CNet News.com reports Apple has switched to Sony DVD writable drives in its latest iMacs. (PowerBooks and PowerMacs appear to still have Phillips mechanisms.) What’s unique about the Sony writers is that they may in fact support Sony-backed DVD+R/W as well as the DVD-R/W format Sony continues to back. (Microsoft this week has leaned towards the “plus” formats.) While the Sony drives are the only available drives with dual capabilities, Apple says only DVD-R/W discs can be burnt on the drives. CNet reports the company won’t say whether that’s a hardware or software limitation.

Is Apple intentionally crippling the drives — only to “unplug” them in software at a later date? And, more importantly, why do we all have to endure this silly platform war in the first place? The two formats have identical capabilities and only very subtle manufacturing and compatibility differences. Come on, vendors, settle this in a duel or something (repeat after me: “There can be only one writable DVD format”) so we can get on with our lives. Oh, and could you please choose DVD-R/W so all of us Mac users don’t have to toss our old drives?