Apple’s USB SuperDrive might be gone for good

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The CD/DVD drive sold out or unavailable on Apple’s online store.

By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.

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A photo of Apple’s USB SuperDrive.

Image: Apple

Apple’s USB SuperDrive is showing up in Apple’s online stores as “sold out or unavailable in all countries,” MacRumors reports, which could indicate that Apple has discontinued the CD / DVD player.

It’s not a huge surprise that Apple might be done with the SuperDrive. The product first launched with the original MacBook Air, which didn’t have an optical drive, in 2008, so it’s quite old. The SuperDrive was shown as “sold out” online on Apple’s US online store earlier this year. And physical media just isn’t as widely used as it once was, even though there have been multiple recent reminders of why digital ownership sucks.

Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. The company’s listing for the SuperDrive is still on Apple’s online store, so you can take a look if you want to reminisce about how it would help you “watch a DVD movie, install software, create backup discs, and more.” Good times.

(Of course, if you do need an external optical drive, you can always buy one that’s not made by Apple.)

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