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Speculation and rumor about the upcoming MacBook refresh continues to flourish, as a 9 to 5 Mac tipster delivers a cryptic tidbit that the supposed October 14th event will be “all about the Brick”. As with the best Apple rumors, however, there’s no further detail than that, which leaves the theorists doing what they love the most: trying to decipher what Steve Jobs & Co have planned. The suggestions have ranged from the obvious – some sort of power supply modification, possibly including an optical drive and networking – to the metaphorical.
Computerworld’s Seth Weintraub suggests a wireless hub, similar to that offered by Belkin, which could include anything from an optical drive and wireless/wired networking through to wireless HDMI. Meanwhile Macenstein believe they’ve got the whole thing figured out as a literal metaphor: it’s Apple’s brick to smash through Windows. They’re predicting a $649 MacBook, which would bring a tempting OS X alternative to the rank & file of Vista notebooks.
Apple still, of course, are yet to confirm or deny anything about the rumored event in October. What do you think the Cupertino company has up its proverbial sleeves for the MacBook? Let us know in the comments.
2 Responses to “Apple MacBook ‘Brick’ rumors abound: Windows smasher or wireless hub?”
Timothy September 22, 2008
I don’t the brick is going to be what was speculated. Steve Jobs & Co. mentioned earlier this year that there was going to be some products released that will be breakthrough. Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, stated that there would be product release and price cuts. Ubergizmo wrote, “The new, unnamed product will continue to have “technologies and features that others can’t match,” according to the Oppenheimer.” So, there are two points a new product associated with product transition to cut back on it’s profit margins. Secondly, price changes. Note the correlation. I don’t think the “product transition” is another iteration of a laptop. Earlier this year Apple bought PA Semi for some $268 Million. The processor that was produced, at the time of acquisition, was the PPC based PWRficient processor some 2Ghz dual core 64bit running between 4 -7W, current stakeholder in the chip is the DOD. John Carmack, of ID, stated that “PowerVR SGX” was more powerful than Nintendo DS and PSP he also stated at another time that he thought programing in Objective-C was the one of if not the best platform to program. So, I believe the Next system the “Brick” will be a gaming system that includes both console and portable it run games on both and the user will purchase the games from the online Apple store. Sure there will be a new portable line but Apple will introduce something new and I think this will be that new “transitional” product.
+3Macdimar September 25, 2008
Very plausible. However, my hopes are on a power adapter with built in UBS, Ethernet and optical drive. Not much of a gamer ;-)
Neutral