I actually think the biggest problem is the size of the drive. There are not any that are small enough to fit into the current design. We will see it one day, but at least not until 2003.
The TiBook would have to gain a few inches to hold the drive, so I don't think Apple will put it in until they put the drive on a diet. Still it would be really cool!
Superdrives will come to the Powerbook, I have not doubt. The OEM needs to do some work slimming it down. My prediction is MWSF, where the low end will be 1 gig and the high end will be 1.4, 60 gigs will be the smallest HD, and you will be able to have 2 gigs of ram.
I guess it is a bit early to make predictions this far in advance ;-)
I would say that it's going to be a loooong while. Remember when CD's first came out? They had a CD caddy player that ran at 1 or 2x and that was considered fast.
Today it's the same thing DVD-R just got started. Max burn speed right now is 1-2x. It's still a fledgeling technology and rather expensive just to make 1-2x 5.25" drives. I'd give it in the order of a year or two before you see anything portable and it will still be slow.
Waiting for a 1-2x burn on a laptop would be bad. If you didn't have close to full battery power, than there's no insurance you'll have enough to finish the burn. The potential for read errors is enormous too.
Originally posted by Macmaniac The TiBook would have to gain a few inches to hold the drive, so I don't think Apple will put it in until they put the drive on a diet. Still it would be really cool!