Old technologies are holding us back: Apple marketing chief

With the launch of the new iMacs and new range of MacBook Pro notebooks, Apple has done away with optical drives that are a mainstay on products from other vendors. In an interview with Time, Apple's marketing chief, Phil Schiller has explained the reason behind the exclusion, and stated that optical drives are a hindrance to Apple's plans.Commenting on the lack of the optical drive, Schiller said, “These old technologies are holding us back. They’re anchors on where we want to go.” Elaborating on the exclusion, he went on to say, “We find the things that have outlived their useful purpose. Our competitors are afraid to remove them. We try to find better solutions — our customers have given us a lot of trust. It actually comes from similar thinking as with the portables. In general, it’s a good idea to remove these rotating medias from our computers and other devices. They have inherent issues — they’re mechanical and sometimes break, they use power and are large. We can create products that are smaller, lighter and consume less power.”

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