Consumer notebook: The MacBook. Upgrade to Santa Rosa (and the X3000 video chipset,) one month after the MBP gets it. Maybe make mid-range discrete graphics an option on the BlackBook.
Pro notebook: The MacBook Pro, but with the video chip on an upgradeable card (there are mobile graphics cards, for example MXM, that are an industry standard. Unfortunately, it would likely cause the MBP to increase in size.) And an ExpressCard/54 slot would be nice in place of the /34. Upgrade to Santa Rosa (but with discrete graphics,) as soon as possible. Maybe make integrated graphics an option, for people who need the MBP features, but not discrete graphics. Add a 11-12" widescreen model with ALL the features of the full-size models. (i.e. don't just wrap a discrete-graphics MacBook in Aluminum the way they did with the 12" PowerBook vs. the iBook.) Upgrade to Santa Rosa as soon as possible. (Mid April.) No move to Core 2 Quad/Extreme, until Intel comes out with an official mobile version. They are desktop chips. They have no place in a notebook. (I do *NOT* want a 90+W chip in my notebook. That would throw Apple's 'quiet, sleek and sexy' out the window.)
Consumer low end desktop: The mini, but with Core 2 Duo. Upgrade to Santa Rosa with X3000 graphics one month after the MBP, at the same time as the MB. MAYBE add an MXM slot, if possible without significantly increasing the size. If you're going to increase the size even a little bit, move to a 3.5" hard drive. Drop the lowest-end model back to $499.
No tower consumer desktop. It's not Apple's market.
Consumer high end desktop: The iMac, but using desktop chips instead of notebook. With a Core 2 Quad/Extreme available at the high end. Also, the enclosure is big enough, use an industry standard PCI Express slot for graphics, just with an internal DVI cable to the display, and a dongle going to the external mini-DVI port. (i.e. the 'external' side of the graphics card would still be inside, and you'd just plug two DVI cables in, one going to the internal display, one going to the externally-accessible DVI port.) Use the P965/G965 chipset, so they could then make X3000 graphics standard across the line, but with upgradeable graphics available on all models. MAYBE add a PCI Express x4 slot, half-height. All but the 17" model should have room for this, and it might even be possible to rejigger the guts to make it fit in the 17" model. Perfect for a TV tuner. Make the 'external' side of the card under a removable plate, (like the TAM,) that way if you don't use the slot, you don't see it. Do these upgrades at the same time that the MBP upgrades to Santa Rosa, or earlier. (Like MacWorld in a couple weeks.)
Pro desktop: Mac Pro, add Quad-Core. Use a newer chipset that has more PCI Express lanes available, like the Power Mac G5 Quad had. Maybe offer it with one PCI Express slot converted to a PCI-X slot, the way the Xserve has available. Make the last PCI Express slot a separate board from the main motherboard, that way it's easy to configure which way you want it, without having to design two completely separate motherboards. So the end slot would be a daughtercard that is in the same plane as the motherboard, connected via a socket that contains wiring for both PCI Express and PCI-X, or is just a PCI Express socket, and the PCI-X daughtercard has an Express-to-X chip on it. This would even possibly add the side benefit of making the third PCI Express socket a double-wide slot, so there would be two dual-width PCI Express x16 slots, one single-width PCI Express x8 or x16, and one single-width configurable PCI Express x8 or PCI-X slot. Officially support 4 GB DIMMs, like the Xserve. (I think they already work just fine, but having it as an 'official' thing would be nice that way you can get technical support when you have them in.) Add Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD as an option in the second optical bay. (Heck, Blu-Ray in the primary bay, HD-DVD in the secondary.) Make quad-core and 4 GB DIMM support available *NOW*, (since it already supports it as is,) and the other changes in Q1 07. Maybe March.
Server: Xserve, plus quad core. Do it now.
