A complete redesign? Thoughts on Santa Rosa, Robson, and 1.8 " drives.
The pretty solid confirmation of a sub-notebook has everyone pretty excited. And there is great discussion erupting around it. But what I am wondering about is the possibility of a complete redesign of the entire Macbook Pro line to become more thin, in addition to an ultra-portable or sub-notebook made by Apple. Not just a single model ultra-portable. Let me extrapolate.
The design of the Macbook Pro is still modern, but dated by Apple's design standards. The basic form factor originated in the Titanium on January 1st, 2001 over SIX years ago, and saw "refinements" with the Aluminum models to present day.
I long for a complete redesign. It is time.
Let's start with what we know:
1) Intel's new Santa Rosa platform is going to be available this March. Featuring Robson flash memory caching.
2) Thin 1.8" ultra-portable hard drives are now available in 100GB and 120GB models by Toshiba and Seagate.
3) LED-LCD's are currently available and are both more thin, and less power hungry.
4) Apple has recently filed for at least one patent indicating that they are researching new methods to reduce the thickness of a notebook via creative optical drive placement.
Let me get straight to the point. The Robson flash-caching should eliminate most performance drawbacks to implementing slower 1.8" drives. And with the size of the 1.8" drives it may be possible to fit two into the 15" and 17" Macbook Pro's. LED-LCD's are going into the line-up for their enhanced performance and thinness all around. And creative optical drive placement means could mean keeping an optical disc drive for larger desktop-replacement models (i.e. the 15.4" and 17" Macbook Pro's) while still making them dramatically more thin. For an ultra-portable, dropping the optical drive is not a problem (and carry a peripheral if necessary or dock it). How often do you really use your optical drive?
And now for:
5) NAND Flash capacities will continue to grow, as will 1.8" HDD capacities. Meaning that a radically thin new form factor will have legs to grow.
Before the release of the iPhone, rumor sites everywhere and their fans were simply mocking up images of iPod's with keypads tacked on. It is what they expected, because it is what they knew in the market. Nobody expected the device that came. Nobody really thought different (perhaps because it sucks to keep getting disappointed). Now rumors of a sub-notebook emerge, and everyone is focusing only on that device because that is what exists in the market.
It has been 6 years since a significant form factor redesign in the Macbook Pro line. Let's think different.
The design of the Macbook Pro is still modern, but dated by Apple's design standards. The basic form factor originated in the Titanium on January 1st, 2001 over SIX years ago, and saw "refinements" with the Aluminum models to present day.
I long for a complete redesign. It is time.
Let's start with what we know:
1) Intel's new Santa Rosa platform is going to be available this March. Featuring Robson flash memory caching.
2) Thin 1.8" ultra-portable hard drives are now available in 100GB and 120GB models by Toshiba and Seagate.
3) LED-LCD's are currently available and are both more thin, and less power hungry.
4) Apple has recently filed for at least one patent indicating that they are researching new methods to reduce the thickness of a notebook via creative optical drive placement.
Let me get straight to the point. The Robson flash-caching should eliminate most performance drawbacks to implementing slower 1.8" drives. And with the size of the 1.8" drives it may be possible to fit two into the 15" and 17" Macbook Pro's. LED-LCD's are going into the line-up for their enhanced performance and thinness all around. And creative optical drive placement means could mean keeping an optical disc drive for larger desktop-replacement models (i.e. the 15.4" and 17" Macbook Pro's) while still making them dramatically more thin. For an ultra-portable, dropping the optical drive is not a problem (and carry a peripheral if necessary or dock it). How often do you really use your optical drive?
And now for:
5) NAND Flash capacities will continue to grow, as will 1.8" HDD capacities. Meaning that a radically thin new form factor will have legs to grow.
Before the release of the iPhone, rumor sites everywhere and their fans were simply mocking up images of iPod's with keypads tacked on. It is what they expected, because it is what they knew in the market. Nobody expected the device that came. Nobody really thought different (perhaps because it sucks to keep getting disappointed). Now rumors of a sub-notebook emerge, and everyone is focusing only on that device because that is what exists in the market.
It has been 6 years since a significant form factor redesign in the Macbook Pro line. Let's think different.
Comments
I think all of your ideas plus a beautiful new enclosure (though, frankly, what could they really improve? Bringing back Titanium is all I can think of!) would be just the thing.
...if they threw in the LCD-embedded camera. Then they could get George Jetson and Rick Moranis from Spaceballs to do the commercials. "The future is now."
Apple's notebooks already seem more thin than most PC notebooks. The lust factor would be through the roof if Apple did this.
I'm right there with you. Apple can't go too long before they again create something EVERYBODY wants. As far as computers go, I think the last time they really pulled it off was with the TiBook. I would have said it was the one-armed iMac, but if that were true, they would have kept the design past one iteration. The Powerbook stayed for quite some time, and as you noted, the aluminum models are just refinements.
I think all of your ideas plus a beautiful new enclosure (though, frankly, what could they really improve? Bringing back Titanium is all I can think of!) would be just the thing.
...if they threw in the LCD-embedded camera. Then they could get George Jetson and Rick Moranis from Spaceballs to do the commercials. "The future is now."
Dress Rick Moranis up to look like George Jetson and do the advertisements. They would have such fun with that!
You nailed it CHP. '...something EVERYBODY wants.' There's such opportunity to make the new 'Books just so desirable that the OS will be a lesser consideration, especially amongst younger buyers.