There's a substantial amount of whispering about an anticipated "October Surprise" around the corner, but it's not the usual sort -- multiple sources have suggested that there is an Apple product introduction due on or about October 14. This hinting, combined with the refresh clock ticking away on the laptop line, leads us to suspect that new MacBooks and MacBook Pros are coming up soon -- but what of The Brick?

If another Apple product announcement is coming on the heels of a mid-October laptop refresh, and if it's the "product transition" mentioned in the earnings call last quarter, where Apple's margins will be squeezed enough to merit a warning to analysts, it's going to have to be something different. A TUAW source has passed along the following (unconfirmed) details on a possible new product -- and several of our commenters may be on the right track.

Do you need a bus-powered 1 TB hard disk? You're in luck - LaCie announced the Little Big Disk Quadra today.

Available in early July, the Little Big Disk Quadra uses a pair of drives in a RAID 0 configuration for speedy response. My personal concern is that if one of the two RAID drives goes out, you'd lose all of the data in the array. Although LaCie states that it's "Compatible with Time Machine", the Little Big Disk Quadra is probably better-suited as a scratch drive for video work on the go.

This is a tiny drive considering the capacity - the outside dimensions are 1.6 x 3.3 x 5.5 in. (40 x 85 x 140 mm) and it tips the scales at 1.4 lbs (650 g). You don't need to use the included AC adapter when using the Little Big Disk Quadra with FireWire 400 or 800, but you will need it when using the drive with eSATA or USB 2.0.

Some sites are stating immediate availability, but LaCie has confirmed that it will be several weeks before the Little Big Disk is available.

Are you looking for a tiny portable hard drive for doing Time Machine backups on the road? I do a lot of traveling with my MacBook Air and don't often get a chance to back it up to the 1 TB monster at home. Although there are several other diminutive hard drives on the market, when I saw the My Passport Studio line of portable drives announced today by Western Digital, I ordered one. After all, the case matches my AirBook!

Available in 160 ($129.99), 250 ($189.99), and 320 GB ($219.99) flavors, My Passport Studio drives are about 3.2" x 5.0" x .71" (81mm x 127 mm x 18 mm) in size and weigh a featherweight 6.4 ounces (.18 kg). The drives are bus powered -- USB 2.0 or FireWire 400 -- so there's no need to tote a power brick when you're traveling. They're formatted as HFS+ Journaled, requiring Mac OS X 10.4.11+ or 10.5.2+.

The drives are available from Western Digital, and through a variety of online and brick-and-mortar stores. The 250 and 320 GB drives are showing back-order status.

Thanks to Denver pal Mike for the phone call tip this morning!

We should probably have some due diligence on the latest rumors streaming around the Apple blogosphere, so here you go: CNET is claiming that Asus is helping Apple build a sweet new Tablet PC. This is just the latest in a long line of rumors about an ultraportable, and we've heard this so much by now that even if it isn't true, there are probably engineers at Apple right now working on how to make it a reality anyway.

I tend to agree with Macenstein: what do we need an Apple Tablet for, anyway? The whole ultraportable idea seems to be based on the fact that people want to see it made, not necessarily that anyone is walking around with an iPhone and a MacBook and still asking for yet another computer to carry around. Don't get me wrong-- if anyone can find a hidden niche for beautiful, usable products, Apple can, but I just don't see where an iTablet would fit in the hierarchy.

Now, the last time I speculated on Apple releases (I said we wouldn't see new MacBooks for a while), Apple decided to release MacBook updates just hours later, so for everyone out there hoping to see a new Apple Tablet, try this on: my guess is that Apple won't release an iTablet in January. Now, when I'm dead wrong (as usual), I'll just be able to claim that I predicted the opposite of what I thought so we'd get the product we wanted.

I enjoy using my trusty MacBook, Janus, I really do. We have a good relationship, I use him and he works (most of the time). This is a relationship that I would like to last for a long time, and luckily Apple has some tips for the proper care of your portable.

Read the tips for MacBook care, and MacBook Pro care, and assure your portable is treated in the best possible way. None of this is mind blowing stuff, but it did remind me not to use a pillow to prop up my MacBook (the pillow blocks the air flow, which it would seem isn't good for delicate electronics).

A new Apple patent uncovered by PC Pro hints at the possibility of portable user accounts making their way into the Spring '07 release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. For a quick break down: the long-standing rumor has been that this would allow a user to keep their account - the entire home directory, applications, media, preferences, you name it - on an external storage device like an iPod, and simply plug that device into any Mac and log in with access to all of their stuff. The possibilities are pretty juicy, and for once the language in the patent is fairly straight-forward, if not a little repetitive: "The multi-user computer system, eg. through its operating system, locates user accounts not only in local storage of the multi-user computer system, but also in any removable data storage attached to the multi-user computer system."

While this particular rumor has been in the wind for a few years now, we don't have anything else specifying that it is for sure arriving in Leopard. This could be yet another unused patent, or it could be slated for 10.7 for all we know. As usual, we'll keep our ears out.

[via Slashdot]

I just bought a 2GB SanDisk Cruzer micro drive from Best Buy (on a killer $45 sale this week, at least in CO by the way), and it offers support for 'portable applications' for Windows (and I'm sure Linux too, though I admittedly don't follow the big penguin that closely). In case you aren't familiar: portable applications, in this context, mean that an app (again, on Windows) can be installed on one of these mobile drives as well as run from it, including preference files and the like (the actual spec is called U3, and SanDisk has a hand in it, in case you're curious). For example: one could install a copy of Firefox on this drive and run it on a public or work PC, with all browser history, preferences and bookmarks saved on the drive - not on the host PC (these applications all have to be custom-built, and the U3 board has to approve them into the fold). Setting aside any obligatory discussion about security, this is an absolutely killer ability for the mobile nerd in many of us.

Now I know most Mac OS X applications can run fine from one of these drives; heck, I run a few myself, including utilities for my iPod which I simply store right on the iPod (yes, it can do that, as long as you turn on disk use from iTunes). But why hasn't the second half of this 'portable applications' concept caught on with the Mac OS Xiverse? This concept and these apps could rock everyone's world, from the mobile student to freelancers and even the techies who are supporting Macs for businesses big and small.

So where are they?

Is the Mac OS X community simply not as worried about leaving their Firefox browsing history lying around on public machines? I doubt it. Are developers just not interested? Not likely. Could this be an example of the Mac community lying down while a truly useful innovation is dangling in our faces? Instead of throwing down my speculation, I'd rather open this up for discussion. What say you, TUAW readers?

CNN is reporting Apple, who, like Dell, relies on Sony-manufactured batteries, is jumping on the recall wagon and recalling a whopping 1.1 million of the fire-prone beasties. There's no link yet on CNN's site, but here's the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's page on the matter. Just when you think Sony couldn't get any worse... And weren't we all so smug when we heard about Dell's misfortune?

UPDATE: This covers G4-based iBooks and PowerBooks only at this point.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in, although I happened upon it at CNN first]

Incase has posted a couple of teaser shots in their gallery of a new bag on the way, the Ripstop Backpack. Available in July from Apple, this bag looks to be a full-sized backpack that can carry more than just an Apple portable, a magazine and a pack of gum (I kid - I'm a big fan of Incase's stuff). I have also heard they have a new, fully-featured site coming later this summer which should help to settle the Incase + Apple conspiracy theories.

Pricing and specs of the Ripstop Backpack are still to be announced.

I'm still scratching my head on this app, but I figured I'd post it and maybe you guys could help make sense of how an app like this would be useful. UnPlugged is a one-trick pony with the sole purpose of (drum roll please) notifying you when your Mac's power cable is unplugged. It can use Growl to notify you, or a simple alert window in case Growl isn't your cup of tea.

Now, how is this useful? To double-check: If a desktop Mac's power cable comes unplugged either from the wall or the Mac itself, it just shuts off, right? As far as I know, Apple hasn't built any whiz-bang UPS technology into their recent desktops. So that leaves iBooks and PowerBooks. Is there some kind of an environment or fairly typical situations people are getting themselves into where they wouldn't know if a power cable became unplugged, given that it attaches right on the side of the machine they're working on? Sound off, if you could, and help make sense of this peculiar little app.

UnPlugged is donationware, requires 10.3.9 or higher and is available from brik software.

Usually I love hardware hackery in all its glorious shapes and forms, but occasionally I stop and scratch my head. Why, for instance would you want to take a Mac mini, hide its sleek design inside a metal box, graft a black LCD screen on top with a tiny thumb keyboard and non-centered trackpad?

Behold the MMP: MacMini Portable. Perhaps Peter Green's MMP will inspire you to build yourself a better portable Mac mini. The more likely scenario is that you'll opt for the lighter (albeit less hack-like) option of a discounted iBook. It's your choice.

[via Engadget]

A USB stick, that is. Our pal Jordan Running over at DownloadSquad found a cross-platform version of Firefox you can install on an external drive, such as a USB flash drive, iPod shuffle, or iPod nano, that can be plugged into and run on both Windows and OS X. There's some simple file editing involved, but once you get over that minor hump you'll have one fully portable copy of Firefox - including all your search history, settings, extensions and bookmarks - ready to roll in your pocket that can run on Windows and OS X.

One word of caution: I'm pretty sure that not *all* Firefox extensions are going to work between Windows and OS X. Some extensions are platform independent, others most certainly are not. Your portable Firefox should run just fine on both OS's, but the platform dependent extensions will simply be disabled.