I'd like to take a different approach to looking at the future of the MacBook Pro. With the untimely loss of Steve, Apple has needed to send the market and stockholders the message, "Business as usual." I think we have just seen this in the launch of the iPhone 4S and with the silent mid-year MacBook upgrade. The rest of this year, we'll see more similar tweaks to current products, and that's probably all we will see. But within the year, Apple will need to send the message, "Innovation as usual."
The iPhone 5 and iPad 3, will hopefully be very appealing, but these are likely to be natural evolutions of current products. I hope we will be seeing something much more wowing. I will leave reality up to the folks at Apple who are much cleverer than I am.
I my fantasy world, however, here is what I would like to see. Apple has proven, to me at least, with the iPad 2 that the future of the laptop is the tablet form, not the twist and flip hybrid, more like an iPad, perhaps with a nested Bluetooth keyboard. I think a smart innovation that would surprise us all next year that is certainly within reach is a 11" and 13" MacBook Pad or some name running OS X. This could be the future of the MacBook Air.
I work on a college campus. The MacBooks of various iterations easily outnumber all other laptops 2 to 1. We saw a lot of iPads coming to class early in the semester, but not so much now. My own daughter opted for an iPad 2 and a 27" iMac, but I think more students are opting for iPhones and MacBooks to meet their needs. These, of course, are only my casual perceptions in the parts of campus I frequent.
Anyway, Apple likes to put the guts behind the screen. Look at iMacs, etc. We usually think of iPads being used as a handheld device, but for most long-duration work, I have noticed a lot of students placing their iPad on a tilted surface and using either the on-screen keyboard or Bluetooth keyboard again like laptop or miniature iMac.
A MacBook Pad would be about the size of a piece of paper or a portfolio notebook, though a bit heavier. It would have two primary mode of use in your arms or lap or set up as a display with a wireless keyboard.
Personally, I read a lot of pdf articles each week. The iPad just does not have enough screen real estate to be comfortable. It also does not have enough power to run full featured programs. On a laptop, I am trying to fit a portrait page onto a landscaped screen. Doable, but I usually use my desktop and lose portability. A 13" or even a 15" portrait screen would be ideal. As much as I would like to see this, I doubt that is will happen in 2012, but I think it will happen.
As for the MacBook Pro, in old-fashioned marketing terms, it is a cash cow. In other words, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It will be used to hedge bets to provide a familiar alternative as the technologies change.
In 2012, I think MBP will get a thinner profile.
With Apple's commitment to Thunderbolt and its slow take-off, we may still not see USB 3.0, but we will eventually.
Despite valid arguments to the contrary, Apple seems committed to making ODD disappear from their products, see Mac Mini and MBA. I think they foresee DVDs, etc. going the way of the CD and floppy disc and becoming more and more occasional in use, perfect for an external drive with its own power supply.
Hi-Res screens may become standard, and I think graphics will be bumped up again.
I think the forum called the addition of a SSD-hybrid HDD correctly, but this will only be enough SSD to allow for instant on/resume, speed up currently running programs and facilitate multitasking and swapping. I think 8 to 16 GB was mentioned. That sounds about right. These drives exist already.
With SSD entering the picture, RAM needs and architecture will start being rethought. Increasing RAM may no longer be and option and sort of a mute point.
We could see 750 GB HDD standard by the end of the year, but I think they are going to be stingy with 7200 rpm, which will be an upgrade.
Eventually, MBP will either carve its own niche of die hards who love the clamshell design, which will be like super version of today's MBA although 15" and 17", or if demand dies, be morphed back into the new tablet lines as a workhorse.
I'm sure fact will be much stranger than fiction.
