct' place for a superdrive is inside your Mac. Every Mac that has an optical drive has a standard, or BTO superdrive option. Clearly that is the correct answer. Either you need a SD, and you buy it with, or you don't need it and go without.
If you are using a MacBook Air, you clearly should not have an optical drive at all. But if you insist, here, have this slick little proprietary USB one.
So, if you have any other Mac, and need a superdrive, you should have done it the right way, and gotten it with one. If you have an MBA, you can go either way. If you're using some other brand of computer, and want to use the MBA Super drive, you can go fuck yourself. That is Apple's stance. Love them or hate them, they take this stance with everything they do. Sometimes it breeds outstanding results (iPod line), and sometimes it causes flops (apple puck mouse).
So you see this as a missed opportunity, that is, the opportunity to sell the MBA SD to other computer owners who want a portable USB SD. Apple sees it as unnecessary functionality for a problem that has a more elegant solution already.
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Why does Apple do this? Love their stuff, but man, on one hand they are genius and on the other they completely miss the boat.
Maybe, but it seems to me apple are doing a very good job of steering the boat where they want it.
They are secretly owned by China because they love communism.
This follows Apple's design philosophy of everything doing exactly what it needs to do to function, and nothing more, or the "nothing left to take away" design approach. The MacBook Air's superdrive is designed to provide a SD for an MBA. Thus, it does absolutely nothing else. No hub, and not compatible with other Macs.
For Apple, the 'correct' place for a superdrive is inside your Mac. Every Mac that has an optical drive has a standard, or BTO superdrive option. Clearly that is the correct answer. Either you need a SD, and you buy it with, or you don't need it and go without.
If you are using a MacBook Air, you clearly should not have an optical drive at all. But if you insist, here, have this slick little proprietary USB one.
So, if you have any other Mac, and need a superdrive, you should have done it the right way, and gotten it with one. If you have an MBA, you can go either way. If you're using some other brand of computer, and want to use the MBA Super drive, you can go fuck yourself. That is Apple's stance. Love them or hate them, they take this stance with everything they do. Sometimes it breeds outstanding results (iPod line), and sometimes it causes flops (apple puck mouse).
So you see this as a missed opportunity, that is, the opportunity to sell the MBA SD to other computer owners who want a portable USB SD. Apple sees it as unnecessary functionality for a problem that has a more elegant solution already.