Apple to Host Spring 2011 Event for MacBook Refresh - Report

A recently emerged rumor claims Apple has new MacBook Pros on the launch pad featuring solid state drives (up to 512GB), no optical drive, and light-peak technology - a new, super-high-speed data transfer technology promising up to 10 Gbps of bidirectional throughput. The new computers are to launch at a special event early next year, according to the source of the rumor.

The folks at t-gaap.com firmly uphold that “The new MacBook Pros will move to solid state storage, up to 512GB, remove the optical drive, and we believe light-peak is being pushed to make it's first-ever entrance into the market, another Apple exclusive.”

They also claim a new Final Cut Pro version is coming alongside the new hardware, going by a recent (unconfirmed) statement from Apple CEO, Steve Jobs.

The site fails to mention where this information is actually coming from, but seems to be quite confident in its allegations.

For those who are not familiar with the technical terms dished out in this report, Light Peak is an optical cable interface designed to connect devices in a peripheral bus. The technology has a high bandwidth at 10 Gbit/s, with the potential to scale up to 100 Gbit/s by 2020.

Light Peak is currently in development and aims to become a single universal replacement for current buses such as USB, SCSI, SATA, FireWire, PCI Express and HDMI, in an attempt to reduce the proliferation of ports on contemporary computers.

Light Peak aims to remove some of the problems in the computer industry, such as the limited transfer speeds and multiple connectors, many of which must be supported and then are often fated to go completely unused, as a single universal replacement for current buses like SCSI, SATA, USB, FireWire, PCI Express and HDMI.

Apple would (undoubtedly) be most interested to introduce the standard in tandem with a MacBook refresh.

t-gaap.com adds that Apple is likely to leave one legacy 15-inch MacBook Pro intact “for those not yet comfortable with Apple's new direction”, referring to the removal of the optical drive.

This move makes sense, as the Mac maker has done the same with the MacBook Air which did not replace the traditional 13" MacBook Pro, the site notes.

As far as pricing is concerned, the entry-level new 15-inch MacBook model is expected to retail for $1,799, complete with upgrade options, while the more powerful systems are to start at $1,999 “and scale up according to configuration,” the report claims.