Those "640K" quote? You got it backwards. Gates was all about sticking with an obsolete memory system that could not handle more than 640K memory.
Kind of like you are suggesting we stick with obsolete 90's optical spinning disk technology, in the days of solid state memory...
As for that HVD thing:
<b>Standards for 100 GB read-only holographic discs and 200 GB recordable cartridges were published by ECMA in 2007,[2][3] but no holographic disc product has appeared in the market. A number of release dates were announced, all since passed.</b>
Yeah, veeeeery promissing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Macs2InfinityAndBeyond
Stop research! Make it illegal! OPTICAL MUST DIE! (Except optical fibre ThunderBolt, which will feel like USB 1 if PCDs ever make it to market.)
Hmm. You understand the contradiction of accusing Apple of "stopping all research" and then mentioning Apple+Intel's own Thunderbolt, the nicest new I/O port spec to come out for PCs lately.
Let's face it, you are just a lover of clunky, bulky, laptops, better served with an Alienware monstrocity!
A thin MacBook base, with a removable iPad acting as the display screen when plugged into the MacBook base, or functioning as a stand alone iPad when removed. If it could be no thicker or heavier than a current MacBook Pro model it would be an interesting option.
A thin MacBook base, with a removable iPad acting as the display screen when plugged into the MacBook base, or functioning as a stand alone iPad when removed. If it could be no thicker or heavier than a current MacBook Pro model would be an interesting option.
Let's face it, you are just a lover of clunky, bulky, laptops, better served with an Alienware monstrocity!
Nice false equivalency.
As someone who needs to use an optical drive, I'm perfectly fine with a slim external drive it it will make a laptop faster and lighter. It's not like I'm using it all the time (I actually use the on on my mac pro a lot more). Of course, it's a blu-ray burner, so it's not like there's going to be one in a macbook pro anytime soon anyhow...
I'd be very interested in a 15" MBP that was thin and light like the Air, and left behind the optical drive. However, if it's going to be my main machine, I can't get by with a little 128GB SSD drive, I need more space than that. Even 256GB won't do it. 512GB would be ok, even though in my existing MBP I'm considering upgrading the 500GB to a 750GB, but either way, the cost of a 512GB SSD would likely price the thing out of my league.
Besides the smaller screens this is another reason I'm frustrated by the AIRs. The last thing I want to do is buy another laptop that would not have the secondary store required of modern PCs. That and I really want quad cores in my next machine. I'd expect them to address the RAM issue too.
If Apple focuses on the right things such a machine would be compelling for me. My 2008 MBP is getting a bit old and clunky but I don't want to give up the screen size. That old machine though highlights the need for more storage space and RAM more than anything else. Hopefully the 15" AIR will be RAM expandable.
If they put a 3G modem internal to the the unit, I'm in!!! I really want to be able to roam with the unit and still be connected. Those ugly data models sticking out the side are an accident looking for a place to happen.
15" and 3G, please!
Ever since I've buying a 3G iPad I've been thinking long and hard about just such a laptop. It would be even better if the modem was 4G, however when the iPads 3 G comes in really handy net speed is seldom important.
I'm not saying it is a show stopper but it would be nice to have. The important thing being sound integration into the machine. In this regard I'm not sure how they would deal with the metal chassis.
Doubtful on better CPUs and GPUs. As a owner of the current 2011 MacBook Pro, it's pretty obvious that the cooling system wasn't designed for 45W TDP CPUs, and a thinner enclosure won't help that problem. If anything, I expect then to lower the TDP with a cooler chip and focus on battery life. I hope they hake the 1680x1050 res screen standard.
Don't be too sure. The biggest engineering constraint in notebooks is that long in the tooth ODD. You remove that, you not only get back a 5.5"x5.5"x13mm space, you also get port side space.
This means Apple could use both sides for pots with one unused components needing 5.25" for a worthless slot. It also means the GPU and CPU aren't stuck together in a squared configuration trying to disperse heat. They can now be spread further away from each other to allow better heat dissipation, and along the back edge closer to the hinged air vents to, again, allow for better heat dissipation.
Even with the shrinking of the chassis after removing the ODD Apple could still allow for a standard HDD at 9.5mm (their MBPs current support 12.5mm HDDs).
This really opens up the door for a lot of engineering options that can help push Apples' notebooks even further ahead of the competition. Hell, here will be room for cellular and GPS chip, but I'm not holding my breath for those.
When the MacBook Air goes to 15" I'm in! I've been waiting.
Me too. imo there is a market for both a 15" air and a 15" MBP. In fact I would extend the air all the way to 17". The ultrathin will always used a reduce speed and power CPU and limited GPU (if any). I also think the Air line should have built-in 3g support.
The 17" isn't very popular these days. I don't think you'll see a pro truly in the macbook air form factor next year. Even at 15", it'll be difficult to fit ports, and Ivy Bridge will most likely not be a big enough dip in heat to use comparable cpus (they are coming down a little but not to the current air levels, and the air still gets quite warm).
As much as I like the new AIRs the small screens are a turn off to old eyes. The 15" seems to be the sweet spot between size and portability.
As to a Pro in an AIR form factor, I suspect the Pros will get overhauled, it is almost a given! The problem I have with this thread is that people seem to think that a 15" AIR would eliminate the PRO where I think the two could complement each other. In fact a 15" AIR could allow Apple to beef up the 15" MBP.
As to Ivy Bridge well we will see what the final chips will look like in a few months. The big problem right now is that any power savings generally ends up going to increased performance. For most of us this is a good thing as I want any new laptop to perform much better than the previous models.
Quote:
This is your top performer, so I would think they'd at least want a reasonable cost effective 500GB ish SSD before they go that route. You're still making the silly assumption that this will absolutely replace the current macbook pro. That's not a foregone conclusion yet. It could start with the low voltage cpus.
As long as people are willing to pay for better performance the MBP will remain around. As to the SSDs, in a 15" machine with no optical it should be easy to allow for an array of such modules. For an overhauled MBP it would be silly to try to sell the machine with only one storage bay.
Quote:
17" is unpopular these days. We have a 13" macbook pro and air. Why do you think the 15" pro being dropped to an air is inevitable next year? In this case I think they'll have both for a year or two. Losing all of those ports is going to hurt the users that need them. Carrying around an additional adapter is a bad solution as every Apple adapter I've ever owned has been short lived (mostly display dongles).
It is not a given that you would loose the ports. For one the 15" machine would be bulkier by definition so you would have more room for ports, the dropping of the optical has a significant impact too.
I have to agree though there is plenty of room for both products in the lineup.
Quote:
They could do this, but it would be a hit in performance. Apple is probably on the rocks right now and waiting to see how intel looks around 2013 as they have claimed to be aiming for 17W cpus. I don't know how they would get to 17W from 45W, but if they do get it down that low that soon, 2013 will probably be a very strong year for intel. There are a lot of other components that need to reduce their power diet if you want to see truly incredible battery life.
These guys http://www.calxeda.com/ have just announced a state of the art ARM server processor. It is completely possible to put a lot of capability into a SoC these days but as a general purpose processor it can't compete with Intel. The question we have to ask is how much performance are people willing to give up for AIR like portability. If anything the net book failure is a sign that you need a certain level of performance to get acceptable sales. This is a key to AIRs success as the performance is really good for such a light weight machine.
So the ARM based laptop is still fighting an up hill battle. However that doesn't mean Apple doesn't want to leverage its investment in ARM technology. So I expect Apple to market another line of ARM based hardware that is clearly in a different category than the Mac OS based stuff.
Quote:
It still amuses me greatly how many people are convinced that everything must take on an air form factor today. I don't see any reason it couldn't be a 15" macbook air if things are too hot to do a relatively lossless migration of the macbook pro components, and transition as it becomes possible to run more powerful hardware in the thin form factor within their price targets.
A 15" AIR doesn't even need MBP performance levels. In fact the nature of the hardware means that the MBP could always be a more capable machine. A 15" AIR does need better performance than the 13" AIR but that is a far cry from a tricked out MBP. Apple could go a long way to offering that additional performance by adding a discreet GPU in the 15" AIR. A discreet GPU with 512MB of RAM would do wonders on the machine even if it was a relatively low end GPU. Simply freeing up regular RAM would be significant, especially if that RAM is fixed.
Of course there are other ways the 15" AIR could be tweaked that would give it a performance advantage over the 13" AIR. Even so the machine will still lag behind what Apple would be capable of in a MBP.
Quote:
Getting something to market is a fairly complex equation. Rather than going with the wedge, I hope they eventually stick to something more port friendly on the higher end. Having to use dongles and hubs is just a pain in the ass.
These days I'm often frustrated by the two USB ports on my MBP. With all the USB devices in use these days two ports really don't cover all needs well. However I really don't see adding more ports on the 15" AIR as being a problem. You after all do have more room, fire wire can be done away with and the deleted optical frees up space. I do hope that they keep the Ethernet port as that is extremely important for field work these days. In a nut shell a 15" AIR should be port friendly.
Just dropping the HDD and Optical driver while keeping everything else would the trick. In fact, with the real-estate saved Apple could add even more ports, a larger battery and even better CPUs and GPU, or they could make it thinner.
My guess is "All of the above" while pricing it lower than the current 15 inch MBP.
I'm, I guess, a "Creative Pro," and we support each other giving no thought whatsoever to the fact that we're competitors. We ALL own Mac Pros and a MacBook Pro (1 + 1 = 2 = $$), and we all buy every new top of the line model whenever each line is refreshed.
People like you don't bring in enough profit for a huge company like Apple to care much about your desires. They are focused like a laser on the lowest common denominator mass market consumer these days, and they are making record profits.
"Form Over Function" trumps all other considerations every time. How successful was the G4 Cube and the "dome" or "lampshade" iMac?
"The iPad's still too damn thick. I won't be buying one until it's as thin as a sheet of tracing paper."
You are confusing "form over function" with "user experience over specs". If you think form and function are two mutually exclusive things then you are being, well, uninformed. Form is part of function. The thinness is what makes the MacBook Air popular. People want the ultra-portability without the compromises of a netbook. The thinness of iPads make potential customers say "wow" and then get out their credit cards.
I can't count how many times I've heard people say "I'd buy a MacBook Air if it had a 15" version" People like the weight and size of it.
The fact that thinness and reduced weight are not high on your priority list is irrelevant. Apple still makes a machine for you. They may not one day, and you will either have to re-evaluate your priorities or move on. But today, we still have a choice. And more and more people are choosing the Air.
They COULD, "...add even more ports, a larger battery and even better CPUs and GPU...," but they will do the latter: "...orthey could make it thinner."
If they can make a product thinner by foregoing better technology, they'll do so every time. It's an arbitrary and futile obsession. The iPad 2 I'm using now is plenty thin enough for me, but I keep reading that the next iPad release will be even thinner! Yay!
I'd rather they choose the most advanced technology and battery life than make it still thinner.
I'm, I guess, a "Creative Pro," and we support each other giving no thought whatsoever to the fact that we're competitors. We ALL own Mac Pros and a MacBook Pro (1 + 1 = 2 = $$), and we all buy every new top of the line model whenever each line is refreshed.
We are unanimous that we want integrated optical burners. My professional photography bud archives a lot of huge digital RAW files on dual-layer DVDs in both Mac Pros and MacBook Pros, rather than relying on an internal or external HDD formatted with the antiquated HFS+.
With HFS+, rescue partitions (if you're lucky enough that the system even "sees" the afflicted drive at all) are a must for all in our ad hoc support group. So too are Diskwarrior (whose entire business model relies on Mac HFS+ File system entropy ? fiix HFS+ and Alsoft is out of business!), Drive Genius and TechTool. Seeing all hope is lost for the very, very best filesystem, ZFS, replace HFS+ with Btrfs which falls short of ZFS, or the much inferior ? but FAR superior to HFS+ ? ext4 ? maybe we could rely on Mac formatted drives for archival purposes.
But my Video Pro bud installed a Blu-ray burner in his Mac Pro, and can archive 25-50GB of footage on one of his collection of discs, and he also has slick printable Blu-ray blank discs for presenting to clients who hire his services for milestone events (weddings). (A few consumers DO have Blu-ray players for their TVs.)
We used to buy two or three batteries for our Mac notebooks, so we could swap them out when one got drained, but Apple found that if they hermetically sealed Mac notebook batteries inside, they could make the notebooks smaller AND, above all, THINNER!
We get by with "juicepacks" and automobile charger adaptors, but clicking in a fresh additional battery was valuable time less wasted.
"Form Over Function" trumps all other considerations every time. How successful was the G4 Cube and the "dome" or "lampshade" iMac?
"The iPad's still too damn thick. I won't be buying one until it's as thin as a sheet of tracing paper."
And I hate to say "I told you so," but I told you so three years ago in response to the "bag of hurt alibi" about Blu-ray (which Apple went on to say they would offer to Mac customers in time), that it instead would portend an effort to kill off optical media altogether.
It's systematically happening now...
If I CHOOSE to have an integrated optical drive in a MacBook Pro, Mac mini, or (soon) the iMac, (and you can forget altogether the Mac Pro), I don't even have it as a BTO option. (Though I can buy Apple's temporarily available external SuperDrive to dangle off my new MacBook Pro. How compact is that? Less cumbersome than a thinny, thin integrated optical drive?)
Optical must DIE! iTunes-only for ALL!
It always concerns me when a "creative professional" writes a post that looks like the Unabomber's Manifesto. (see the formatting of the original post) ...does wonders for the credibility...
Even though I still use the super drive in my early '11 15" MBP, I would gladly give it up if it meant that they could spread the CPU/GPU out and allow for better heat dissipation. The fans in my MBP ramp up at the drop of a hat and it makes it a pain in the ass to do anything processor intensive.
As a owner of the current 2011 MacBook Pro, it's pretty obvious that the cooling system wasn't designed for 45W TDP CPUs.
I have the early 2011 15" 2.0GHz model and I don't see a problem with the cooling on my particular unit. I've only ever had the fans kick a fuss on two occasions: 1) MS Excel sent 1 core to 100% for 30mins and even then, the fans weren't that loud - and 2) MacPorts sent all 4 cores to 100% for 45mins when installing software - sounded like it was taking off but thats to be expected under such high load. Though under normal use its never went over 60˚C.
Comments
Time to "floppy" the HVD in the womb as well ? and 5D, and "Tapestry" or Protein Coated Discs should not be researched or developed. "The Cloud" is capacious and fast enough, and "640K is the most RAM anyone will ever need."
Those "640K" quote? You got it backwards. Gates was all about sticking with an obsolete memory system that could not handle more than 640K memory.
Kind of like you are suggesting we stick with obsolete 90's optical spinning disk technology, in the days of solid state memory...
As for that HVD thing:
<b>Standards for 100 GB read-only holographic discs and 200 GB recordable cartridges were published by ECMA in 2007,[2][3] but no holographic disc product has appeared in the market. A number of release dates were announced, all since passed.</b>
Yeah, veeeeery promissing.
Stop research! Make it illegal! OPTICAL MUST DIE! (Except optical fibre ThunderBolt, which will feel like USB 1 if PCDs ever make it to market.)
Hmm. You understand the contradiction of accusing Apple of "stopping all research" and then mentioning Apple+Intel's own Thunderbolt, the nicest new I/O port spec to come out for PCs lately.
Let's face it, you are just a lover of clunky, bulky, laptops, better served with an Alienware monstrocity!
At least, I hope not.
.tsooJ
A thin MacBook base, with a removable iPad acting as the display screen when plugged into the MacBook base, or functioning as a stand alone iPad when removed. If it could be no thicker or heavier than a current MacBook Pro model would be an interesting option.
Ever.
Let's face it, you are just a lover of clunky, bulky, laptops, better served with an Alienware monstrocity!
Nice false equivalency.
As someone who needs to use an optical drive, I'm perfectly fine with a slim external drive it it will make a laptop faster and lighter. It's not like I'm using it all the time (I actually use the on on my mac pro a lot more). Of course, it's a blu-ray burner, so it's not like there's going to be one in a macbook pro anytime soon anyhow...
I doubt creative "professionals" who compose forum posts as if they were thirteen-year-old Facebook dwelling girls are Apple's core market.
At least, I hope not.
.tsooJ
I'd appreciate it if you did not needlessly insult thirteen-year old Facebook dwelling girls.
I definitely think they are going to consolidate the Mac range into 3 or 4 product lines with the MBP/MBA merging and the Mac Pro/Mini merging.
One more thing... The MBA relaunched as a 15" tablet computer?
I'd be very interested in a 15" MBP that was thin and light like the Air, and left behind the optical drive. However, if it's going to be my main machine, I can't get by with a little 128GB SSD drive, I need more space than that. Even 256GB won't do it. 512GB would be ok, even though in my existing MBP I'm considering upgrading the 500GB to a 750GB, but either way, the cost of a 512GB SSD would likely price the thing out of my league.
Besides the smaller screens this is another reason I'm frustrated by the AIRs. The last thing I want to do is buy another laptop that would not have the secondary store required of modern PCs. That and I really want quad cores in my next machine. I'd expect them to address the RAM issue too.
If Apple focuses on the right things such a machine would be compelling for me. My 2008 MBP is getting a bit old and clunky but I don't want to give up the screen size. That old machine though highlights the need for more storage space and RAM more than anything else. Hopefully the 15" AIR will be RAM expandable.
If they put a 3G modem internal to the the unit, I'm in!!! I really want to be able to roam with the unit and still be connected. Those ugly data models sticking out the side are an accident looking for a place to happen.
15" and 3G, please!
Ever since I've buying a 3G iPad I've been thinking long and hard about just such a laptop. It would be even better if the modem was 4G, however when the iPads 3 G comes in really handy net speed is seldom important.
I'm not saying it is a show stopper but it would be nice to have. The important thing being sound integration into the machine. In this regard I'm not sure how they would deal with the metal chassis.
Doubtful on better CPUs and GPUs. As a owner of the current 2011 MacBook Pro, it's pretty obvious that the cooling system wasn't designed for 45W TDP CPUs, and a thinner enclosure won't help that problem. If anything, I expect then to lower the TDP with a cooler chip and focus on battery life. I hope they hake the 1680x1050 res screen standard.
Don't be too sure. The biggest engineering constraint in notebooks is that long in the tooth ODD. You remove that, you not only get back a 5.5"x5.5"x13mm space, you also get port side space.
This means Apple could use both sides for pots with one unused components needing 5.25" for a worthless slot. It also means the GPU and CPU aren't stuck together in a squared configuration trying to disperse heat. They can now be spread further away from each other to allow better heat dissipation, and along the back edge closer to the hinged air vents to, again, allow for better heat dissipation.
Even with the shrinking of the chassis after removing the ODD Apple could still allow for a standard HDD at 9.5mm (their MBPs current support 12.5mm HDDs).
This really opens up the door for a lot of engineering options that can help push Apples' notebooks even further ahead of the competition. Hell, here will be room for cellular and GPS chip, but I'm not holding my breath for those.
When the MacBook Air goes to 15" I'm in! I've been waiting.
Me too. imo there is a market for both a 15" air and a 15" MBP. In fact I would extend the air all the way to 17". The ultrathin will always used a reduce speed and power CPU and limited GPU (if any). I also think the Air line should have built-in 3g support.
The 17" isn't very popular these days. I don't think you'll see a pro truly in the macbook air form factor next year. Even at 15", it'll be difficult to fit ports, and Ivy Bridge will most likely not be a big enough dip in heat to use comparable cpus (they are coming down a little but not to the current air levels, and the air still gets quite warm).
As much as I like the new AIRs the small screens are a turn off to old eyes. The 15" seems to be the sweet spot between size and portability.
As to a Pro in an AIR form factor, I suspect the Pros will get overhauled, it is almost a given! The problem I have with this thread is that people seem to think that a 15" AIR would eliminate the PRO where I think the two could complement each other. In fact a 15" AIR could allow Apple to beef up the 15" MBP.
As to Ivy Bridge well we will see what the final chips will look like in a few months. The big problem right now is that any power savings generally ends up going to increased performance. For most of us this is a good thing as I want any new laptop to perform much better than the previous models.
This is your top performer, so I would think they'd at least want a reasonable cost effective 500GB ish SSD before they go that route. You're still making the silly assumption that this will absolutely replace the current macbook pro. That's not a foregone conclusion yet. It could start with the low voltage cpus.
As long as people are willing to pay for better performance the MBP will remain around. As to the SSDs, in a 15" machine with no optical it should be easy to allow for an array of such modules. For an overhauled MBP it would be silly to try to sell the machine with only one storage bay.
17" is unpopular these days. We have a 13" macbook pro and air. Why do you think the 15" pro being dropped to an air is inevitable next year? In this case I think they'll have both for a year or two. Losing all of those ports is going to hurt the users that need them. Carrying around an additional adapter is a bad solution as every Apple adapter I've ever owned has been short lived (mostly display dongles).
It is not a given that you would loose the ports. For one the 15" machine would be bulkier by definition so you would have more room for ports, the dropping of the optical has a significant impact too.
I have to agree though there is plenty of room for both products in the lineup.
They could do this, but it would be a hit in performance. Apple is probably on the rocks right now and waiting to see how intel looks around 2013 as they have claimed to be aiming for 17W cpus. I don't know how they would get to 17W from 45W, but if they do get it down that low that soon, 2013 will probably be a very strong year for intel. There are a lot of other components that need to reduce their power diet if you want to see truly incredible battery life.
These guys http://www.calxeda.com/ have just announced a state of the art ARM server processor. It is completely possible to put a lot of capability into a SoC these days but as a general purpose processor it can't compete with Intel. The question we have to ask is how much performance are people willing to give up for AIR like portability. If anything the net book failure is a sign that you need a certain level of performance to get acceptable sales. This is a key to AIRs success as the performance is really good for such a light weight machine.
So the ARM based laptop is still fighting an up hill battle. However that doesn't mean Apple doesn't want to leverage its investment in ARM technology. So I expect Apple to market another line of ARM based hardware that is clearly in a different category than the Mac OS based stuff.
It still amuses me greatly how many people are convinced that everything must take on an air form factor today. I don't see any reason it couldn't be a 15" macbook air if things are too hot to do a relatively lossless migration of the macbook pro components, and transition as it becomes possible to run more powerful hardware in the thin form factor within their price targets.
A 15" AIR doesn't even need MBP performance levels. In fact the nature of the hardware means that the MBP could always be a more capable machine. A 15" AIR does need better performance than the 13" AIR but that is a far cry from a tricked out MBP. Apple could go a long way to offering that additional performance by adding a discreet GPU in the 15" AIR. A discreet GPU with 512MB of RAM would do wonders on the machine even if it was a relatively low end GPU. Simply freeing up regular RAM would be significant, especially if that RAM is fixed.
Of course there are other ways the 15" AIR could be tweaked that would give it a performance advantage over the 13" AIR. Even so the machine will still lag behind what Apple would be capable of in a MBP.
Getting something to market is a fairly complex equation. Rather than going with the wedge, I hope they eventually stick to something more port friendly on the higher end. Having to use dongles and hubs is just a pain in the ass.
These days I'm often frustrated by the two USB ports on my MBP. With all the USB devices in use these days two ports really don't cover all needs well. However I really don't see adding more ports on the 15" AIR as being a problem. You after all do have more room, fire wire can be done away with and the deleted optical frees up space. I do hope that they keep the Ethernet port as that is extremely important for field work these days. In a nut shell a 15" AIR should be port friendly.
Just dropping the HDD and Optical driver while keeping everything else would the trick. In fact, with the real-estate saved Apple could add even more ports, a larger battery and even better CPUs and GPU, or they could make it thinner.
My guess is "All of the above" while pricing it lower than the current 15 inch MBP.
I'm, I guess, a "Creative Pro," and we support each other giving no thought whatsoever to the fact that we're competitors. We ALL own Mac Pros and a MacBook Pro (1 + 1 = 2 = $$), and we all buy every new top of the line model whenever each line is refreshed.
People like you don't bring in enough profit for a huge company like Apple to care much about your desires. They are focused like a laser on the lowest common denominator mass market consumer these days, and they are making record profits.
This seems like a very un-Apple move to me, at first glance.
Expanding the number of machines is just an odd move. It seems to me, anyways.
Why? They just did it with their telephone products.
I would expect that this signals a new mainstream notebook line, more capable than the Air, less expensive than the Pro.
"Form Over Function" trumps all other considerations every time. How successful was the G4 Cube and the "dome" or "lampshade" iMac?
"The iPad's still too damn thick. I won't be buying one until it's as thin as a sheet of tracing paper."
You are confusing "form over function" with "user experience over specs". If you think form and function are two mutually exclusive things then you are being, well, uninformed. Form is part of function. The thinness is what makes the MacBook Air popular. People want the ultra-portability without the compromises of a netbook. The thinness of iPads make potential customers say "wow" and then get out their credit cards.
I can't count how many times I've heard people say "I'd buy a MacBook Air if it had a 15" version" People like the weight and size of it.
The fact that thinness and reduced weight are not high on your priority list is irrelevant. Apple still makes a machine for you. They may not one day, and you will either have to re-evaluate your priorities or move on. But today, we still have a choice. And more and more people are choosing the Air.
They COULD, "...add even more ports, a larger battery and even better CPUs and GPU...," but they will do the latter: "...or they could make it thinner."
If they can make a product thinner by foregoing better technology, they'll do so every time. It's an arbitrary and futile obsession. The iPad 2 I'm using now is plenty thin enough for me, but I keep reading that the next iPad release will be even thinner!
I'd rather they choose the most advanced technology and battery life than make it still thinner.
I'm, I guess, a "Creative Pro," and we support each other giving no thought whatsoever to the fact that we're competitors. We ALL own Mac Pros and a MacBook Pro (1 + 1 = 2 = $$), and we all buy every new top of the line model whenever each line is refreshed.
We are unanimous that we want integrated optical burners. My professional photography bud archives a lot of huge digital RAW files on dual-layer DVDs in both Mac Pros and MacBook Pros, rather than relying on an internal or external HDD formatted with the antiquated HFS+.
With HFS+, rescue partitions (if you're lucky enough that the system even "sees" the afflicted drive at all) are a must for all in our ad hoc support group. So too are Diskwarrior (whose entire business model relies on Mac HFS+ File system entropy ? fiix HFS+ and Alsoft is out of business!), Drive Genius and TechTool. Seeing all hope is lost for the very, very best filesystem, ZFS, replace HFS+ with Btrfs which falls short of ZFS, or the much inferior ? but FAR superior to HFS+ ? ext4 ? maybe we could rely on Mac formatted drives for archival purposes.
But my Video Pro bud installed a Blu-ray burner in his Mac Pro, and can archive 25-50GB of footage on one of his collection of discs, and he also has slick printable Blu-ray blank discs for presenting to clients who hire his services for milestone events (weddings). (A few consumers DO have Blu-ray players for their TVs.)
We used to buy two or three batteries for our Mac notebooks, so we could swap them out when one got drained, but Apple found that if they hermetically sealed Mac notebook batteries inside, they could make the notebooks smaller AND, above all, THINNER!
We get by with "juicepacks" and automobile charger adaptors, but clicking in a fresh additional battery was valuable time less wasted.
"Form Over Function" trumps all other considerations every time. How successful was the G4 Cube and the "dome" or "lampshade" iMac?
"The iPad's still too damn thick. I won't be buying one until it's as thin as a sheet of tracing paper."
And I hate to say "I told you so," but I told you so three years ago in response to the "bag of hurt alibi" about Blu-ray (which Apple went on to say they would offer to Mac customers in time), that it instead would portend an effort to kill off optical media altogether.
It's systematically happening now...
If I CHOOSE to have an integrated optical drive in a MacBook Pro, Mac mini, or (soon) the iMac, (and you can forget altogether the Mac Pro), I don't even have it as a BTO option. (Though I can buy Apple's temporarily available external SuperDrive to dangle off my new MacBook Pro. How compact is that? Less cumbersome than a thinny, thin integrated optical drive?)
Optical must DIE! iTunes-only for ALL!
It always concerns me when a "creative professional" writes a post that looks like the Unabomber's Manifesto. (see the formatting of the original post) ...does wonders for the credibility...
Please stay away from my mailbox!
As a owner of the current 2011 MacBook Pro, it's pretty obvious that the cooling system wasn't designed for 45W TDP CPUs.
I have the early 2011 15" 2.0GHz model and I don't see a problem with the cooling on my particular unit. I've only ever had the fans kick a fuss on two occasions: 1) MS Excel sent 1 core to 100% for 30mins and even then, the fans weren't that loud - and 2) MacPorts sent all 4 cores to 100% for 45mins when installing software - sounded like it was taking off but thats to be expected under such high load. Though under normal use its never went over 60˚C.