Have you ever heard of FireWire 800?
All you'll need is an adapter...
Calm down!
Not sure if the market is ready yet (CPU wise), but this is how it should be:
Macbook, GPU for games and so what, motion, it's only 1% of the market, firewire, lower price point, Blue Ray (higher end, same price as current mac) basically what the current macbook pro is now.
Macbook Pro, 4 cores, HDMI, Blue Ray, eSata, highest end GPU
Mac Pro 16 cores x 2
Mini 2.4 duo, 8600 GPU, 7200 RPM.
Regarding all the missing ports, I think would be foolish to drop FW or at least offer eSata for Timemachine, USB 2.0 still to slow and requires CPU overhead.
Seperate the Macbook from Macbook Pro via # of cores, size of screen, and the DVI out has to be there in order to drive 30" monitor.
That said, what happens to those of us with MACBOOK PROS 8 months old?
I got my $2500 MBP 2.4 non multi touch pad new for $1500, so am not that bummed, however, this being said, I highly, HIGHLY doubt that Apple, by way of new release, will bring current MBP's to a level where they are worth less than $1500 for a $2500 machine and for those that didn't get it with an Apple discount or refresh, yeah, it's a bigger pill to swallow but I don't think Apple is there yet, but if it means 4 core, (maybe January), this will be the machine to have. And Apple really needs to make all Macbooks strong enough for gaming and graphics.
The bottom line is 80% of users keep the machine plugged in.
The other factor is only 10% continue to use the new features of the multitouch pad after two weeks. Many polls about this on-line.
I will always get a high end machine but if I could also add a low end that could handle the work, plus gamers, I think Apple would do well. Still, I highly doubt Apple will release a sub $1000 machine that plays games and has great graphics even though this is a very smart move.
Apple feels the need to cripple, even though the pricing and growth would offset Steve's fear of the PRO using the low end.