Apple ultra-thin 15-inch MacBook Air Pro seems inevitable

By Jonny Evans

There's some loud conversations concerning rumored Apple [AAPL] plans for an ultra-portable MacBook Pro -- by which I mean: a far more powerful MacBook Air. That shouldn't be a big surprise, the computer company has already said this is the direction its notebooks are going.

[ABOVE: Apple's desktop and Mac sales charted across a decade. They're all up, but the mobile trend seems clear.]

Touching base

Think back just a few months to the October introduction of the MacBook Air, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs put forth the proposition that you could petition for a MacBook/iPad hybrid this year.

"We wondered what would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up," he said. "We think that this is the future of notebooks ... all notebooks will be like this some day."

In other words, Steve has already put out the store.

Most recently, the company introduced new MacBook Air models equipped with Core i5/i7 processors and Thunderbolt ports, but that's not all Cupertino has planned to boost our lightweight computing passions.

MacRumors tells us to expect a 15-inch notebook with an ultra-thin design, a powerful MacBook Air, in other words. NB: The new model Airs are already faster than a 2010 Core i7 17-inch MacBook Pro.

Apple plays the game

The MacRumors report doesn't let us know when it these new Macs are likely ship. Nevertheless, the appearance of ever more portable, ever more powerful products in a mobile form factor from Apple is a historical inevitability.

Apple's the world's biggest mobile firm today, in competition with its former partner, Samsung, for the crown of being the world's biggest smartphone maker. Apple's also on target to remain the biggest tablet-pusher in the industry for years, until 2015, if the latest Informa Telecoms research (released this morning) is correct.

[This story is from Computerworld's Apple Holic blog. Follow on Twitter or subscribe via RSS to make sure you don't miss a beat.]

(Informa analysts expect Apple's share will drop to just 39 percent in 2015, but that it will retain the industry lead until then. I'd warn that analysis depends upon no fundamental changes in the distribution, industry acceptance or cost of Android distribution.)

Just keeping up

In such a competitive environment, innovation takes place at every level -- not just in terms of invention, but also in supply chain logistics, imaginative uses of new technology and more. Apple does a good job.

Given the sheer number of competitors Apple plays against, it's somewhat disappointing how easily the company cleans up in the markets it plays in.

iPad is the new Mac

Now it's combining different markets. Apple's move to continue bringing its iPad OS closer to OS X will be part of the firm's evolution away from the PC paradigm into new territories.

There's been some sightings:

• MultiTouch is part of the story.

• Voice control is improving, I've seen voice control systems become increasingly more capable of ignoring background noise, for example.

• Those changes in Final Cut Pro may be painful, but will in future open up new opportunities within user interface design which could potentially radically improve the editing experience, (though the jury will remain out for now).

• A recent Apple patent shows a new flat keyless keyboard for Macs. I see this as being something like an iPad used as a Mac keyboard. Or a hybrid Mac/iPad device.

As Apple evolves its user interfaces, bringing both Mac and iPad closer together, it will also open opportunities for new breeds of device which traverse both mobile and PC designs.

So while the latest buzz claims we might see an incredibly powerful 15-inch MacBook Air in the immediate future, I think there's historical evidence to show it's only a question of time until we'll also be able to choose to use a 13-inch iPad Pro.

In a way tracing the strategic future direction for Apple's MacBook Air devices is a little easier than it is to understand the somewhat Byzantine route by which Apple transports its products to customers -- take a look.

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