The MacBook Air is truly a beautiful device, and with the impending death of the optical drive and the increasingly smaller size and heft of computer components, many are betting that MacBook Air-like designs will become the future of laptops.
Along these lines, a new report from MacRumors indicates that Apple is currently in the final testing stages of a 15″ notebook with an ultra-thin design. Could this mean a 15″ MacBook Air is in the works, or could the next MacBook Pro have just gotten a serious facelift?
It’s difficult to tell whether this might be a MacBook Air design, or a new MacBook Pro – Perhaps the time is swiftly approaching that they won’t be a distinction between the two. Further, although the new machine is reportedly in the final stages of testing, there is not yet any indication of a release date for the new units.
If the new notebook is a future revision of the MacBook Pro, then it’s likely that it wouldn’t arrive until late this year or early next year, considering that the MacBook Pro was just updated in February of this year.
It’s also important to note that Apple has previously held a Mac-related event in October, which could reflect a possible release date, despite the fact that Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processors – the natural successors to the current Sandy Bridge processors – aren’t expecting to debut until some time in 2012.
Furthermore, now that the white MacBook has been replaced by the 11″ MacBook Air as the new entry-level MacBook (as we suggested might occur), it strongly seems as though Apple is paving the way for a transition to MacBook Air-like models across the board in the future.
If Apple released a much thinner and lighter 15″ MacBook Pro, or even a 15″ MacBook Air, I’d purchase one in a heartbeat – and I imagine that many other Apple customers feel the same way.
