I think it could be possible to have a quad-core 256gb SSD 17″ MacBook Pro in the fall. They could build in a thinner form factor like the Air and put in full connectors in the back, unlike the Air. I’m pretty sure that’s what Steve wants to do. The reason it’s taken so long is that only the SSD would be fast enough to keep MacBook Pro performance up, and I’m sure there are cooling issues with the Quad Core.

I don’t know if he could do it for less than $3,999 but I know it would sell like crazy, even at that price. If we’re lucky maybe we’ll see $3,499.

I think if it can be done, we’ll see it this fall. I’m definitely looking forward to it and only fearing the price :-(.

D

Except that neither of those new features has anything to do with 64 bit. Is there any reason to believe that Apple would require apps to be 64 bit to take advantage? Or has Apple said that either of those features will be Cocoa only?

I expect that there will be a push for more SSD storage as primary storage, but pricing, availability, and available sizes put some new restrictions in place that are causing Apple to reign in some of the cavalier attitudes in Mac OS X. There is a lot of wasted space in a typical install, and it gets worse over a lifetime as applications and all of their turds accumulate. This has been treated as “OK” thus far, but with pocket devices, ultra-light portables, Apple TV style boxes, and so on, it’s wise for Apple to fine tune the master OS release. I imagine Snow Leopard will pave the way for new devices, with a great amount of the OS shared between them, whether it’s a tablet, an Asus “Eee-PC” style sub-notebook, regular iMacs and Macbooks, all the way up to the Pro and Server line.

On wish-list style thinking - I’d like to see a system use Time Machine even more intelligently, so that one could get rid of unused resources (printer drivers, fonts, etc) completely, with an easy option to restore them if the need comes up. Instead of having to hunt down the install DVD, the system would say “You do not have X installed. Check Time Machine?” That way you could have a lean, optimized installation without having to worry about someday suddenly needing some obscure component.

Only they won’t. They’re using Carbon right now (actually, so is Apple for most of their pro apps), and Photoshop CS4 will still be 32-bit since Apple dropped Carbon-64 support. I’d be surprised if CS5 even uses any of the new features (though that should be at least 64-bit by that point, which should mean they’ve moved on to Cocoa).

@eddy: Snow Leopard is planned for next year, so hopefully it won’t take as long as Vista!

I’m sure they’ll squeeze a handful of new features in there too just to keep things fresh. At the least they’ll make all the system icons look shinier as is their custom.

I used to work for a large software company, and the developers were always begging management to take a release to catch up, do bug fixes, catch our breath, and make a better foundation for going forward, but we could never convince management that it was worthwhile. They wanted releases every eighteen months, and they wanted flashy new features the sales force could demo.

This is darn cool stuff. I was giddy watching some of the stuff that’s coming, but could I explain to my Mom why this is so awesome? Probably not, so for a consumer software company to do this is just amazing.