Intel Inside Macs

Say what you will about Apple, there's no question they know how to design killer computers. Still no tablet form factor, but the unveiling of their new ultra-powerful yet very compact MacBook Pro and the Intel iMac give me hope for the future. The MacBook Pro design is amazing: Intel Core Duo processor, 256 MB Radeon graphics with DVI output, and a built-in super drive give it the power of a desktop replacement, but it remains under six pounds, is an inch thick, and sports new design elements that enhance its portability. If they simply replace the keyboard with a digitizer and lay the screen on it, Apple would have the most powerful mobile computer ever built.

And the iMac is just begging for pen input. Why destroy that compact footprint with a keyboard and mouse? Put a digitizer behind that screen and let me really interface with that multimedia center.

Of course, this is all just wishful thinking on my part. I have no doubt we will eventually see an Apple tablet (aka iPad) but I think it will grow from the iPod, rather than evolve from their notebooks; mobile devices that offer more computing rather than computers that offer more mobility.