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The refurb store no longer has the $1349. 1.86 ghz 128 SSD Rev. B model. I beleive that this omission may be the first time, this year.
I know... I'm looking too hard for hopeful clues. A debut of Rev. D next spring or summer doesn't work for me (Sept. or Oct. 2010 does).... nor does buying Ev. C and then rebuying it the next year. Where are the leaks, when you need them?
I love to read things into everything that Apple does... most of the time, it doesn't yield any actual insight... but it does add more speculation and guesswork on our behalves.
I was thinking about my "guesswork" on the MBA. I really don't see any reason for Apple to wait for Sandy Bridge. It isn't going to use that worthless IGP. Therefore, the Core i7-6x0LM low voltage CPUs paired with an ATI 5430 GPU is perfection and could be delivered any time now.
Why wouldn't Apple want to have one brand new freshly updated Mac for the holiday season. It also has to be an example of what the next 13" MBP/MB will have component/spec-wise. For example, I can see the following MBAs...
Liquidmetal and carbon fiber design. New case shape that allows more cooling room yet is thinner in the thick parts and thicker in the thin parts. As long as Apple comes in under .65" thick, and at 3 lb. most of us would be ecstatic.
I believe, as I have been saying for 18+ months, that the MBA will be the first Mac notebook introduced with an IPS (or some other tech) display. I mean, they could use a 3D display or could go OLED at some point. But there will be something different about the displays that set Macs apart from PCs.
I also think it's safe to assume that Apple will cease soldering RAM to the board. I feel there if there is a way to get two RAM slots in there, they will at all cost. It is a big upsell to make an extra $300 selling us RAM. Now, more than ever, people want the RAM upgrade, and 4 GB is a std. size that's acceptable. With two RAM slots, Apple can easily allow us the upgrade.
I really feel like a Verizon 4G/3G data card will be integrated into the MBA first. There is no reason Apple hasn't done this across the board with its Mac notebook line. The MBA should be the flagship Mac that introduces the Verizon partnership that will follow with all Mac notebooks and iOS products (including the fifth generation iPod Touch).
Some other no brainers... glass trackpad... but I want them to take it a step further, and I have sent this to Jobs. Make the glass trackpad into an LCD and allow people to run iOS on it and it to control the desktop. So people can select what they want to do on the desktop without touching their desktop and while having a touch method rather than mouse pointer. This is going to happen, it's just a matter of when. I sent Jobs an email about this a year ago, six months ago, and again last month... any day now, Jobs will talk about his "vision" and I won't care that it was actually my vision... I just want the damn feature.
I also want aluminum capped keyboards. I hate the feel of the plastic keys after as it's one of the two surfaces we actually touch. Either they need to use the glass/ceramic used in the iPhone or aluminum to make it feel as "silky smooth" as the glass trackpad feels.
Last but not least... let's talk about the SATA drive... SSD... and drive controller. I want to go beyond SATA-II. We are already seeing 2.5" drives that saturate the bandwidth capabilities of the SATA-II drive controller. Sure, we know we're getting 1.8" Toshiba SSDs (they were changed in the current MBAs), but we need more than just a faster SSD. We need a drive controller that will allow us to speed up our MBAs in two years with a drive that outperforms the current SATA-II drive controller.
I am thinking we're at 40% MBA update in October/Early November, 50% MBA update in Q1 2011, and 10% later update or EOL. Hell, it has to comes soon. The rumors aren't simply guesswork, they are just telling us something is happening and it takes a lot longer than we think to get those products to us.
Who else wants to make crazy guesses at what happens next? Who else wants to guess what is in there? Where is the office pool?
