Steve Jobs Says No Blu-Ray On The Mac

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Blu-Ray is currently the hottest physical media storage solution out there, in terms of both consuming content and saving it. But why isn’t Blu-Ray on your Mac? Surely, it’s a match made in heaven. Turns out, Steve Jobs doesn’t like it and sees it as being completely beaten by internet downloads, he even compared it to the CD.

‘Siva’, a MacRumors reader complained to Jobs at his e-mail address, complaining about the new Mac Mini not coming with a Blu-Ray drive. Mr. Jobs replied:

Bluray 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.

Siva aruged that in the short-term, Blu-ray would be nice on the Mac, and he said that the lack of DRM, combined with filesharing sources (hello, Napster) is what elevated the MP3. Jobs disagrees.

No, free, instant gratification and convenience (likely in that order) is what made the downloadable formats take off. And the downloadable movie business is rapidly moving to free (Hulu) or rentals (iTunes) so storing purchased movies or TV shows is not an issue.

I think you may be wrong – we may see a fast broad move to streamed free and rental content at sufficient quality (at least 720p) to win almost everyone over.

So, we get the point – but why is Apple still on the board of the Blu-Ray Disc Association?

That’s right – Apple is one of the big companies that runs the Blu-Ray Disc Association, along with HP, Dell, Sony and a handful of other companies. It costs $50,000 to be a board member – surely a small fee to the second biggest company in the world (based on market cap), but somebody is writing the checks to them.

According to Wikipedia – the Board companies are elected from the “Contributor” companies, which includes a lot more companies, including some lesser known ones. It’s possible that the other companies elected Apple for whatever reason – but that doesn’t explain why Apple is invovled in the Blu-Ray Association.

Microsoft and Toshiba were burned in Blu-Ray’s victory over HD-DVD in the great Format War. They’re not members. Jobs appears to have no regard for the Blu-Ray format – and Apple has no interest in being on the board. Being on the board allows the companies of vote on overall policy and format standards. So, tinfoil time, is Apple on the Blu-Ray board to destroy it from within?

There’s the other matter of Jobs’ connection with Disney/Pixar. They’re Blu-Ray supporters – despite Jobs’ (who, don’t forget, holds more shares in Disney than any other man) opposition to it. It’s possible that Disney is invovled in Blu-Ray because of customers’ desire for HD home video. Jobs probably could try to kill it from within, and might make things interesting, but in the end, physical media is dying and some boardroom power play to get Disney to abandon Blu-Ray won’t make a difference.

The Mac Pro used to offer a BD-RW drive as a build option, but that was purely for backing up. A quick look at Apple.com, and it looks like you can no longer order a Mac Pro with such drives.

Should Blu-Ray drives be in the Mac computers? Chime in below.