I Can Only Hope the Rumors are Wrong
The latest rumors I've heard about today's Apple notebook event is that the new MacBook Pro is only coming out in the 15-inch display - and that's no longer available in matte finish - gotta be glossy. The 17-inch model will see only modest memory/disk increases and the speculation is that this model is being phased out.
If so, it would be a tragic turn of events.
For the serious professional wanting a portable machine the Air is nice and light - great for the CEO or someone not needing a ton of power or options. Perfect market. The 15-inch Pro is great for the mid-range developer or a developer with an external monitor at work, and only needs to use the machine as a laptop a fraction of the time.
But the 17-inch Pro was for people like me - no desktop machine, no external monitor - it was the "desktop replacement" and that was all I would need. I don't need the rumored fancy trackpad - but it would be nice... I don't need to have this thing be 2.2 lbs - it's OK at it's current weight. What I wanted was more machine. I wanted the quad-core chip with 8GB RAM and a nice big, bright display. This is my only machine, after all.
So if these rumors are true I'm really disappointed. It means that it's going to have to be a 15-inch Pro for me, and that means that I'll probably never get the quad-core chip as it's just not in the market segment of the 15-inch Pro. They wouldn't trade the power consumption for the processing power because most folks would already have a desktop that is where they do all their really intensive computing anyway.
So I'll have to wait and see what comes of the announcement today. Since they don't stream them anymore, I'll have to wait until it's over and then check the Apple web site and see what they have to say.