It's about time they sold something like that. I haven't used my optical drive for anything except the OS X installation and recovery disk.

I'm assuming that this means that target disk mode now works with USB again.

Did the target disk mode ever work with USB? I’m also not sure whether that means anything, I think you have been able to boot from a plethora of devices including USB sticks for ages. Target disk mode for USB sure would be nice, though.

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I thought booting worked from USB, then Apple removed that option for some reason, probably technical, and now it looks like it came back.

My 2007 iMac boots from USB - in fact, since its internal drive died it's running permanently from an external drive. PowerPC Macs couldn't boot from USB (but could from FireWire), but as far as I'm aware all Intel Macs can.

Target Disk Mode is something else, and wouldn't really work over USB since it has a host/device model which FireWire doesn't.

Looks like USB without the box around the contacts.

But with rounded contacts! You know somewhere they had a meeting about how rectangular contacts would be off-brand.

Which have been available for years I would add. I had a white plastic one (without the hole in the back) in 2006. Just saying, as with most things Apple, it's not a massive innovation.

Wonder if Lion will come on a USB dongle instead of a DVD.

I wonder if Ubuntu could do something similar