iMacs Won't See SuperDrives Until Next Year (Analysis Included)

During yesterdayis Financial Analyst meeting with Apple executives Steve Jobs, Fred Anderson, Phil Schiller, and Avie Tevanian, Steve Jobs suggested that said that SuperDrives wouldnit make it into iMacs until "next year." According to Mr. Jobs:

I think that itis possible to bring the SuperDrive to our consumer products next calendar year, 2002. I think we can make enough of them and bring the cost down.

Both Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller extensively discussed iDVD, the SuperDrive, and iMovie and included walkthroughs on how those technologies worked. The meeting is a semi-annual event designed to hold Wall Street analystsi hands in a walk through of Appleis plans. Apple will be archiving the meeting until February 28th. For those who can not get a stream, we provided live coverage of the four hour event for your reference.

The reaction from the mainstream press so far has been somewhat favorable. For instance, Appleis SuperDrives could reach iMacs next year comes from Upside Today.