“Apple continues to pound away on an ultra-thin portable designed to capture a slice of the growing sub-notebook market and boost sales in Japan,” Kasper Jade reports for AppleInsider.
“In what’s sure to be a warmly received move, people familiar with initiative tell AppleInsider that the Mac maker plans to go easy on our eyesight and is building the model around stunning, ultra-thin, 13-inch LED backlit display,” Jade reports.
Jade reports, “Here’s a summary of what we know and don’t know about the next-gen Apple sub-notebook.”
What we know:
• 13-inch ultra-thin, LED-back lit display
• No optical disc drive
• On-board NAND flash for faster application launching and boot times
• Built-in iSight webcam
• Thinner and lighter than existing MacBook offerings
• AirPort Extreme 802.11n enabled
• MagSafe power adapter
• Target launch late ’07, early ’08
What we don’t know:
• Precise Intel architecture (but appears to be Santa Rosa-based)
• Target price point
• RAM and HDD storage capacity and expandability
• I/O port breakdown
• Operating system software (appears to be Leopard)
• Expected battery life
• Enclosure makeup
Full article, including info on MacBook Pro, MacBook, and iMac updates, here.
Should be 12″ and include an optical drive in my opinion with a matt screen.
More fabrication from AppleOutsider.
I agree with Crackedbutt
er
“Should be 12″ and include an optical drive in my opinion with a matt screen.”
I love screens by Matt. He makes good ones.
We all know this is not accurate. here is the real report:
4x4x4 cubed device.
Side 1: holographic projector
Side 2: holographic multi touch interface
Side 3: USB & Power ports
Side 4: User replaceable Fuel Cell
Side 5: RFID sensor
Side 6: Ruber Feet (bottom)
“Should be 12″ and include an optical drive in my opinion with a matt screen.”
Those features are sooooo 90’s. Or something. Old anyway. Antique.
Widescreen is here to stay, hence 13″. Optical drive? Can’t make it ultra-slim with one. Matte screen? Oooooold. Why not use a CRT screen, LOL. Glossy screens look so much better.
I want it small enough to hold between my cheeks and operate with my ‘roids. Now that would be convenient.
Its form factor will be more like the iPhone than the MacBook. Touchscreen with virtual keyboard and wireless physical keyboard as an option. It will use all the touchscreen interface physics that the iPhone uses. Can’t wait!
as long as it is super tiny, syncs with my mini for optical drive stuff, and isn’t ultra pricey, i am interested.
if they want to use the iphone setup and remove the keyboard and keep it under $1000, hey that is ok with me.
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magicword “future”, as in “someday in the future scotty will say ‘a keyboard! how quaint!'”
No optical drive? That’s a pretty big deal-breaker feature. I don’t want to carry an external drive around too.
Memo:
From: Apple Insider COO
To: Apple Insider writers.
Please continue to publish more of the obvious with gross speculation. The mac zealots eat it up. They love reading trite predictions. We need your mindless articles to increase our ad revenue.
actually, an Apple patent already showed a bottom-mouting optical drive, so whatever they come out with witll have a superdrive.
it’s stupid that someone would think it wouldn’t. the only Mac portable without an optical drive, at this point, is the iPhone.
Much too difficult to load software w/out optical.
is it really a deal breaker to burn dvds and play dvds?
not for an ultra portable device it isnt.
this would be a computer with ultra portability in mind, i actually dont use my superdrive that much, yea I need one, but i usually use it mostly for backups, I could see someone using an external hardrive for backups and then not needing a superdrive.
Just think about how light and thin it could be.
It would be like carrying around a slightly heavy A4 pad with an ultra bright screen, rather than a laptop. Im sure for alot of people the weight savings would be a very acceptable payoff.
13″ ??? What the fsck?
11″ or 12″ would be more like. Especially if they wanna make it in Japan.
C’mon people! Obviously it has to have dual 3GHz Xeons, a collapsable 24″ display, dual blu-ray burners, GPS navigation, 10 hour battery, weigh 2.5 pounds, and be 5″ x 7″ x 1/2″.
12″ widescreen i meant.
I can’t understand why an extra inch is a deal breaker. The screen will be widescreen and probably have very little space from the screen and the edge.
Leaving out the optical drive makes sense. Who uses CDs for data sharing nowadays, with flash drives being so much easier to grad large files or email and networking to send files remotely. You can easily have an external drive that plugs in via USB2 when needing to install the OS and Apps.
Can you really tell me that you would rather have a thicker, heavier machine for want of an internal optical drive?
I switched out my PB G4 15″ ‘s optical drive with a HDD from MCE. I’ve got 240 Megs in that sucker and I don’t miss the optical drive at all. Battery life is fine. The external enclosure works great with the drive. VLC player makes DVDs work, and firewire lets me boot from the external if I need to. Besides the fact that they sent me the wrong d$%^ directions and I had to figure out installation myself it was worth it.
No optical drive….no sale.
It’s an 11″ screen that grows to a turgid 13″ after a series of slow to fast multi-touch strokes. This also ejects any media. The entire process generates heat and initial tests had the CPU smoking afterwards. Screens will be coated with a special lubrication to prevent this.
“I can’t understand why an extra inch is a deal breaker.”
Says, I’m not a woman.
Numlock has it right: Its form factor will be more like the iPhone than the MacBook. Touchscreen with virtual keyboard and wireless physical keyboard as an option. It will use all the touchscreen interface physics that the iPhone uses. Can’t wait!
That ridiculous design for an optical drive opening on the bottom of the case should be taken as a joke, guys and gals. I mean, could you seriously imagine? Weak. And Apple has patented making the notebook double as the optical drive’s case to try and save space, but I think that’s going no where also. So no optical drive. Want to watch a movie? One word: iTunes Store. Oh, OK two words. Need software updates? Wireless 802.11. Perhaps a basic system (like Apple Hardware Test + basic OS boot) could be on firmware-updateable ROM, so the device could be reset to factory spec quickly.
I predict no ethernet port either (and of course no modem). First, the plug is big, so the body of the device would have to be thick to accomodate. Same for FireWire: no go. And second, why use ethernet when we have 802.11 and bluetooth?
As numlock said, wireless keyboard is optional (and mouse or pen), because the main interface could be virtual.
@DogGone – right on!
@PlasticMD and other “no sales” – then go buy a MacBook. No big deal; that’s why there are several portable products in the lineup.
And then they’ll start proucing the Duodock again …
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Like here :
http://www.maccentre.com.au/appleads/PowerBook/apple-powerbook-duo-2-ad.mov