Next 15in, 17in MacBook Pros to be MacBook Air skinny

Stand out by slimming down

Apple has completed development work in a 15in MacBook Air-skinny notebook, it has been claimed.

Little is known about the laptop's specification, reports MacRumours, which was first out with the news. But given its slimline design and Apple's current strategy, it's safe to say the thing won't sport an optical drive, absent from the Airs and just dropped from the Mac Mini desktop.

SSD or HDD? Certainly there will be a solid-state option, but a decent storage capacity at a sane price still mandates an HDD these days.

Sandy Bridge chippery - or the platform's successor - Thunderbolt portage, USB and an SD slot will complete the spec, we'd say. The current Airs lack Ethernet, and we can well imagine Apple leaving Gigabit off a 15in version too. One of the key features it's pushing with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is AirDrop, a file swap system that only works over Wi-Fi.

Whether the machine will ship under the MacBook Air brand or that of the MacBook Pro line - or even if it'll ship at all - isn't known.

Website TUAW reckons the machine will be marked 'Pro' and will debut in time for Christmas alongside a similarly skinny 17in machine. ®