Rumor: $1500 ultraportable Mac, 3G iPhone

Okay folks, now we're really cooking. While MacWorld rumors--most notably rumors about an ultraportable MacBook Pro--have been trickling in over the last month or so, we haven't had anything really juicy to discuss...until now. CNBC is reporting that January's MacWorld Stevenote will bring both an ultraportable MacBook Pro and a 3G iPhone. According to CNBC's sources, the laptop will be half an inch thick, will sport a SSD in lieu of a mechanical hard drive and will retail for--get this--$1500. An ultraportable, SSD-sporting Mac laptop for $1500? Pinch me, I'm dreaming.

On the iPhone tip, they're claiming that Steve will announce the 3G iPhone at MacWorld but that it won't be released until late May or early June. As you'll recall, that's pretty much exactly what they did at this year's MacWorld, to avoid an outing of the phone by the FCC. A May/June launch would also make a lot of sense because it would be almost a year after the release of the original device.

Admittedly, CNBC isn't the foremost source on Mac rumors but both of these yarns seem to make a lot of sense. The ultraportable MacBook Pro is pretty much a given at this point and we already know that a 3G iPhone is going to appear sometime next year. I'm not sure about that $1500 price point, though...Apple isn't known for low prices and they'll have to be willing to roll with some pretty slim margins if they want to sell an ultraportable machine with a Core 2 Duo and a SSD for less than $2000.

So, where's the love for the desktop crowd? Good question. Did Apple somehow forget that they haven't updated the majority of the MacPro lineup in more than a year? Hopefully not. According to French rumor site MacBidouille, Apple is still planning to launch a new lineup of MacPros, topping off with that 8-core, 3.2Ghz Penryn-sporting model we've been waiting for. Additionally, the machines are said to rock optional Blu-ray burners and NVIDIA QuadroFX graphics. Finally, MacBidouille states that Apple will deliver OS X 10.5.2 during MacWorld and that it will be "the largest and most important intermediate system update ever released by Apple." I'm not sure about the whole Blu-ray thing but the rest of those predictions sound spot-on to me. Apple has been hurting for some new Pro-level boxes and an announcement at MacWorld makes a lot of sense--especially if the new machines sport a complete redesign like we've been hearing. Plus, waiting until January will ensure that there will be a large enough yield of top-bin Penryns from Intel, because there's certainly going to be a lot of pent-up demand for these machines.

For more on the rumors:
- see CNBC's predictions
- and MacBidouille's rumor write-up