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MacBook Event in a few wks - all about "the Brick?"

2 ideas

Mac Mini is reduced to the size of a brick, eliminating the optical drive. Seems useless to me as it is a desktop, but it's the closest sized product to a brick.

Wireless power is a great innovation, however its time has not come. I believe the power brick will have I/O ports on it, and from the one unified cable going to the mac, you can hae USB, 10/100/1000, DVI, audio, etc. The ports will exist on the laptop as well for true mobility, but the magsafe connector will be expanded to accomodate data transfer. It will be a docking station of sorts.
 
STSNorthstar said:
2 ideas

Mac Mini is reduced to the size of a brick, eliminating the optical drive. Seems useless to me as it is a desktop, but it's the closest sized product to a brick.

Wireless power is a great innovation, however its time has not come. I believe the power brick will have I/O ports on it, and from the one unified cable going to the mac, you can hae USB, 10/100/1000, DVI, audio, etc. The ports will exist on the laptop as well for true mobility, but the magsafe connector will be expanded to accomodate data transfer. It will be a docking station of sorts.
Click to expand...


I'm not even in the market for a mac mini and i think the brick idea would be cool.
 
I really can't see any merit to making the mini smaller. If you don't have the desktop space for the mini, making it marginally smaller won;t help anyone. Unless its an additional model, Mac Micro?

Maybe instead of a charger that plugs in for AC power, we get a charging base for batteries. There is are 2 replacable batteries, and a permanent battery in the laptops, enough to sustain it for 5 minutes to swap a battery, and the spare gets set on the charger. You can plug into AC for extended desktp use as well
 
Could be interesting if true...would also allow the Pro to get either thinnner or pack faster/larger components inside.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/wireless_usb_hub_brick_to_hit_macbooks_next_month

2864409466_cbd57230c7.jpg
 
Unless its a work in progress direct from one of Apple's designers. Could just be a mock up to see how it looks. Who knows, I don't care maybe its fake but I don't think the 'hot news' bar not being there means anything. The page hasn't been launched or anything.
 
Maybe it's the much-wanted, but never-going-to-happen, mid-range tower? It will fit between the Mini (now dead?) and the Mac Pro (too much power for most).
 
scienide09 said:
Maybe it's the much-wanted, but never-going-to-happen, mid-range tower? It will fit between the Mini (now dead?) and the Mac Pro (too much power for most).
Click to expand...

Depends on how the prices for Gainestown shake out, and what features Apple wants to use. Considering it uses DDR3 instead of FB-DIMM DDR2.....It's possible a Mac Pro with a single 2.66Ghz proc could be released at a much cheaper price than the current models, probably somewhere around $1800. (Going off processor tray prices, you'd be saving $500 or so in the CPU dept, maybe a little more on memory). The Nehalem Mac Pro may be a little more on the reasonable side, you never know.



Oh, and for the inevitable "There are slower, cheaper procs they could've used for the current Mac Pro, blah blah blah, they didn't use them, blah", none of those have the 1600Mhz FSB. 2.8Ghz is the slowest they come.
 
steamed.hams said:
The OP is insinuating that the "brick" is macbook related...so...
Click to expand...

True enough, but I don't really see your point. Others in the thread have speculated about docking stations, changes to the Mini, and new technology for OS X. Frankly, it's all speculation at this point -- the 'brick' could be anything that gives Apple another leg up on it's competition.
 
Eddyisgreat said:
Yeah, led filled cables vs. cancer causing radio waves...we can't win...unless....

Yikes what was on my to-do list today...ahh yes..

1)Cancel macrumors account
2) destroy all of my modern technology
3) become amish
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Being Amish still won't protect you from all the cosmic radiation that the earth is constantly being bombarded with!!!
(this is the logical flaw I always see, we're constantly being hit with cosmic radiation...wifi/cell/etc is just a drop in an ocean).
 
Valorite said:
Being Amish still won't protect you from all the cosmic radiation that the earth is constantly being bombarded with!!!
(this is the logical flaw I always see, we're constantly being hit with cosmic radiation...wifi/cell/etc is just a drop in an ocean).
Click to expand...

If there hasn't been any real tests done yet (that I know of) on how manmade radiation is affecting us how can you be sure its just a drop. There's a helluva lotta new radiation thats been introduced in just the past 20 years that we've never had before. It certainly doesn't help matters. How bad is cosmic radiation in comparison? Who knows at this point...but we're certainly throwing caution to the wind & putting the pedal to the metal w/o much thought about it.
 
Son of "DUO" = the iDUO brick?

OK, off tangent, but I used to love the DUOs because of the dock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_Duo

How about a throw back to that?

1. the brick refers to the uber Macbook or small form factor MacBook Pro.
2. docks with a iMac-esque screen wirelessly, ie you dont have to physically connect as that's just too "mechanical" and not classy enough. Just in proximity or in a slot that triggers the switch over (think Crackberrys and their magnetic covers that switch off the screens)

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/03/apple-patent-suggests-notebook-docking-station/


:cool:


Here's a mock up from MacBook Touch.. http://macbooktouch.com/ fingers crossed
 
October 14th seems an awful long time away. I think I'm going to try and curb my macrumors visiting. The wait is driving me nuts.
 
Brick, to me, implies something with just one piece, you know, a macbook you don't need to open.. zomg, like a macbook touch?

Or like a previous post mentioned, it may be the building blocks to future lines macbooks (a feature which will come to all future macbooks etc).
 
SchneiderMan said:
thats would be stupid.. what if you forgot your power cord/brick? and still have your macbook with you? no wifi because of your idea. :rolleyes:
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yes. because that's exactly what i meant. i hope apple takes on my genius idea and outsources the airport extreme card to the power brick. brilliant thinking on my part.

have you ever seen the airport express? maybe i'm the only one who sees the resemblance between my macbook pro power brick and the airport express. i must be delusional.
 
I think it will be a rugged macbook. i.e. built like a brick. I can't see Apple actually being capable of making something like that though to be fair.

Either that or it will be red and made out of compressed sand

I was hoping for a sort of macbook nano type thing, which would have fitted into a cheaper price range
 
It says "Lighter than Air: Let the Cables Disappear". So lets assume it would remove all cables including power and have no optical drive. It would have to have good battery life, but is it too early to drop the convenience of thumb drives, being able to plug in printers, etc.? Or do we accept this is for a new style conscious market who are brave enough to once again follow Apple. It is definitely a consumer item, but a very desirable one.
 
a456 said:
It says "Lighter than Air: Let the Cables Disappear". So lets assume it would remove all cables including power and have no optical drive. It would have to have good battery life, but is it too early to drop the convenience of thumb drives, being able to plug in printers, etc.? Or do we accept this is for a new style conscious market who are brave enough to once again follow Apple. It is definitely a consumer item, but a very desirable one.
Click to expand...


Its interesting this one - not sure if its technically possible, but imagine the notebook only has basically the CPU, a battery, a wireless chip for the brick and some SSD for the OS. Everything else possible is in the brick including a HDD, all connectivity.

= lightness of Air but power of Macbook Pro

I'll have one
 
recoman3 said:
Or like a previous post mentioned, it may be the building blocks to future lines macbooks (a feature which will come to all future macbooks etc).
Click to expand...

I like your idea - it'd fit with the predictions about the same material (aluminium), the same type of screen (LED, identical in MB and MBA), keyboard (MBA's one). I don't think it's real though.

I still insist there'll be no brick.

Though if there were, I'd like it to be sort of thing combining Apple TV, Mac Mini and Wii-like thing Apple has patents for. It'd be a media center, home PC and gaming device all in one, with blu-ray and Mac OS X. It'd probably cost at least $1k at first, and many people would tell it's too expensive and that they prefer to buy four of five other things that combined would supposedly have similar functionality (assuming you manage to find a way of connecting them that would allow each to work without disturbing the others) - and would also cost about the same when added. Pity it's not going to happen, at least not now.
 
I'm not sure if anyone has said this, but while it may seem logical to automatically think about the Power Brick when referring to "brick," you have to wonder how the MacBooks can be "all about the brick" if it is the power brick, when both the MBP and MBA use the same "brick." That's definitely not all about MacBooks.

But I think if anything with the power brick, they would probably make it thinner and lighter and slimmer so its not this giant tumerous thing hanging off of the power cord... It is annoying, and dangerous.
 
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