How Apple Is Poised To Disrupt Notebook Computer Space Yet Again – The ‘Book Mystique

The Windows laptop makers are just beginning to get their Ultrabook production ramped-up to take on the year and a half old MacBook Air, but Apple is expected to disrupt the laptop computer market again this year with a complete top-to-bottom overhaul of its notebook Mac lineup.

It’s in the category of rumor yet, but it seems like a near-certainty that Apple will announce a 15-inch laptop in the MacBook Air thin wedge design motif sometime this year. The operative question is whether it will be called a MacBook Air, a MacBook Pro, or perhaps even something else. Recent scuttlebutt has it that Apple is fixing to do a major overhaul of its entire notebook lineup in 2012, presumably timed to coincide with availability of Intel’s forthcoming Ivy Bridge Core i CPUs.

Intel estimates that it Ivy Bridge will provide a 20 percent performance boost with comparable Sandy Bridge laptops. Ivy Bridge also provides a 30 percent boost in integrated graphics performance

When Steve Jobs said that the MacBook Air was the future of laptops, he was right as usual. To the disgust of a vocal minority, it’s only logical that Apple will take the same design steps with their MacBook Pro.

It also seems likely that there will be some rationalization of the MacBook Pro with the hot-selling MacBook Air, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro seems a potential casualty. While both new 15-inch and 17-inch professional MacBooks rumored to be in the works, there’s been nothing, at least that I have heard, about a redesigned Ivy Bridge 13-inch MacBook Pro. That could be because if the Pro models are to share the MacBook Air’s styling and engineering, it might be deemed illogical to have very similar 13-inch MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros. On the other hand, Appleinsider’s Kasper Jade thinks there could be room for a somewhat upgraded feature set version of the MacBook Air to be slotted in as a new 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Further indication that the 13-inch Air’s role is being expanded was when hard on the heels of Its termination of the $899 education model white polycarbonate MacBook, Apple announced a new $999 (in bulk purchases of five units or more) education-only variant of the 13-inch MacBook Air, sharing internal specs. with the entry-level 11.6″ MacBook Air — 1.6GHz dual-core Core i5 Intel processor with Intel’s HD Graphics 3000 chipset, two gigabytes of RAM and a 64-gigabyte solid-state drive. last week 9To5Mac’s Mark Gurman reported that the 11.6″ MacBook Air will also be available in bulk to education institutions starting at $929, and that higher-spec. Airs in both sizes will also be offered at commensurately higher prices, culminating with a 13.3 inch machine powered by a 1.7 GHz Core i CPU, 4GB RAM, a 128GB SSD, and AppleCare extended warranty protection at $1312.

Given that the 13-inch MacBook Pro is one of the best-selling Mac notebook models, partly by virtue of its impressive power and feature set offered at a relatively modest price, Apple might be justifiably wary of dropping the smallest Pro ‘Book from its lineup. That is of course presuming that the MacBook Pro and Air remain distinct product families for marketing purposes.

I can envision a possibility that Apple might simplify its laptop lineups by consolidating on one general design theme, with 15″ and 17″ models designated “Pro” and the 11.6″ and 13″ variants called MacBook Air. A possible drawback to that scenario from a marketing perspective would be that the bigger model(s?) wouldn’t be cashing in on the cachet of the MacBook Air brand name, notwithstanding that MacBook Pros are still the best-selling Mac notebook models overall.

The operative reality is Mac notebook users are likely going to be obliged to adapt to are expected to include the ultra-thin wedge-shaped unibody form factor enclosures pioneered by the second-generation MacBook Airs, and saying farewell to internal optical disk drives and traditional hard drives in favor of reliance on peripheral devices for optical disk support if needed and solid state data storage drives only. The advantages besides slimmer device profiles will be the SSD’s instant-on capabilities, speed, quiet operation, obliviousness to shock, lower current draw and heat generation resulting in longer battery life. Downsides will be the extra cost and inconvenience of connecting a peripheral device if you need optical drive support, more reliance on digital distribution for software and media, and the higher cost and typically much lower storage capacity of solid state drives. Apple’s purported solution to the latter is its iCloud online service, but that only works when you’ve got Internet access, which is not as ubiquitous as Apple evidently imagines it is. More on that below.

It appears that many Apple-users are open to embracing iCloud, but the flaw in that strategy for a large proportion of us who are Mac veterans and users of older hardware, iCloud is not supported. iCloud. While users of only late-model Mac OS X, iOS, and Windows devices are accommodated, the minimum specs. are OS X Lion v10.7.2, iOS 5, and on PC’s Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) or Windows 7. An obvious irony there is that middle-aged Windows PCs are better-supported by Apple’s online service than are its own hardware. For example, this writer has not bothered signing up for iCloud because while my iPad 2 running iOS 5 is supported, for a variety of non-trivial compatibility reasons I’m still running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard on my Core 2 Duo MacBook, and using two older Mac laptops running OS X 10.4 Tiger for production work. For my purposes, the free basic version of third-party Cloud service DropBox works splendidly for keeping current work and project data in sync. among my four production devices thanks to its enlightened support of Mac OS software back to version 10.4. Too bad Apple can’t be as accommodating.

Of course, anyone who buys one of Apple’s next-generation laptops will be obliged to use OS X Lion and whatever succeeds it, so within that limited context, iCloud works subject to Internet access. For when you need access to local data storage, the obligatory solution will be another peripheral device, ergo an external hard drive. Begins to be a lot of stuff to lug around with your thin and light laptop, not to mention the added expense that one needs to factor in if you’re a pro or power user with designs on moving up to an Ivy Bridge Mac laptop. One of the more elegant and portability friendly solutions is Apricorn’s recently announced Mac Edition of their Aegis NetDock — a compact 3 in 1 USB Docking Station, combining a 4-port USB Hub, a dual layer DVD burner/player and up to a 1TB hard drive, all in a single device with a footprint smaller than an office stapler and connecting to the Mac via a single USB connection. The Netdock sells for $229 for the 1TB model. Look for a full review here soon.

Speaking of such things, it will be interesting to see what sort of I/O connectivity Apple builds into its next wave of notebooks. Greater emphasis on and promotion of Intel’s Thunderbolt ultra high speed data/video protocol is expected, which will likely continue to rule out Apple support for USB 3. FireWire, unhappily, is likely a goner with these new machines. Any laptop purporting to be “Pro” hardware should have built-in Ethernet connectivity, which the current MacBook Airs don’t. Expect current two or three port USB 2 and SD Card slot support to continue on the professional Mac notebook models, but beyond that it remains to be seen.

Another, more existential question for longtime Mac OS Pro/Power users who have developed complex workflow ecosystems around Mac hardware and the Mac OS is the future of Apple’s desktop operating system. The advertising analytics firm Chitika Insights reported last week that their web traffic market share tracking data show Apple’s iOS passed the Mac OS in volume for the first time ever this month, accounting for 8.15% of all web traffic compared with the Mac OS logging 7.96%, and the iOS experiencing an nearly 50% overall growth while OS X’s market share has declined by an alarming 25% since September. While it should be noted that Chitika’s metrics-gathering focuses mainly on mobile devices so its data are almost certainly skewed more toward the iOS than is truly representative of general Web traffic, there’s still writing on the wall here for the trend-perceptive. Apple’s disruptor motif doesn’t only impact its PC competition.

In that context, Apple CEO Tim Cook’s comments at Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference on Tuesday shed some revelatory light on what the future holds.

Mr. Cook affirmed that here will continue to be a strong personal computer industry, but that tablets will outstrip it in unit sales, to a considerable degree cannibalizing PCs, and noting that the iPad has already cannibalized some Mac sales, but is hurting more Windows PC sales more. He maintains that “iPad is a profound change. It will be bigger than the PC…” and that the iOS and “that other operating system” in development are the center of innovation now, not the PC, which of course in this context includes the Mac.

One of the most daunting adjustments for power users if Apple ditches hard disk drives in the MacBook Pro models will be downsizing the on-board data storage capacity we’ve become accustomed to from the 750 GB to 1 TB HDD capacities available with HDDs to only 256 GB on thinkably affordable SSDs. Tim Cook’s answer to that is iCloud, which he considers a profound game-changer, noting that 10 years ago, Steve Jobs touted the Mac as the Digital Hub, ie: the center of users’ lives, but he said Tuesday that iCloud turns that concept on its head, noting that we all live on multiple devices now so it’s better with iCloud, which he predicts will be the new “digital hub” if you will for the next decade or more.”

Again, not music to the ears of traditionalists like me who prefer to have local storage and access to our data without the Internet as a medium, but no doubt inevitable.

Not to suggest that Apple’s Macs are in danger of being phased out in favor of a comprehensive touchscreen hardware takeover any time soon, but what can be expected is increasing convergence of OS X with the iOS, a transformation already initiated with OS X 10.7 Lion. Not the greatest news for Mac OS traditionalists, but it will probably work out well for Apple.

Whatever the key to cracking Apple’s market cachet and mystique might be, it’s evident that just playing catch-up with Apple innovation hasn’t been it for Windows PC vendors, and neither has Intel’s $300 million cash subsidy for the Ultrabook initiative last year proved the charm. Appleinsider’s Jade notes that for various reasons, including Apple’s muscle in the OEM space giving it a currently insurmountable price advantage with its signature aluminum unibody construction, Ultrabook sales have been something of a disappointment for the players, with for example PC makers Acer and Asus struggling to gain traction in a MacBook Air dominated market, obliging them to reduce initial Ultrabook orders by as much as 40% and looking for more generous marketing subsidies from Intel to help keep prices competitive.

Barrons’ Tech Trader Daily columnist Tiernan Ray cites J.P. Morgan hardware analyst Mark Moskowitz in a conference call on Tuesday shrugging off Ultrabooks as little more than MacBook Air rip-offs – nothing new at all but just the Wintel crowd scrambling to catch up with Apple.

Ultrabooks will of course be transitioning to Ivy Bridge silicon when it becomes available as well, but the prospect of going head-to-head with a whole new generation of freshly redesigned Apple notebooks will mean little comfort or breathing-room for the PC vendors. Their best hope for some relief will come with the release of Windows 8, anticipated sometime in the fall, but by that time Apple will likely have already skimmed the top of the season’s market with its new MacBooks, even while its corporate heart now belongs to the iOS. Will cross-category Windows 8 be able to turn the tide? It’s shaping up to be an interesting confrontation, but it would be unwise to bet against Apple.