I saw some rumourings the other day on one of the 47 bazillion Mac rumour sites, that the next incarnation of Apple’s MacBook line will be available in Aluminium and Black finishes. In my opinion, this is the logical conclusion for Apple. Over the past few weeks and months, we have seen Apple slowly eliminating all of the majority-white finish products from their lines. First was the iMac which went to Aluminium and Black at the last refresh, then the new iPods came out, with the touch and phone being primarily black, and the classic going from the traditional white and black options, to the new Aluminium and Black options. Therefore if and when we see a new MacBook, I also expect to see this going over to the Aluminium finish. A sign of Apple shrugging off it’s ‘Apple Computer inc.’ past? Who knows. Maybe it is just that they like this finish more.

Regardless, as a user of a Aluminium-finish MacBook Pro, I am not sure how good an idea this is. I have found the the wireless range on this is terrible at times. It just won’t see networks which other laptops have no problem seeing. This is linked by some, and is a logical conclusion, to the all-metal casing interfering with the wireless signal. Whether this is the case or not we will have to see when the new MacBooks are released, but regardless of how nice that finish will look, they need to stop focussing on design over function, which seems to be a failing of Apple’s products at times.