Weekly Poll: Will Apple Adopt Blu-ray?

Apple is known for often being one of the fore-runners in adopting new technologies – Firewire, ExpressCard, and Mini DisplayPort spring to mind. But equally, the company can be ruthless about dropping the inclusion of features they no longer feel to be relevant.

Blu-ray is an interesting outlier, and it isn’t obvious whether Apple is planning to adopt the technology yet. As themselves a video distributor through the iTunes Store, choosing to include an optical format that’s almost exclusively used for HD films would not necessarily be in their competitive interest.

Apple is a purveyor of the benefits of downloadable content – whether that be apps, music, or HD movies and TV shows. It even seems that they’d ultimately like to move away from optical media altogether, as is the case with the MacBook Air.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with this. I rarely use the DVD drive in the MacBook Pro – a couple of times per year at most – and I wouldn’t think twice before purchasing a machine with no optical drive at all. I don’t own any Blu-ray equipment or media, and am content downloading HD content from the iTunes Store.

But do you feel the same? Or is it Apple’s duty to support a wide range of formats – especially widespread standards such as Blu-ray? I’d love to hear your thoughts!