Coming Soon: Apple’s New Macs For 2008.

The iPhone is a hit. The iPod is a hit. The Mac is back. Apple is swimming in sales and profits and cash. What’s not to like?

The Mac is what’s not to like. Apple’s flagship computer line is based on an aging design; old even, by technology standards. What’s next for the Mac? A new revolution or more of the same?

Look at how many product line refreshes we’ve seen with the iPod in the past five years. There’s so many I don’t count them anymore. Is it 4G, 5G, or 3G. Whatever. Apple is not sitting back on a design formula with the iPod, ensuring future success.

What about the Mac? Except for the introduction of the Mac mini, there hasn’t been much of a change in overall Mac designs in, what, about five years? The PowerMac G5 towers gave way to the MacPro. New name. New CPU. New internal design. All improvements, but the overall aluminum box is about the same.

The iMac? Since the new all-in-one design back in the PowerPC days, the iMac has evolved. Better screen. Faster CPU. Bigger hard drives. Smaller chin. But it’s still an iMac.

Mac notebooks have seen little beyond evolutionary design changes, especially the MacBook Pro. The PowerBook models look pretty much the same for the past five years. Aluminum. About an inch thick. Beautiful screen. Today’s models are Intel Inside, faster, more features, better display, but the look is, well, the same.

The iBook transformation to the MacBook is a bit less subtle, but the form factor hasn’t varied much. Better display. Intel inside. Faster CPU. Bigger drives. New keyboard. About an inch thick. Again, the form factor, the overall design, is about the same as five years ago.

In other words, the Mac hasn’t changed much at all over the past five years, while the iPod has been screaming through the marketplace with tasty freshness every 18 months to two years.

Apple can be forgiven for letting the Mac’s design follow an evolutionary vs. revolutionary track. Designers and engineers at Apple have been busy, what with all the iPods and the iPhone, and—here it comes—the transition of the whole line of Macs to Intel CPUs.

But that was then and this is now. What’s next for the Mac? The rumor mills buzz with a new, more slender (though I don’t know how) Mac mini. There’s the three year old rumor of a MacBook Pro mini, and ultra light Mac notebook, perhaps without a SuperDrive. There’s Tera’s original iPad or MacPad, a slightly bigger than hand held wireless Mac.

Apple has been treading a cautious course with the Mac in recent years. Upgrades have not been quick, and new features and components are evolutionary, with an occasional revolutionary touch, but not a whole gee-whiz-bang design.

Maybe Apple is resting on laurels. After all, the Mac is breaking sales records, and there are few price comparable PCs with similar feature sets.

So, what’s next? The recent iMac updates prohibit the rumor folks from expecting an all new iMac any time soon. Notebooks make up over half of all Macs sold, so would appear to be ripe for a Next Gen model. The MacPro design is a carryover from PowerPC days.

Does the Mac even need a new design? Isn’t design and fashion more important in the iPod, portable media player market vs. the “mature” market of PCs? Since Apple’s engineers and designers have been busy the past few years with the transition to Intel chips, new iPods, and the iPhone, I expect new Mac models in 2008, perhaps as soon as Macworld Appleworld in January.

But what kind of design? What new models? Those are the questions of the day. The iPod line is set for another year or so. The iPhone line will simply add new capabilities, but the design is set for awhile (and will change again, probably early 2009—new designs push sales in the gadget market).

The Mac is ripe for a design change. What will it be? Mac360’s futuristic prognostication record is as good as anyone else. We’re about 50-50. Maybe less if you actually check the records.

Kate says 2008 will bring a new MacBook Pro design, a new Mac mini design, a new MacPro design, and one more thing. The iPad, MacPad wireless device. Bigger than an iPhone, smaller than a MacBook. OS X and Intel inside. Multi-touch screen. Like everyone else at Mac360, I want a Mac in my pocket.