What Do You Want out of New Macs?

There are rumors flying around the web that today is the day new Macs roll out. The rumors point to a sweeping update for every desktop. That's right, you'll get new Mac Pros, new Mac minis and new iMacs. It shouldn't be much of a surprise, the entire desktop line is long overdue for an update and the mini in particular needs something to motivate people to buy it.

That isn't the only rumor making the rounds. The other rumor is that there won't be new Macs today but rather that March 24 will feature an Apple media event where the new Macs will be unleashed. Of course, it could be a combination of the two. The Macs that are just speed bumped are revealed tomorrow and the redesigned Macs could roll out at an Apple media event. Alternatively, all the Macs roll out tomorrow and the media event occurs with something completely different. Perhaps a tablet (doesn't the new Safari scream out that it was built for a larger than iPhone tablet?) or iPod Hi Fi take 2.

The speculation and blurry photos are all interesting but the moments before new Macs roll out are exciting not because of what eventually makes it to the shelves of your local Apple Store but because of the few moments people get to dream of what they really want out the new Macs.

Let's run with that idea but we'll also need to keep things reasonable so we'll go with a few hard rules:

1. There will be no expandable mid tower Mac.

Sure you want it, I want it and about three other people really want it. But it isn't going to happen. And you don't want it very badly anyway because if you really wanted you'd build a hackintosh. So we'll toss that dream into the same pile as, flying cars, non-partisan government and an artificial sweetener that actually tastes like sugar.

2. More FireWire ports.

Sure FireWire is great, it beats the tar out of USB but both peripherals that run FireWire aren't enough to keep FireWire alive on consumer level Macs. The iMac might keep the a FireWire port and the Mac Pro certainly will but expecting FireWire ports to blossom like daisies after a long winter is too much to ask.

3.Netbook Mac.

Forget it. The machine is either already here (MacBook Air) or isn't coming for some time. This month will not be the month that Apple releases a true Netbook.

Now that what isn't going to happen is laid out we can refocus on the more interesting question of what the new Macs might bring (if they show up). Processor bumps are a given as are storage upgrades. But what about case redesigns? The mini is essentially unchanged and as minimalist as the box is something to differentiate the new mini from the old model would be nice. The Mac Pro has had the same basic design since it was the better-named Power Mac G5 so a big case tweak is in order. On the iMac front a case redesign seems a little less likely. iMac's tend to look like whatever gadget Apple is pushing at the time. The G5 iMacs looked like iPods, the new iMacs look like iPhones. If a radical new iMac shows up (a 30" would rule) you're probably getting a glimpse of a hugified iPhone. If Apple does redo the cases the safe bet would be for more aluminum all around. Apple loves that stuff.

There has to be more to it than just new cases, that's exciting for everyone but the geeks out there want specs. One of the obvious things would be vastly upgraded video cards. Apple has been working on shoving more of the processing duties away from the CPU and to the video card so that move makes a lot of sense. Besides, the only time people don't complain about the video cards used by Apple is the day the machines come out. It would be nice to have a full two months of video card coolness before the thing becomes outdated by industry standards.

The final thing that people might like to see is more cores. Multiple core processing is, everyone tells us, the paradigm of the future and Apple is introducing Grand Central to optimize multicore processing with Snow Leopard. What better way to make Snow Leopard seem like a must have update than by cramming four cores into iMacs and even the mini. With four cores you know that Leopard just won't be up to the task, you'll definitely want to get Snow Leopard after you get your new Mac!

Or perhaps the month of March will bring nothing new to the desktop side of things. It won't be the first time the rumors were horribly wrong. The chances of nothing happening noted what feature or change would you like to see if new Macs roll out?