Let the Mac/Apple guessing game begin.
 

Well, rumors has it there will be a new slim laptop called air. Solid state HDD and no optical drive. I sincerely hope they rethink the latter and include the optical drive.

macrumors.com has a picture of the presentation screen for the keynote and there is an image for garageband. My guess is an update on iLife 08 is in the works.

I'm hoping for an ipod touch with a bigger HDD than the current models. I'm holding out till there is.

I guess iPhone would also have a bigger hdd but as much as it looks slick I love my blackberry and will stick with that.

Well, those are my guesses.

The last time I've used my optical drive was to install Leopard. Other than that, I wouldn't miss it.

I'm really looking forward to having a ultrasmall Mac and possibly even integrated EVDO or similar wireless. I'm not sure I could live with a small solid state HD though, as I'm almost maxing out my Macbook Pro's 250gb drive.

I use my optical drive a lot. Watching movies etc. I'm also often given promo cds of bands when at conferences and trade shows so must have the drive.

If I'd go with a smaller laptop (which for travel is great) I'd have a desktop at home. But optical dive is essential. Sometimes i'm thinking of getting a 12" last edition powerbook. Used to have a first edition and loved it!

/E

This piece from Fortune on cnn.com's Money section says to look out for:

- A skinny MacBook (under 3 lbs., flash "disk")
- iPhone updates
- Movie rentals
- DRM-free music
- Microsoft Office 2008. (No surprises here, the reviews are already in.)
- The Beatles. (Yoko Ono’s John Lennon Educational Tour Bus mobile recording studio; a press reception in the bus.)

Regarding the "skinny MacBook:" part of the weight reduction, per other sites, would come from using an external optical (CD/DVD) drive. This cuts the weight of the base machine, but for those of us who travel and use our laptops in part to watch DVDs en route, it means we have to copy them to the internal drive before we leave or carry in total more weight than we otherwise would.

There are also concerns with flash drives as disk replacements. Reportedly, they have a finite number of write cycles before they start to fail. This isn't a problem in any application paced by human activity. Photographers can shoot a thousand shots a day for months before a memory card (same technology, different form factor) starts to go. However, when the OS writes to the "disk" a hundred times per second, for things like backing store that take place on electronic rather than human time scales, the device might not show the lifetime we've come to expect from rotating magnetic drives. One solution would be to modify the OS to reduce this activity by orders of magnitude. This is possible; whether or not Apple did it, assuming a product like this will actually be announced, is (at least to me) pure speculation.

i guess that we will know in about 24 hours the answer to all of the above speculations. I am getting rady to switch from a PC to a Macbook, and have anxiously been waiting for Macworld before doing so. I agree that an optical drive is important if you want to watch movies on the airplane. Otherwise, a flash drive would be fine.

If they do introduce a ultra-compact laptop there is no way it will include an optical drive and will probably have a modified ethernet jack as these are two things that limit how thin Apple can make these machines. Obviously there would be some sort of dock and/or a portable optical drive for when it's needed. Optical drives are power hungry so if you're using them to watch movies while on the go you're doing yourself a disservice. There are plenty of tools out there to rip your movies to your HD. I'm looking forward to this type of laptop as it's exactly what my wife has been looking for.

Other than that I hope Apple will combine the functionality of the crippled (read: nearly useless) AppleTV with the horsepower and functionality of the MacMini and produce a serious media center mac. At this point I don't really care about DVR functionality as the TiVo has done that to near perfection. Nor do I think apple would be able to go into the DRV market as their relationships with the media networks would quickly crumble. Apple is keeping them happy by giving them a cut of the sale of all of their stuff, if Apple suddenly allowed users to record their stuff for free there would be big problems.

I would love a lighter MAc - but the 15 inch macbook pro isn't too bad.

I've been waiting for Apple to introduce a smaller/lighter laptop -- the 15-inch Macbook is great but far too big & heavy for me to travel with. Needs to be less than 4 (preferably 3) lbs.

I once used a laptop with an external optical drive, but found it not to be worth the hassle: Either I carried the drive with me and didn't use it, or I left it at home and ended up needing it! Notebook optical drives are so light these days that (IMHO) it's a poor compromise to omit one.

I currently have a Sony T-series, < 3 lbs with optical drive and hi-res display, and I would love to replace it with a comparable Mac! I guess we'll see shortly whether Apple will be getting (more of) my money.

Integrated EVDO (HSDPA)?
 

I go back and forth on integrated HSDPA. I have an HTC TyTN which has 3g on it and can be easily tethered. There are times that I would like to just open up my laptop and not deal with tethering, but I also like being able to use my data on the go when I don't have a laptop. I supposed I could purchase two plans, but that seems over the top. (Well, I kind of did. I have a $5 data package on my little slider phone, but...).

Given the fact that Apple is in bed with Cingular on the iPhone, I'd also imagine that any data would be focused on GSM rather than EVDO. I just hope they don't lock down their data card as tightly as the iPhone.

Ah what fun during the silly season that is the week of Macworld...

Apparently this is the leaked keynote for tomorrow :D

The link that was just provided suggested that the DVD drive was at least quasi-integrated.

Didn't I just say in another thread that the Macbook needed a refresh? :)

But how much does it weigh?

DVD drive pops open on side ... ?? No slot loading optical drive?

-David

Hahaha, the one thing to never ever do is to believe the horribly faked keynote outline that gets leaked a few days before the event. That outline mentions updated Mac Pros. The Mac Pros were updated last week with better specs than this outline claims.

Today's SF chronicle says that the big thing is gonna be movie rental and possibly ultra light notebook with the Solid state HD.
According to the article the Conference Manager? said they want to keep it about Mac's and not Iphones or Ipods.

Love to see a smaller and lighter MacBook pro. But with solid state drive is not going to cut it for me. I want 340GB in a 13" that weighs less than 3.5 lbs. Knowing Apple, whatever it rolls out, it will be 40% premium in price over a PC equivalent.
Will find out tomorrow.

I hope they will be similar to the Sony Vaio TZ series, though at a lower price, at least less than Sony's $3699.

Exactly. Its an impressive fake with a lot of good ideas and things that may come to pass tomorrow, but there was a couple things that stood out to me as VERY wrong/odd.

What are you doing that you need 340gb of internal, portable data?

Oh jebus, not only has that never been true there have been a number of (barely scientific) studies that have shown the TCO of Apple computers to be less than name brand PCs. Fact is that Macs require less service, fewer upgrades, they stay usable longer and they hold their resale value better.

Apple should be able to beat that price. I read something yesterday that 160gb solid state HDs can be had for around $200 these days. That should be more than enough storage for the average user. I think most people are connecting their laptops to large external drives these days where they are storing music/photos/video/backups etc. as standard HDs are dirt cheap these days.

Check out Wired's Gadget Blog for their guess at the ultra-portable, which they claim was leaked by an insider.

No specs or pricing. Two pictures, with the warning "Expect reality to disagree with our photoshops." (Has "Photoshop" gone generic to the point where it no longer has to be capitalized?)

An hour to go ...

woo hoo! Lights are going down at Moscone Center. ^

1) Time capsule; enternal 802.11n airport extreme with a 500Gb or 1Tb drive. $299 and $499.

2) SDK for the iPhone. And a new update with location finder, multiple SMS recipients, better home screen, lyrics.

3) iTunes Movie Rentals

4) "Today we're introducing a third kind of notebook, and it's called the MacBook Air. In a sentence, it's the world's thinnest notebook."

Minute-by-minute live updates at www.macrumorslive.com

Oooh 64GB Flash based HD! I wonder how long the battery will last on this thing... :)

According to Jobs, five hours. He didn't say which kind of storage, what usage, etc. YMMV.

It may be a fluke but online, if you add the 64GB SSD, the price jumps to $3,100. :td:

Disappointing machine. There is (IMHO) a limit to how thin something really has to be. For the same price as the Air, you can get a Sony SZ which has better specifications AND a dual layer DVD burner. Apple went for thin, and cut away everything they could from this machine. But it sure is pretty, so I bet it'll sell like hot cakes. It's clear Jobs had a hand in designing it. Just like the iPod he probably made people remove anything they could just so he could claim the "thinnest in the world".

Things I don't like about it AT ALL:

1) 1.8" HDD = slow slow slow. It's the same drive as in the iPod.
2) No expansion slots at all. No expresscard and no MiniPCI. So no way to add wireless broadband.
3) MicroDVI? Just means another new cable, and another dongle to lose. They should have added HDMI which would have fit just fine.
4) The price. With those specifications you must REALLY love Apple to drop $1800 on it. $3100 for the SSD version is just a plain ripoff.

It's no fluke. The 64GB SSD upgrade's price tag is $999. I wonder how many people will be driven to SSD by the slow speed of the 1.8" HDD.

All the memory is onboard. There is no SO-DIMM slot, so no way to upgrade it. 2GB is plenty for now, but who knows in the future.

Yup. The SSD drive is a $1000 option. Unless you're using the computer outside the operational limits of a hard drive (e.g. over 10,000 feet), I don't see how this is worthwhile given the price.

The 80 GB drive is a bit of a limitation, but in truth, I tend to travel with 1-2 external drives anyway.

AAPL is getting hammered today. Imminent earnings miss? Or disappointing new products?

I blame Randy Newman.

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/guidedtour/

This is absolutely amazing.

I have a Sony SZ. It cost nearly double what I just paid for the MBA. If anyone thinks it's such a great deal, look for it soon on eBay. :)

I guess I really love apple since I just ordered one.

With the drop in stock price today I could have bought 4. I hope earnings will boost it, but I kinda doubt it. Might have to wait until April to get my money back. :(

Something I noticed is that it has an "integrated" battery. I don't usually carry spare batteries, but I replace mine almost every year since I go through a lot of cycles.

I think the Air might not be enough, but I am looking forward to the 4lbs weight reduction from my MBP. I am almost certain the 80gb drive will be too small.

They are also playing a bit loose with the 2-3 week delivery since my est ship date is not until Feb 6th and delivery by Feb 11.

I think the MBA is awesome...I'm looking forward to seeing the same thing done to a MBP 17"!!! :D I need screen real estate!

Yeah, you'll have to take it in to replace the battery.

:td: I just read about that as well. Absolutely terrible.

Agreed, though I really am unclear on where the market is for this new laptop. It would be nice for people on the go if it had a way to add a wireless broadband card, and a user-replaceable battery, but alas...

The AppleTV needed a way bigger update IMHO. An update to the mini would have been nice too, though I expect to see that by March or April.

Not the best MacWorld ever, but not the worst either.

I am curious, what more did you want out of the Apple TV? A built-in tuner? While that would be nice, it would cut into AAPL's tv/movie download revenue.

I thinking making it a standalone set-top box that people can rent HD movies from was a pretty nice upgrade!

The MBA is impressive for what it does, but I was really in the market for a no-compromises laptop such as the Sonys. Apple's compromises to make it super-thin are more than I can bear. I wish there were a MacBook in between the Air and the Pro. :(

No optical drive, and cables for every expansion, make it a non-starter for me. I'm sure it will sell like hotcakes, though!