Found your problem there. You're obviously using windows.

This is slashdot, so I'm not surprised you'd be unable to make a conclusion that requires you to think about things in a light other than white or black. I'll spell it out for you. What Apple's good at is not necessarily always coming up with an original idea, but at making an idea or feature actually easy to use. Let me repeat that, so you get it. They're good at making technology easy to use. Got it? What good is a device or application that has every feature you could imagine or want, yet no one understands how to use it, what the feature is, why it matters to them, or how to find it? The current state of user interface on windows and linux is so bad, that Apple probably doesn't even have to try that hard to make something that isn't crap in comparison. So rather than looking down upon every person you feel isn't capable of "dealing" with the complicated windows world, consider most would rather their computers just fucking work. Hope that helps.

If only there were some alternative operating system / computing platform that had DVD support out of the box and was easy to use.

Oh well... </me goes back to using his macbook pro>

You're completely wrong. Universities are forced by the publishers to force new editions on students every (approx.) 2 years. The biggest differences between the editions are that the problems are rearranged. Try getting through a class with a second hand modern edition when all of the problems are different, and the homework is graded. Try getting through calc 4 when the brand new book you bought 2 years ago containing the exact same content isn't the required reading, but instead you have to buy another brand new book to do the homework. I don't blame anybody who photocopies textbooks. The publishers are ripping off people who are already struggling through their educations. I openly admit to taking advantage of my campus bookstore's 7-day return policy for "borrowing" a book for a test or assignment, or to go to the library for some copies. So you may think it's a troll, but I'd like to see you spot the differences between the 7th edition from 2 years ago and the 8th edition the school is currently using, except those problems you must do to pass. Troll to you, a big rip off to me.