Apple gearing up for major product launch early as next week - sources - Page 2

If I may add a data point. I use the CD/DVD drive in my MacBook Pro a lot. My wife has a string quartet and we create a lot of content. Samples and full length songs are regularly distributed and handed out on CD. The prospect of another dangling piece of gear for the roughy handled gig bag is less than desirable.

All this means is that for the time being, an integrated optical drive is important to us and any purchase decision would tend to be for a portable computer with one.

It is not uncommon for Apple to refresh the laptops for their summer 'back to school' promo and save iMacs, which are more whole family for the fall to hit with the holiday shopping.

So it could go either way

Of course it is. My statement didnt exclude the very real need by some people that an optical drive is needed regularly. In fact, you can conclude from my post that the optical drive is still needed by many very the fact that I state that its need is dropping since until that need is zero there will still be a need for it.

But thats not the point as there will always be scenarios will people will want technology that is no longer the most optimal tech for the average person. Why hasnt Apple added Blu-ray yet? Why havent they updated their optical drive tech with faster read/write speeds for years? Its really the biggest thing holding back notebooks right now.

All the cards are stacked up against it and you can fight all you want, but the CD/DVD has so many cons and very few pros. Its going away whether you feel and others you need it or not; the only question is when. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

When that happens youll have to decide if you want to still use optical disc to move content around slowly, whether you want to get/upgrade to another Mac notebook, get a desktop for burning, use an external optical drive because you just have to burn them outside your home, or any other reason people have for making changes in their lives.

...as long as the usb ports remain stupidly too close together... such a ridiculous design flaw.

So all MBPs are ridiculous design flaws because you think the USB ports are too close together? Personally, Ive never had an issue with multiple USB cables in USB ports, suspect that is most common, and fully consider the possibility of poorly designed accessories that dont account for ports being next to each other and used at the same time.

Id think your post had some validity if you had actual specifications as to what the minimum distinct between port edges should be and why, not just saying,my accessories are too bulky to fit so its all Apples fault."

I can't imagine that an ARM co-processor won't be a future part of most iMacs/MacBooks (along with iOS and touch screen functionality). Or could this just be emulated?

The question is when. Maybe too soon at this point.

Hopefully the curtain will be lifted on the functionality of Apple's North Carolina data center.

When people were complaining that iBooks, Aluminum Powerbook G4s and original MacBook Pros were a pain in the ass to take apart and service, Apple apologists were against easier service, claiming that making laptops easier to service would add so much size and weight as to become physically unbearable. Then the unibody MacBook Pro made the apologists all look like idiots. So I guess the "Really?" goes both ways.

If they take out the optical drive (which I believe they should), they absolutely must include TWO 2.5" bays, or at least one SSD stick and a bay for a standard HD. The only way to go is to have two drives -- one SSD boot/applications drive and one HD for capacity. And hopefully the Mac OS and apps will be fixed to support such configurations better.

Um, yes, they are, because I'm a creative professional and my experience is that when a composer, engineer, producer or designer passes me a USB thumb drive I have to unplug whatever else is connected. A hub is not always the answer a) some sticks don't always function well/reliably from a hub, and b) you can't then plug the stick in to the MacBookPro because the cable for the hub is in the way c) working on location/mobile.

USB thumb drives come in all shapes and sizes.
Some USB thumb drives are thin, some are fat, some are even shaped like a damn elephant, literally.



If you get a USB thumb drive that is too fat too fit, then why not just use a real tiny extension cord? Seems to work fine for me when I need to connect a thumb drive to a USB port and it doesn't fit. The last USB thumb drive I bought even came with a tiny extension cord for free. So no matter what is plugged into the other ports, there won't be any problems.

If you don't burn the discs when you are out though, you wouldn't have to take it with you. Also, there's the possibility of using digital distribution. You can upload ISOs or tracks encoded for MP3 players.


The Sandy Bridge desktop i5-2400s 65W model matches the current 95W i7-860 performance. The original lamp iMac had a maximum power rating of 130W and I think the CPUs were 30W but they can make it fit if they try. The desktop GPU with a 75W rating might cause an issue but they can have a word with AMD/NVidia about that.


The patents showed a modification to the current design where it collapses down. I don't like that because it would require a lot of effort to go into touch-mode. The lamp design would allow you to just grab the screen and spin it into portrait mode like an iPad or pull it down to the desk for prolonged touching.

Think of reading a PDF quickly. You just open it, grab the screen, spin it into portrait, pull it forward a bit, pinch-zoom and scroll through it with touch. Then when you go back to what you were doing, just hide the PDF and spin it back again. The iMac G4 lamp design is the only way that can be done quickly.

Regarding the current iMac, I couldn't disagree more with you. The current design, is in my mind, superp. I genuinely believe that the iMac is the most beautiful desktop ever produced.
In addition would a design like you describe, mean that the need for an XMac would be revived due to the slower chips being used in such iMac.
I really, respectfully, don't hope your ideas are realized

Yeah I dont know why people are fighting this so. Especially on the smaller machines.

Well that is part of it but the hearsink and fan assembly have an impact on thickness too. especially when considering that the Pros are expected to have far better performance than the AIRs.

I will be blunt here and simply say that the better have a few slots for those blade SSDs. I would mind a bay for a magnetic drive but the primary system ness to be on somethin solid state. That simply for performance. Giving people options for further expansion is cool too.

AIR is hardly the future if performance is important to you. I'd rather see Apple turn the PROs into performance machines that are worthy of their name. AIRs are incredibly good machines but their thinness means low performance hardware.

This is one very good reason to delete the optical. In very real terms we could have pro level performance in a 13" machine. They do need to do something to set the GPU performance apart from the AIRs.

As the subject says a waste of time to put in hardware to run iOS apps. The big issues are marketing and consummer confusion. Also from the engineering point of view it is a complete waste, an Intel processor can easily emulate an entire ARM based machine.

As a side not there are likely a number of ARM processors all ready in Apples Macs. ARM core are often embedded in support chips.

The answer is never. Atleast not in the sense you want to see them implemented. The sad reality is that ARM CPU cores aren't even close to intel performance wise.

Actually that would be very nice to hear about. I don't think Apple will ever reveal ever detail about operations there though.

Yeah - the next generation of MacBook Pros are gonna be SWEET! Not this generation, maybe, but the NEXT ones are going to blow everybody away!

I'll buy in the meantime, and buy another when the next one comes out. Most of the purchase price will be available to me via a sale of the old one on eBay because Macs hold their value so well. So ev en though the next generation is where we will see massive innovation, I'll still buy the upcoming one too.

I'm hoping for new MacBook Pros and the iPad 2 as the "one more thing."
I could totally see that happening.

As interesting as that sounds, apple would never make a product with a detachable display. They hate superfluous design. I could see one that swivels down to a horizontal touch position, though. There are even patents for it

Good points and that is an adorable thumb drive. (can we say adorable on this site?) I know a girl that would love it.



Thats what Im hoping for. dGPU in the 13 MBP, with more space for cooling for better GPU in the 15 and 17 inch MBPs, along with a little more room for the battery, a single SSD card slot, a single traditional 2.5 HDD/SSD space, and more port space with ports on each side of the machine.

They may keep the basic MB as the only model with a traditional hard drive and built in cd/dvd leaving the MBA and MBP as all flash memory with no built in cd/dvd. They did this with the iPod line leaving the Classic on old technology with the new Touch and Nano adopting the new technologies, thereby providing a model for everyone.

Thursday 24 Feb is SJ's birthday so that would be a nice day to release them.

Why is everyone assuming that this is about laptops. Apple does a slow down for weeks before a laptop launch. It doesn't mean it is any day. Plus if they are going Sandy you can bet Steve's turtleneck collection that he demanded only units from the fixed run. Which means they just started getting the components to start building. They need time to build up stock.

There have already been rumors of a late february launch of the new iPad and five numbers more fits with talk that they might go with a single low end wifi only (perhaps sans cameras even) for the kiddies, schools and in house business users and then two GSM and two CDMA models. The laptops in store typically number more like 8 MBP units.

Plus things like Sandy and liquid metal are huge. I can't see Apple not doing a bigger announcement for those. Which means press would have been called by now. But the iPad 2 is a smaller change up. Refinements and a camera. Not worth a huge todo. Call the local press on Monday, have them come to campus on Thursday and live stream it like they did a couple of times last year. They could even do a preview of iOS 5 if such a thing exists. Either at the 'event' or just as a video on site.

So the iPad now when it can stymie the other boys spring releases and snare some 'hey I got my tax refund' buyers. And then in late March or April we get the laptops with the launch of the whole back to school thing.

http://www.wemac.se/?p=698

Gorgeous, if it's the real deal.

If I had to build a macbook pro I would add SSD as a key feature, LightPeak and an i5 processor.
That would make it blazingly fast - even faster compared to many desktop pc's in various aspects.
There are already ssd's with 512 gybes on the market and I guess firewire 800 is really outdated and ie. to slow for hd video editing - especially if they skip the express card slot as they do right now.

And if they skipped the dvd drive, they could even build thinner computers. (I myself still need the dvd drive, but it would be sufficient for me to use an external drive.) The machines would be even more energy-efficient, more robust and completely unique in the whole industry.

Apple itself said when they talked about lion, that the future is iphone/ipad-technology - that means "instant on" and enhanced sleep mode is the way to go and I don't see any reason why they wouldn't do it with the macbook pro as well.

DROOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLING

Fake. That's just a MacBook Air Photoshopped black & has the 10.5 Leopard desktop picture.

Hell even the iTunes icon in the dock is the old icon.

So Intel can't make a low-performance chip and ARM can't make a high-performance one?

Seriously though, what about Project Denver?

If they used the i5-2400s, it would perform the same as the current i7. They would be a notch down from what's available at this generation but I don't think it matters any more once you reach this level of performance for the iMac. If they pull the price of the iMac down by dropping the 27" and going with 24" instead, they can lower the Mac Pro entry price too.

The costs may not be significantly higher if they can mould the parts.

I agree that the current design is best to get the highest performance parts in there but it's going to hinder what touch features they can put into it and Apple puts the user experience before raw specs.

At some point, they are going to want to put display adjustment in there and you can't do that with peripheral ports on the back of the screen. Maybe they can have some sort of hybrid where the motherboard and GPU go behind the screen to maintain performance but the IO ports, PSU and drives go in the base but that will likely cause some reliability issues if they can even build a design like that at all.


It wouldn't be superfluous as it helps in packaging and support. Think of the base like a Mini that is twice the height but goes into a dome with a small flattened top. Then the arm is a single cylinder just like the old design with flat clips that attach to the flat top of the base and the back of the very thin display. When packing into the box, the box only has to be the same width as the height of the base.

When it comes to support, if you have a display issue, you unclip the screen and ship it back to Apple in a very thin box. If you have a computer issue, you just ship the small base back. When they bring out a new one, you keep the screen and upgrade the base as they'd sell the base as Minis.

Sincerely hope they drop the optical drive. It's as big as the freaking motherboard on the 13"!



That space can be put to so much better use. And imagine how dated a machine with an optical drive will look in 2014?

The floppy was about a year away from being dead when Apple dropped the floppy drive. Though clearly being used less and less, I don't see any way that we'll consider DVDs or CDs to be totally obsolete one year hence (especially outside the U.S., a market most people here seem to ignore).

Thats not true. It was years before the average PC wasnt being sold with floppy drives and I think it was only last year Sony stopped making them. Apple also wasnt the first to drop them. Dell did it before Apple, but Apple gets credit for the revolution because they did it across the board.

With data ports for NAND drives and internet being the successor to optical drives, unlike with floppy drives whose direct successor was another disc technology, the only thing probably holding back Apple is cost, not the number of people that need to use a CD/DVD on occasion.

DVD drives cost more than USB ports, but a DL-DVD for a restore disc costs a lot less to produce than an 8GB flash drive. Even though the USB port and 8GB flash drive is a lot cheaper than the combination of DL-DVD and the ultra-slim DVD player in Mac notebooks the issue falls with Mac OS X updates.

Sure, they have the remote install option and you can use any external DVD drives, but they need to make sure that they can sell Mac OS X Lion updates to customers on flash drives. This scenario will come into affect with the new MBAs. Will they have you send in your 8GB flash drive Restore Stick or pay extra for the 8GB flash drive.

It seems to me that getting Mac OS X Lion out would be the first goal before making this sweeping hardware change on their notebooks. After that they can include the few million 8GB flash drives with Mac notebooks per quarter where the cost will be easily consumed with the entire cost of the notebook and counted against the cost savings of not including a DVD drive and all the other benefits that come with it. After that they have about 2 years before they will have to plan for most or all of Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion? to come on flash drives.

2 years ago the 17 was earlier than the others - it was the first MBP with built in battery and long runtime. That's how I ended up with one. Love the HUGE screen, and it's only a tiny bit bigger than most Windows 15" machines (it fits in laptop bags made for 15" Windows computers).

But next time around I'll still go for a 15" again. 17 is just too big to be carried around all the time - the weight would be OK but the physical size of it.... it's large.

Very pretty but unfortunately that image is just Photoshop wanking, plus a wishlist of features (all speculation). No way they're going to make a liquid metal one, and as much as everyone seems to be waiting for matte black anodized alu it should be clear by now that Jon Ive hates that idea so they're going to be sliver alu as usual.

If they make a MacBook-Air 15" I'll run to the store with cash in my hand...

I think dropping the optical drive for dual storage capabilities (a la iMac) would be a sensible choice for the MBPro. As long as I can use any 3rd party DVD drive to install software. Just don't make me buy an Apple Superdrive for $99

You dont have to buy Apple SuperDrive or any USB DVD drive at all.

Hope it has Lighpeak (read article).

That would be great.

I don't know how much longer I can wait for the iPad2. I'm going to have to buy an Android tablet if it doesn't come out soon.....NOT!

+1

I want native eSATA ports on all MacBooks and iMacs.

I was going to disagree, but then I thought about pros' needs. Since storage capacities of DL DVDs can be matched with thumb drives data isn't the issue. The question is do most pros need burning capabilities on their mobile machines. I would say no because if they are at the stage in a project that requires burning they can probably get by with an external burner in the home/office/studio.

The only time I have ever needed to burn something in the past year is when I was at the studio so yeah I think it's time to say sayonara to optical for good too. No optical and 1TB SS HDDs would be nice.

1 TB SSDs (even as RAIDs) are 'not ready for prime time' simply because of cost, but that day is coming.