Get ready for Newton 2.0 MacBook touch?!
So says our source — the same one who tipped us to wireless iTunes Store sales direct to iPod, iPhone a week before Apple debuted it — in staccato fashion:
Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured Multi-Touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at “low” price that will reduce margins. Apple wants to move these babies. And move they will. This is some sick shit. App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too. By October at the latest.
MacDailyNews Note: This is a rumor. We have no other information. We cannot confirm this information independently at this time, but felt it plausible enough to bring to your attention.
We are working to develop new products that contain technologies that our competition will not be able to match. I cannot discuss these new products, but we are very confident in our product pipeline. – Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, during Apple’s Q308 Financial Results Conference Call, July 21, 2008
Apple announces new $1999 MacBook Touch today…
…even less features than the MacBook Air, the keyboard and monitor is sold seperately and costs extra. Copy and paste will be included as a built to order option only and delay your purchase for up to two weeks.
yes I’m on a roll. Hogie roll with mayo. yummm
“This is true. I know someone who knows someone who used to work there and this rumor has been going around for at least 2 years.”
I worked there for three and a half years, and I can tell you that all new product plans are kept on a strict need-to-know basis. If prototypes for such a device exist, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to production. Apple develops many more products than they ship.
-jcr
“During his quarterly financial results call, Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer revealed that the company will make a key “product transition” that cuts back on its profit margins to help shut out rivals.
How many “KEY” products does Apple have? Three. The Mac, iPod and iPhone.
I’m with MikeK on this one, it doesn’t sound like a “KEY” transition, it sounds like a new product altogether. And no matter how cool something like this could be, there is no way Apple could sell enough of them in it’s first quarter to make that big of a dent in it’s profit margin.
This is just wishful thinking on someones part.
I will work to develop a list of next gen Mac compatible software when the official news comes down.
MacSoftwareList.com
MikeK…
I may be wrong about the MacBook touch being the new MacBook. I can see things changing that way.
But I will say a product transition is different than a technology transition within a product set. And I believe that is what was said at the conference call: “product transition”
Mac Pro Jr., please.
1 optical bay
2-3 HD bays
1 open PCI slot
3GHz quad-core Core 2 Duo
ATI 2600 or better, upgradeable
4 RAM slots
Mac Pro’s overkill, iMac’s a non-starter.
iPods morf into application platforms. They even make phone calls over the net when connected to wifi or Clearwire.
“So says our source — the same one who tipped us to wireless iTunes Store sales direct to iPod, iPhone a week before Apple debuted it”
just please let him be right, please let it be cheap enough, and please let it come out before i break down and buy a MBA!
Slot loading SuperDrive?
That’s a step backward. Remote Disc is more likely.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/bonjour.html
http://www.apple.com/macbookair/wireless.html
No way, No how.
if the plan is to have a 30% unit margin at the end of the quarter, they are going to have something like a 25% margin for the second half of the quarter. Now since they are reducing the margin, we know they are planning to increase the volume. This means the mystery transition cannot be a new product. No product, however cool, is going to sell over a million units in the first month. There is literally no new product that Apple could introduce that would sell enough units within the first month to lower the per unit margins by 10%. So the change must involve some existing product.
“This is some sick shit. “
“This just gave away that whoever wrote this rumor is 15 yrs old.”
I’m not so sure. It sounds like what Steve Ballmer might have said when he caressed and straddled his first big ass table.
What if Peter had said: “We are scared Shirtless about our new product line.”
Would that have caused a Matrix like flexing of the Earth as the consumer electronics world collectively emptied its bowels?
Oh great. Now we get to hear the anti-glossy crowd scream about glossy screens with nasty, greasy fingerprints all over them. Thanks Apple.
These things will look real nice in Best Buy. They’ll probably have boogers and fungi all over them. Gawd, these disease infested contraptions could be the cause of the next great pandemic!
Way to go Steve, you’ll be responsible for killing 25% of the worlds population. Oh well, I guess we’ve got it coming.
@ Petey
“There is literally no new product that Apple could introduce that would sell enough units within the first month to lower the per unit margins by 10%. So the change must involve some existing product.”
————————-
Agreed, this has to be a huge launch and a mass sales product.
Frankly, there is only one of Apple’s key products that fits this bill and could actually sell enough initial units in it’s first month to effect the margin in such a drastic way.
The iPod.
What chip does P.A. Semi have now that Apple would want to use?
I agree with Ampar:
The one thing that makes this bogus is the inclusion of the slot loading superdrive. Apple would not include this in a new smaller mobile device. It would likely use the same external drive as the MacBook Air and use the remote disc technology. Because of that it throws this whole product into a very grey area.
Bonano out.
“The MacBook is to become more book-like.”
Yes, it will be designed to be held vertically, just like a book.
The keys will be located on both outer surfaces, and will be manipulated just like an accordion. Their will be no battery, as it will be powered by the pumping action.
You either learn to touch type, or yer shit outta luck.
this will go great with my 51″ plasma TV with an integrated Mac.
… off to the Wawa …
If the MacBook Air does not have an optical drive, a “tablet” Mac is not going to have an optical drive. I’m not even sure it will be called a “Mac.”
Such a device will certainly appear at some point. It will be amazing.
I am not sure I buy this rumor. Apple already said Copy & Paste was a low priority for Multi-Touch. Apple can get away without them on iPhone, but not on a notebook. A MacBook Touch that relies on other means other than touch to select text, images, etc. seems pretty clumsy and Apple doesn’t like clumsy.
If Apple has a full library of gestures ready for a notebook use, then the same library could be used for iPhone, in which case, Apple could simply say no comment when asked about Copy & Paste instead of disappointing people.
Could there be an extra special R&D;charge in the next Quarter for a product shift announced at the end of next Q?
What utter, utter, utter bullshit.
OK, so Apple ditch the optical drive from the MacBook Air, but this has a super-drive?
It is able to run iPhone apps AND OS X apps, even though they have largely different API libraries, and one of them is designed for WIMP, not multi-touch.
They are going to use PowerPC for this, even though Snow Leopard appears to abandon this technology, yet this runs full OS X apps?
It’s just utter, utter crap. A fantasists wet dream that not only won’t happen, but is impossible from a UI perspective.
I was hoping for a fuel-cell-powered laptop – one that can produce power for several weeks or months without requiring re-fueling.
A Macbook with the iPhone/Touch OS and technology, but most important, its 200 protecting patents.
Consider also that while Leopard is the latest OS X, Snow Leopard is in the wings.
However, one should think that MobileMe and its ‘cloud’ technology may also be an integral part of the new transition.
That would allow Apple to bring in the last of the three types of leopards, i.e., the CLOUDED LEOPARD. Yes there is such an animal: http://www.cap.nsw.edu.au/bb_site_intro/stage1_Modules/whats_alive/leopards.htm
A 13″ glass screen would be heavy. I can’t see it being that size. Maybe more like around 8″ or so at the most.