Thin MacBook Rumor Roundup

I'll never understand why people trot out pictures from patent filings as proof of what Apple will do next.

looks like a round battery slot to me
they would never have you load a cd/dvd from the bottom

Hmmm... "So is it really that much more trouble to close the lid, turn over you notebook and then insert the disc?". And when you turn it over, you'll have to wake it from sleep, great. (Call me ignorant and help me with this, I just got my first Apple, a MacBook, a few weeks ago).

By the way, I think that looks more like a hold-this-cd-for-me-while-I-use-this-other-one kind of device. Doesn't make sense to me to have it there, with a lid and everything... there, on the bottom of the laptop. I guess, as has been said, it was done to hold this patent to the Apple name, just in case somebody else wants to snag it. Don't think it'll come out in an Apple notebook.

I am not sure that apple would go to the 'flip-up' style Optical drive 'lid' like a portable DVD player or something. Top or bottom of the machine. I would love to see a more moble MBP though.

I wish I could have a MacBook with _no_ optical drive. It's heavy and it takes up a lot of space, it sucks battery on the road and it's noisy.

I used to travel with a Fujitsu P-2000 series notebook, and you could pull out the optical drive and slide in a spare battery. I only used the optical drive at home base -- installations, ripping CDs and the occasional DVD for on the road.

With a 80-120GB hard drive, why carry CDs?

Those patents aren't so much about *actual* designs, as simply covering their bases for future cases. The patent shows a variety of "hinge" mechanisms in order to assure that the holder is covered in any event.

What is interesting about the patent is the fact that Apple appears to be moving away from OEM optical drive units (which are simply "built-around") and towards incorporating the optical drive into the overall design of the chassis of the laptop itself, much in the same way they did for other components like the mouse and keyboard. This will not only reduce size and weight, but it will enable Apple to deliver laptop dimensions not previously available.

Of course, it means if your optical drive is damaged, your entire machine may need replacing, but then again we face the commoditization of hardware regardless.

Yeah honestly I can't see a company that prides itself on ease-of-use in their design making someone flip over their computer just to load/eject a disc.

Sure it follows the toughbook design, but even Panasonic knew to make the drive load from beneath the keyboard.

Plus, one of the images show something of an iris, in which you place the disc and it collapses around it. Pinched fingers, anyone?

this "turn-around-your-computer-to-insert-a-cd" is just sooo stupid :)

The image clearly shows a PowerBook G4 Titanium, which leads me to believe this was an old idea of how to add an optical drive to this laptop which ended up being Apple's first to get a slot loading drive.

It goes in line with the ToughBook series. Except that the lid would be at the bottom. Not sure how much weight advantage you would get from a lid solution vs slot loading.

An ultramobile 10" without internal optical drive would be nice.