A slimline 15-inch MacBook Pro (or souped up MacBook Air depending on who you believe), has been churning through the rumour mill for months. And having failed to materialise when Apple tarted up its MacBook Pro lineup last month, now sources close to suppliers in the Far East are claiming the size zero effort will be hitting shelves in March 2012. Read on for all the details.
Disappointed that Apple’s slimline redesign of the MacBook Pro didn’t materialise last week as part of the updates to its top-end laptop range? Well, fret not. Because new information has leaked out regarding a super slim 15-inch Apple laptop, that could well bring together the MacBook Pro’s grunt with the MacBook Air’s looks.
Hoping that Apple would give the MacBook Pro that much-mooted major overhaul before the year was out? Well, it looks as if you’re going to be disappointed. News has leaked out about Cupertino’s plans for its next-gen MacBook Pros, and the upgrades are looking like basic boosts rather than life-changing redesigns. Read on for all the details.
New MacBook Pros are coming, just months after Apple gave its top-end laptop range a refresh. The new update had been widely trailed as a major overhaul, with a new MacBook Air-like design jettisoning the optical drive while retaining the top-end grunt of Cupertino’s very best laptops.
Sadly, it seems that chatter is wide of the mark, with news emerging that this is simply an iterative update, bringing updated Bluetooth smarts and better processors. And that’s a crying shame, because it’s time that Apple blazed a trail and hammered the final nail in the coffin of the optical drive.
![Create your own Lion recovery USB thumb drive [free]](http://cdn.electricpig.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/lion_recovery_disk-150x150.jpg)
Enjoying that fresh new MacBook Air or upgraded an existing Mac to OS X Lion, but in desperate need of a recovery disc for a fresh installation? Fear not, Apple has just published support documentation which includes the “Lion Recovery Disk Assistant”. All you’ll need is an external hard drive or a USB thumb drive with 1GB of free space.
Since the new entry-level 11in MacBook Air killed off the MacBook last week, attention has now turned to the MacBook Pro. A duo of rumours suggests that Apple is working on slimmer, lighter version of its most powerful laptops with a plan to combine MacBook-Air-like sleekness with larger screens.
MacRumors started the chatter with a claim that Apple has a 15in “ultra-thin Mac notebook” in development that does away with a built-in optical drive. TUAW jumped in to support the rumour adding that sources have told it a slimmed down 17in model is also on the cards. The last time the MacBook Pro line had a major overhaul was in 2008 when Apple switched to the unibody design.
Obviously both reports are highly speculative but it does make sense for Apple to make the MacBook Pro lighter while maintaining the screen size and Steve Jobs did call the MacBook Air “the future of notebooks”. Click the headline and hop into the comments to let us know: do you think Apple should cross the MacBook Pro with the MacBook Air?
Not content with going gesture-crazy and turning mouse scrolling upside down in Mac OS X Lion, Apple has been pondering ways of tossing the traditional keyboard in the dustbin. A new Apple patent application has surfaced revealing Cupertino’s take on an entirely flat, touch-sensitive keyboard that come to future MacBooks.
We’ve already seen similar touchscreen keyboards on real world products including the Acer Iconia 6102 and the Toshiba Libretto W100 but Apple’s design takes the concept a little bit further…
The subtle change in clock speed from 1.4 to 1.6 GHz in the 2011 11-inch MacBook Air might sound small on paper, but in terms of benchmarks, it’s nothing short of monumental. Using Geekbench as a baseline, the late 2010 13-inch MacBook Air scored 2681 with its Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86 GHz processor while the 11-inch 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo managed a respectable 2024. Ready to have your mind blown with the 2011 MacBook Air Geekbench results? We thought so.