We've certainly heard this rumor
before but, according to the folks AppleInsider, it looks like we could now be fast approaching an actual debut of the
oft-
discussed ultra-portable Apple laptop. If they're right, the system (which is said to be a 13-incher) will be introduced at the Macworld Expo in January and, as previously speculated, it apparently won't boast an internal optical disc drive. That, along with some desirable NAND flash storage, will supposedly make the system about 50 percent lighter han Apple's current 15-inch MacBook Pro, not to mention "strikingly slimmer". As AppleInisder points out, those changes should also help to make the system considerably more power-efficient, with an LED-backlit display also helping on that front. Of course, this is all still up in the air for the time being, but at least this rumor has a definitive expiry date we can look forward to.
posted Nov 12th 2007 12:49PM
*Braces for the inevitable comparisons to the Asus EEE PC*
I'll save everyone some trouble: This one will be heavier, bigger and at least 3 times the price. It will also be much more powerful.
Something is really wrong with my eyes, but silver or white color on the EEE is a deal breaker to me. Is black ink that expensive? I do not mind a $50 premium, but it has to be an option on both Macs (all!) and EEE - (I think EEE comes in black already)
3 times the price? Probably 5-6 times the price for the base model.
This might be a neat product, but 13 inches is far more than "Ultra-portable"
I think that they are using the sub-4pound definition of ultra-portable laptops.
Yep, ultra-portable moniker is usually assigned by weight. But different manufacturers have a different criteria, so sometimes anything less than 6 pounds gets that label, which makes me cringe. My 1.8 pound 12" half inch thick Toshiba R100 is what I'd call an ultraportable. A 13" 3 pound Apple would also be a boundary one.
We have to wait until January!?!
Blech.
Woops, double post =o
You'll probably have to wait a lot longer than that. Every time that an Apple press event is on the horizon, this rumor always gets floated by the same people who are talking about it now. It's never been true.
Will it be true this time? I certainly don't know, but I feel like if they were ever going to release an ultra-portable, why haven't they done it yet? It's not like people haven't been begging for something to replace their 12" PowerBook since the second that Apple announced the MBP.
We have to wait all the way until January!?!
Blech.
Actually sounds nice, even though I'm no iAtollah; now if we could just get a decent non Microsoft spreadsheet and it were to cost less than a thousand bucks...
Apple's Numbers is more than "decent" and only costs $79 for the whole iWorks package.
Not to mention Openoffice.org
Even Google Documents, if you are patient enough.
13" really isn't ultra portable in my books.
I don't understand Apples fixation with the whole thinner is better thing. They'll no doubt market it as the world thinnest laptop or something silly like that, while completely ignoring the other dimensions. I mean, you stick a laptop in your bag, not your pocket, are there really any situations where you would notice the difference between a 25mm or 15mm thick laptop for example?
It might have some advantages.... but you start to reach the critical "snapping" point. Too big to be that thin without some appreciable internal bracing.
true that, Phil Perman. I don't really need a laptop thinner than the current macbook. I would however, like the current macbook to lose its thick border around the screen and keyboard. I would also want it to be a lot lighter. So yeah, you're right... i don't see any need for it to be thinner. And losing the optical drive? Is uncle steve crazy?
You can stick your laptop in a bag; I'll carry mine around in a leather notebook folder.
There's more to portability than just the volume of a notebook, weight and battery life being two of the main issues. I'd much rather have a lightweight system with long battery life than one that was simply small in size.
If Apple goes the 13" route, I would imagine it's because of the keyboard. Much smaller than 13" and you're starting to look at having to reduce the size of the keys, something many people will avoid like the plague.
@Matt
I have a Dell XPS m1210. It's 12", and it's keyboard the best I've ever used on a notebook of any size. Also, PC laptops have many more keys than MacBooks do. If Apple doesn't go below 13", it's not because of the keyboard. Look at the 13" MacBook. There's a pretty sizable border around the keyboard.
I want small and light, yet fully functional. Right now only Sony and Toshiba make laptop like that. Unfortunately, both are companies I would never buy a computer from. Apple, while I've never owned one, will get my business if this comes to fruition. I've got a 5 lbs Dell that's just too heavy and large to use on a daily basis at the office and for travel.
Don't say "fast approaching", we are approaching every single thing that is in the future at the same rate (at least in terms of time).
A+++++++++!!!! Will LOL again
lol well said!
Einstein would not be proud.
@carl
HA! well put
They have those Time Machines built into those damn macbooks ,you know?
That is not necessarily true.. time is relative and can be faster or slower depending on the observer... like a minute can seem really long at times and really fast at another.
but still funny..
Haven't heard this from anywhere, but I'm hoping for a transflexive LCD. That way you can get even more battery life out of the machine when you are outside (no backlit needed). The XO OLPC has one and so does the Toshiba R500 (best. laptop. ever.) Where's the apple love?
I'm pretty sure they came out with this a few years ago. It was called a Powerbook G4 with a 12" screen.
Or Vaio SZ series. Or TZ series. Or Dell XPS-M1210, or XPS-1330... and heaps of Asus, Toshiba Portige and Fujitsu models... And they are available now.
I don't care if it is slimmer than the Pro books, they are slim enough. Slimmer just means a shoddy keyboard as the one in the Macbooks. If it has a shoddy keyboard I can just as well keep my 12" G4 - which has a very nice keyboard - and live with the pre-Intel performance. Give me less weight and more battery life, that is what counts in ultramobiles.
No optical drive? How am I supposed to update the OS? Download a multiple gig file from their website?
Isnt that how you update with the other mac computers, its multi megabyte NOT gigabyte.
I don't know how you operate, but I tend to execute major OS updates whilst in the comfort of my own home and not huddling up to some stinky homeless gentleman in an attempt to stay out of the win and rain at a bus stop. And at home one could have an external drive to abuse.
I for one like the 'less moving parts' in a mobile device mantra.
Don't assume that the lack of an internal drive means it won't have one at all. It could be external, which would help in the size of the device quite a bit.
Or... one could assume that a NAND hdd would replace the optical one.
I'm also sure that a NAND hdd has the capability of storing "multiple gigabytes" of data
What, no internal drive, pass
How am I supposed to watch dvds on a flight w/o the drive?
Slim USB optical drive.
Downloaded content from iTunes ofcourse.
Torrent?
Rip them to DivX.
If you're using a portable laptop it's probably not your primary computer. I have my drive networked for when I need to install something from a CD/DVD. Also I can just drag & drop any other files into shared.
Shouldn't be lugging CD's with a portable anyways, kinda goes against the cause.
I just noticed I was thinking from a Windows perspective, I have no idea if it works the same on a Mac, but I'll assume it does.
On a long flight I always watch something off the hard drive. DVD drives chew up battery life. Back in the day this was the only way to watch movies on a laptop unless you had paid an exorbitant amount for the DVD add-on. It also came in handy on those great ultra portable Sony VAIOs that didn't come with optical drives (though they did have an option for an external drive - with a proprietary connector, of course). I guess I got in the ripping habit back then.
13" is ultra portable? Sounds pretty old school as far as ultra portable goes now a days.
NONONONONO, damnit, if this is true it'll really crank my gourd...
I bought the eeepc to tide me over 'til Apple comes out with THEIR version.. but of a 7-10" screen, not my damned macbook on ephedrine.
*sigh*
Lordy, while I hope this is TRUER than the tale of Asus making a tablet for Apple, I sure hope they got the size of this thing wrong...
btw, the eee? It ROCKS.
But it ain' no apple.
Toshiba is able to pull sub - 2 lb with built-in DVDRW inside. Come on Apple, as a very innovative company, you can do better than that!!!!
sony 2
You are supposed to watch DVDs on flights by downloading them via iTunes earlier. Part of Stevie's plan to conquer the world.
But doing away with an optical drive (if the rumors are true, and AppleInsider HAS been wrong before) is really an excellent idea. There is convenience in being able to burn a quick CD or DVD wherever, whenever, but many people are moving to external HDDs for all of their large storage needs besides backup, and there are many external DVD/CD burners of the same strain, so it wouldn't be too difficult.
I'm hoping, though, that this turns out to be the tablet Mac. Not in so many words, mind you. Knowing Stevie, there will be something revolutionary about the new ultraportable: something like - dare I say it - DS-style technology?
Apple has the patents to make a screen that is independently touch and pressure-sensitive. They also have a myriad of patents for tactile feedback mechanisms that would push little tiny frames through the screen that a person's fingers could feel and thus use to type. It would take some getting used to, but there would be no ultimate difference in typing speed compared to conventional laptops. And the good thing? The keyboard would be 100% reconfigurable.
But yeah - DS. Two screens with complete multi-touch technology (and if you don't give me stylus support, Stevie, I'll die) and the top screen has no bottom border and the bottom screen has no top border. The screen can be folded outwards flat, thus turning it into the Mac Tablet running Full OS X Leopard. So you have a 17-inch tablet Mac and a 13-inch ultraportable notebook. What more could you ask for?
Who needs an optical drive, anyway? With a little bit of high-powered bluetooth/wifi technology, they could easily release an external HDD/optical drive that would work perfectly within a 10-foot radius of the device.
I could not agree more. I admit watching DVDs in flight is nice but I've always used Mac which = 1 movie tops and then battery goes kaput... other than that, I cannot remember the last time I used my optical drive on my iMac... it is dusty! Wait, a few months ago I did rip a CD, but that's it! Almost all content is downloadable now so one really doesn't need to carry the drive at all times. You could have a slim USB one at home, load the movies you want to watch and travel super light and with (hopefully) a loooooooong battery life.
It reminds me of what folks were saying when the first iMac had no floppy drive. Everyone was going nuts. "What will we do?!" And yet it was fine, just fine. Jobs is pretty good at predicting the curve. I think it is spot on.
It disturbs me that you are calling Jobs "Stevie"
Because of an NDA, I can't tell you that I've seen one. Nor can I not say that it will be announced in January.
Wow, you really are an ass wipe - good for you.
Is he an ass wipe because he won't confirm, or an ass wipe because he is trying to skirt an NDA?
wtf
12" is a minimum size which still allows for full size keys for the main keyboard keys. Function and navigation keys do get reduced on a 12" so it's already too small for some but for touch typing 12" is probably the limit.
Funny, I was thinking the other day, "How often do I use my optical drive anymore?" I almost download all my software, movies, music, etc...
If I do need to transfer data physically I use a usb key.
@matt
"Much smaller than 13" and you're starting to look at having to reduce the size of the keys, something many people will avoid like the plague."
You've never seen a 12" PowerBook have you? I've had one since they came out in 2003. The keyboard is the reason that I'm still using it even though it's slow. It's by far the best keyboard that I've ever typed on. The 12" iBook, not so much. But smaller than 13" is possible.
i would really like a ultraportable mac, but 13" isnt ultraportable, its just small enough to make a widescreen display a really bad idea.
so most likely i will have to keep my 12" ibook, since it is the most compact and most important the mac with the longest battery life.
cool. that means i will save money, even when i get an eee (wich i will do, as soon as they release a version with a full screen and a big battery).
Wtf? The new MacBooks are lighter, thinner, faster, and have better battery life than your amazing iBook
Huh. Now, I'm not necessarily suggesting that I believe that it's true, but I will say this:
Back in the day, when Apple released the iMac without a floppy drive, umpteen critics declared it dead on arrival because of that.
I can't name anyone that I know who would use an ultraportable as their only computer. Given the ubiquity of wireless networking and thumb drives, I fail to see why a second computer would require an optical drive.
For those of you slow on the uptake, my point is this: you don't need an optical drive on a secondary computer. It takes up weight, space, and it kills battery life.
Fuck that, just upgrade the MacBook Pro's specs for me so I can finally buy one.
Why do they keep calling this an ultra portable when it's 13 inches? That's the MacBook's size! If you want one as powerful as a MacBookpro at that size, then keep the optical drive in! And if you can't do that either, it better be at least the price of a MacBook.
This thing is going to look really awesome, I'm confident in Apple's design. With the removal of an optical drive, inclusion of SSD, I imagine this laptop will be .5" thick. That's about half of what my 17" MacBook Pro is. That's dead sexy, depending on how awesome it is, I may buy one but I'll have a hard time living with such a small resolution.
I don't think an optical drive is necessary, I barely use the one on my laptop, I usually do all my things via an external hard drive, we'll see how this works out. I'll be here when everybody is talking about how awesome it is come January.
Everyone is getting a prediction in on this thing so they can all be "right" come MacWorld. I honestly hope Apple doesn't come out with one just to watch people squirm afterwards.
Oh really, well way to ride the fence on this barely-an-issue. I don't really see how making predictions is a bad thing. In fact like half of engadget is predictions. . . why did you open this thread if you don't like predictions. . . I'm confused
I was pointing out that this prediction has been around for months and months. It's not a prediction anymore. It's an inevitability. Every time the ultra-portable subnotebook Macbook (Pro) thin "rumor" hits over the past few months, it evolves from rumor to "well, no shit".
It will have multi-touch no doubt. . . if it exists that is.
But multi-touch does exist! The iPhone has it and also that iLick thing or whatever it's called.
Sorry, couldn't resist. ;-}
I'm not going to miss the optical drive, but I'm actually more concerned about the SSD rumour. In my opinion, that should be optional. The problem with a SSD is that dual booting with XP will be impossible because of lack of space.
werd. I am worried about this too. 64GB won't be enough for me...
Hopefully they will update the MacBookPro as well.
I bet you they do more multi-touch stuff with the mouse trackpad, and port it to all of their notebooks.
Call me a fanboy, but I'm buying it the second it comes out. I've got a Mac Pro and my work XP laptop (thinkpad T60) at home, but really wish I had a Mac to browse the web and such while watching TV. I miss my old 12" G3 iBook, but it was simply getting too slow so I sold it last year.
Who really wants to use their work computer for 'personal web browsing' anyway, and I find XP to be far from useful, especially since the thing takes 10 minutes to boot and login. Not to mention how poorly it handles WiFi.
I'm, of course, assuming this new machine will come in at a reasonable price, ie in Macbook territory, rather than 1400+.
Also, time to buy Apple stock. Glad I sold it before it tanked and can get in at a lower price again!
I have an aging HP TC1100 hybrid-tablet PC, who's 10.5" screen might fit into the "ultra portable" category everyone is talking about.
It dosn't have a CD drive and it works just fine. The solution for me has always been an external USB drive or the docking station. Since I never needed to use a CD anywhere I needed the computer to be portable it was never an issue. The biggest complaint with the smaller form factor (10.5") is usually the keyboard size. Once you shrink the computer past 12-13" you start shrinking your keyboard and there are people who can't or won't accept that.
I am looking for a replacement for my TC1100 and if Apple releases something small I'll have to consider it.
Apple needs to learn how to make the laptops more energy efficient, from what I have heard, they heat up very quickly.
I think they will drive away alot of customers with out a DVD drive.
13" is still a laptop. 10" or less is UMPC territory. If Apple want to waste their time making an expensive 13" laptop then let them.
I remember an under the laptoptop-stupid as hell- idea from apple what happened to that?
Yeah, I won't be getting it. I'm getting a MacBook Pro, about $4,600 15 inch configuration and I can't replace that with "ultra-portable." I need a disc drive and at least 250gb of space
OH HELLLLL NO!
I just got my b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l Macbook Vanilla July!
I don't like my stuff getting obsolete!
Ooo, I cannot wait to get my hands on one of these if they really do come true.
http://www.fakesportsblogs.com
I wonder if he'll announce The Beatles catalog for release on iTunes... Paul said that it should be ready for release in 2008, and if he's giving this keynote in January, that's 2008.