Will the new MacBook Pro be slimmer than before?

Even though we might like to believe that the flagship MacBook Pro 17inch is unlikley to be withdrawn from manufacture there is growing specualtion that the 15inch and 13inch MacBook Pro's may be about to undergo a revamp

This redesign seems to point to an overall change to the form and factor brining it closer in looks to that of the MacBook Air.

For this to happen the current unibody casing would require a fairly drastic change to enable the internal components of the MacBook Pro to function and indeed fit snugly inside. The macbook Pro case for those who are unaware is a cut-down version of the Pro as it does away with most of the ports and connectivity of it's big brother. The MacBook Air has only two USB ports, a Thunderbolt port, the Magsafe connection providing power and charge capabilities and no Ethernet port.

No Ethernet seems worrying until you take on board the fact that in its place the macbook Air case features 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 technology. It ios this wireless connectivity that instead of a standard cabled network connection still allows us to browse the web, send email and print documents no matter where we are as long as a suitable wi-fi network is available.

The biggest difference aside from the above is clearly the fact that the Air has no optical drive. For those of us who do not know what an optical drive is think Superdrive or plain old CD/DVD drive!

It seems clear that for the Apple's main range of laptops to resemble the macbook Pro case  would necessitate the removal and loss of the Superdrive as it is this component that takes up much internal space. This is a likely change if we consider how the optical drive has been missing from the Mac mini range of desktop models for over a year now and its safe to agree that we've all come to terms with that. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NOVR2XU

Another discussion point currently doing the rounds recently is one of storage media. Like the standardisation of SSD's in the MacBook Air it is argued that the MacBook Pro might also move to include such devices across the full range. It is an optional extra at present however as such it requires extra waiting time to allow for installtion and configuartion of the device at the point of sale via the Apple store. With manufacture costs ever decreasing now might be a good time for Apple to make that move to SSD.

As ever, we wait with baited breath for the next magical device from the phenomenon that is Apple...