Apple rant & suggestions

I had a friend talking to me about buying an iMac the other day and asking me what I thought. Now I don't own a Mac but I have supported and used the iMac in various job roles over the years and I've grown more accepting of the platform. Especially since they moved to Intel processors and had bootcamp come along. I advised it wasn't a bad choice as he's also musically orientated in his work / hobbies and I think he'd love software such as GarageBand.


Out of curiosity I was browsing the iMac product specifications and I seriously don't get some of the  hardware choices.


I can forgive things like eSATA being left out in favour of the new Thunderbolt interface but the rather confusing part for me when it comes to Apple is:


The iMac is a multimedia machine if you look at the specs, but if you look at the back you only have one analogue input / output port (well two if you count the headphones jack as well). No optical out.... No 5.1 jacks....


Next up is Video playback.. Not a problem you say? Correct! but just go and try and stick a Blu-ray disc in your iMac.... Yep, thats right, Apples 'supper drive' still doesn't support Blu-ray discs. If my PC can do it with a £50 addition I sure as hell would expect a iMac to. It's the creative industries choice workstation after all....


Ok, to counter my comments. I'm sure you can get add-on devices for sound output and for Blu-ray drives. iTunes and various other content provider offer downloadable services for movies but should I limited to these options and not be able to purchase physical media.


Come on Apple, you have some of the best displays on the market ( 2560x1440 pixels on the 27" iMac)! Actually on that topic, a touch screen OLED display would be awesome as well. Better quality OLED displays are set for 2012/13 and Tim Cook could do well to bring a few of these 'innovations' (I love how they use the word innovation to mean "we brought it to market in a user friendly way") to Apple to show everyone he's picked up the baton properly from Steve Jobs (RIP) and it's full steam ahead.