More ultra-portable rumours... Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

Another round of ultra-portable rumours have started, talking about the long predicted release of a replacement for the 12-inch Powerbook.

...the new notebook is said to be half as thick, or something between 0.6 and 0.7 inches. It will also be, by far, the lightest computer Apple ever released, at less than 3 pounds. - MacScoop

Along with everyone else I've been waiting for something "much cooler" and talking about a replacement for the 12-inch since just after the Macworld keynote in January 2006.

Of course the announcement of the iPhone a year later at Macworld in 2007 started rumours about a possible touch screen model, but I'm writing those of as wishful thinking. I'm going to be real happy with an ultra-light ultra-portable, especially if it really is Flash based and does away with the Hard Disk entirely.

Of course I've been saying that for a year and a half now, and I'm still typing this blog post on my aging 12-inch Powerbook. So I'm not holding my breath...

More ultra-portable rumours? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

Rumours of LED displays and ultra-portables as well as 3G cellular modem are starting to circulate, along with predictions of an "ultra-portable" replacement for the 12-inch Powerbook to arrive with Leopard around the end of the year.

Of course, we've been here before. Like the iPhone, which we talked about for over two years before it saw the light of day, we've been talking about a new hyper-portable for more than a year now. Predictions of an "instant on" laptop have been doing the rounds ever since the switch to Intel did away the 12-inch Powerbook and no replacement appeared on the horizon.

Of course a lot of these new rumours originate with Think Secret, and they're not exactly well known for their reliability. I guess I'm not going to be holding my breath, going on past performance it'll be well into next year before we see an ultra-portable replacement for the 12-inch. If one exists at all of course...

Update: More from Engadget...

A touch screen 12-inch replacement? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

In the wake of the iPhone announcement last week rumours of a replacement for Apple's 12-inch Powerbook are once again circulating. However this time people are talking about a touch screen interface or a full blown tablet Mac.

Are they mad? I spend three quarters of my life sitting in-front of a computer, its what I do, and I'm sure I'm not the only one to scream in horror at the thought of loosing the tactile feedback from a real keyboard in exchange for a touch screen. However what they seem to be missing is the trackpad, why do we need it anymore? The multi-touch technology of the iPhone is far in advance, and much more intuitive, than any trackpad I've ever used including Apple's own scrolling version. So why not get rid of the track pad entirely and make the screen the real interface? Hang onto the keyboard, any decent typist beyond the hunt and peck stage isn't going to like it going away, but the track pad? Nobody likes track pads, or most, if any of the alternatives. No track pad, and we're that much closer to the light weight 12-inch replacement I've been hoping we'd see for a while now.

I very much doubt well see a "real" Mac tablet, other that Axiotron's Modbook, there just isn't the market yet and to be honest I don't think there ever will be, but a laptop with a touch screen interface? You can almost see it coming...

The next 12 inches? Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português

As I've said before there are really only two demographics when it comes to the laptop market. The road warriors, who would kill for another half hour of battery, or half a kilogram less of laptop, and the power users who desperately want another couple of inches of screen real estate, and another hundred gigabytes of hard drive.

I definitely fall into the road warrior category. I spend half my life in airports hunting for power sockets, and on airplanes, carefully hoarding every last minute of battery life.

So what do I want out of a laptop? I want it to be small, not having those couple more inches of screen really don't bother me that much. I want it to be light, run the length of Charles de Gaulle or Frankfurt airport once or twice and those couple of extra pounds of laptop you're lugging around suddenly seem important. Finally I want battery life, enough for a trans-Atlantic flight, so that means eight hours or more.

What am I willing to trade off to get what I want? Money. I'm quite willing, and expect to have to, pay through the nose for my new laptop. Most road warriors will be because in the end "the company" is paying, the new laptop won't cost much more than throwing me onto a plane and lobbing me across the Atlantic once or twice. Anything that makes me even marginally more productive while I'm travelling is probably, in the end, more than worth the money.

However I'm betting you think it isn't possible, that you can't get a laptop with a 12-inch form factor and decent performance and make it light enough that I'd be willing to admit it that this is something "much cooler"...

Ditch the optical drive, I don't use it anymore. If people are really worried about shipping a laptop without one, throw in an external USB drive. Get rid of the hard drive, and replace it with flash memory. Finally get rid of the LCD and replace it with a colour EPD like the new Motorola F3. Even after throwing in 802.11n, Bluetooth, GPS and a built-in 3G modem I still reckon you'd have an eight hour battery life and a 12-inch form factor. After all, its the display and the hard drive which are the main power drains on a modern laptop, and without the optical drive there will be plenty of room to fit in the GPS and 3G chipsets which will make this the killer laptop for the road warrirors.

Fresh rumours of a hyper-portable are now starting to float around in the lead up to Macworld in San Francisco in January 2007. Of course there are many other rumours floating around as well, so who knows what's going to happen...

All I know is that I need something to replace my ageing 12-inch Powerbook, and I know what I want. The only question now is whether Apple is going to provide it?