My theory on why Apple isn't including Blu-ray drives in Macs

You could not have gotten Cringely's article any more wrong if you tried. Cringely wrote that the reason there's no Blu-Ray in Apple hardware is because Jobs is tying inclusion of it to Sony agreeing to license its catalog to iTMS.

I think the price is primary issue for now. Apple's have been on the cutting edge with new media types and speedy interface before but it doesn't seem totally feasible here. They're committed to Blu-Ray but the format is too new and has sputtered to market. There isn't even a solid 3rd party option with burning, playback and compatibility with both OS's (if you go the Boot Camp route).

They had this problem with CDs' with plus R or minus R for read write capabilities, my powerbook g4 will only read minus R. If I had waited another version it would have been able to read both.

It seems prudent to wait for a drive that can read both types of Blue disc before building it in as OEM.

I don't think they even read the Cringely article.

According to his theory Apple is withholding their potential Blue-ray business from Sony until Sony makes their movie library available via to Apple for the iTMS. It's got nothing to do with the standards war going on. Apple has already picked a side any ways.

It is not VHS vs Betamax again. It's even less significant. VHS / Betamax were different technologies in terms of the video codec.

HD-DVD and BluRay are just ways of squeezing more info onto a disc, either could use any video format they want. How important the disc capacity will be for high quality video down the road - i don't know, what I think will win it is price and ubiquity (something HD-DVD seems to be sneaking ahead on).

There are no Blue-Ray drives on the Mac Pro because Sony is having difficulties to manufacture enough lasers for them. It is believed that almost all lasers they're producing are being directed to the PS3 to be launched very soon.
When PS3 distribution settles there'll be Blue-Ray drives for everybody.

Everyone assumes that Apple has already decided that blu-ray is the format they will support, but if you look at Apple's public statements it is clear that they support both blu-ray and hd-dvd, I think they are waiting for a clear winner to emerge.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/17hd.html

"Apple is committed to both emerging high definition DVD standards—Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. Apple is an active member of the DVD Forum which developed the HD DVD standard, and last month joined the Board of Directors of the Blu-ray Disc Association."

The iTS, (formerly iTMS), rationale is the right answer to the wrong question. It's the right answer to why there's no PVR (i.e. Tivo) device made by Apple. On the optical drives, I'd say your theory is right. Hardware implementations are out for months, years on the PC side, before they are the hot new items on Macs (dual-channel memory for example).
blu-ray should prevail.

Neither format is going to "win" over plain ol' DVD for the simple reason that the average consumer (who isn't a tech nerd) isn't going to understand/care about the difference between Blue-Ray and HD-DVD.
HD-DVD has a slightly higher chance of becoming the new standard, though, for the simple reason that it's got "DVD" in it's name.

Otherwise, Sony is just wasting it's money trying to force a Blu-Ray on us.
Like others here have said, the next technological leap in this area is going to come in downloadable content and flash drive media.

I agree with #11 and #14:
A. HD-DVD and BluRay internal drives are barely on the market, let alone in a low-cost price
B. Apple has left room in the Mac Pro for users to put in a HD drive of their choice. Why in the Mac Pro only? Because those users are most likely to be an early adopter market
C. DVD-RAM--in my opinion Apple jumped on the bandwagon and felt the sting of it. they're less likely to go forward and risk it again