The Ultraportable Apple Should Make

I admit that I’m awed by the design of the new MacBook Air--it sort of perfects the trailblazing 13.3-inch Sharp M4000 WideNote from a couple years ago. And I think Apple is going to sell a fair number of these 3-pound, nano-thin machines. In fact, the Air could very well become the de facto laptop of first-class flyers. But it’s not a mass-market product. I don’t envision many students being able to afford this notebook. Well, maybe the trust-fund babies. And as we’ve noted before, there are several trade-offs road warriors might not be willing to make.

Our dream Mac ultraportable couldn’t be more different. It aims right at the Asus Eee PC and delivers a similar size display with multitouch capability and the same scaled-down version of OS X that powers the iPhone. It has built-in mobile broadband. Haptic feedback. And other goodies. Let’s take a tour of the “MacBook touch” and dig a bit deeper into its feature set, what it would look like, how it would work, and what it could cost.

 

This one is a no-brainer. The MacBook touch should run the variant of OS X that powers the iPhone and iPod touch. With Apple’s SDK for the iPhone and touch to be released in February, there will be plenty of apps available for download. The challenge for developers would be to pump out two versions of each program, one for a 3.5-inch screen and one for a display that’s double the size. Sure, I’d prefer the full Leopard treatment, but I’m trying to be practical here with this fantasy so it doesn’t cost too much.

What would be under the hood? The ideal candidate would be Intel’s upcoming 45nm Menlow platform, which consists of the Silverthorne processor and Poulsbo chipset. The CPU runs from 800 MHz to 1.33-GHz, and I would opt for top clock speeds for the snappiest gesture recognition and best multitasking experience. As for RAM, I would say that 1GB would be sufficient.

 

A supersize iPhone may be oversimplifying things, and I’m sure Apple would differentiate the MacBook touch in significant ways. The biggest difference would be a slide-down keyboard and a swivel hinge mechanism that allows users to raise the display and type on the device while sitting at a desk. Think HTC Shift, but with more elegance and without the broken promises. (Where the hell is that UMPC anyway?) This orientation would make it ideal for students. Total weight: about 2 pounds.

I’m not saying Apple should abandon the touchscreen keyboard by any stretch; in fact, many users would rely on it for messaging, entering Web addresses, and other quick tasks on the go. And with a larger display size and built-in haptic feedback, errors would be all but eliminated, even though Apple’s software already does a fine job of on-the-go error correction.

Other design elements include a built-in iSight camera for video chats, a single USB port, the same Micro-DVI port that the MacBook Air has for outputting to a larger monitor, and a microSD card slot. Yes, it’s time to add a memory card slot to Apple portables, so why not make the MacBook touch the first?

The only big feature missing from the iPhone that would be required on the MacBook touch to make it a viable UMPC alternative is flash support for the browser. Although the iPhone supports YouTube videos via a separate app, when you move to a larger display, users will expect to be able to enjoy flash-enabled sites like Hulu.

 

I think Apple missed an opportunity with the MacBook Air by not integrating some form of mobile broadband. On the other hand, it’s messy getting involved with multiple carriers for a single product. After all, you don’t want to lock consumers into just AT&T or Verizon, for example. But should Apple choose to go the Mobile WiMAX route, there’s really only one viable option for the U.S.: Sprint XOHM. That is, assuming the current upheaval at Sprint doesn’t include postponing the rollout of this ambitious network.

If Apple released this device today, a Mobile WiMAX radio would be an unnecessary cost burden, but as we get closer to summer and back-to-school time, offering this technology would be a smart future-proofing move. You’ll get Wi-Fi and Bluetooth today for using your 3G cell phone as a modem (yes, dial-up networking support is on board), and Mobile WiMAX for tomorrow as the XOHM footprint grows nationally.

If the rumors are true, XOHM will be significantly less expensive than the $60 per month that the carriers charge today for EV-DO and HSDPA connectivity. The recent location triangulation feature added to the iPod touch would work in more places than just hotspots. And all those cool iPhone Web apps will work the way you want them to practically everywhere on your MacBook touch.

 

By adding a larger display, built-in keyboard, and mobile WiMAX, the MacBook touch would probably have to cost at least twice as much as the iPhone. Is the magic price point $899? Could be, but I do think this device would have to cost less than $1,000 to have a shot at success. And it would give Apple a much-needed, sub-$1,000 machine in its lineup, even if it couldn’t be properly labeled a notebook. It would be the ultimate mobile Internet device for entertainment and productivity, and I would be among the first in line to snatch one up. 


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