Apparently, even the Chinese supply chain thought this product was going to go into production, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, whose sources inside Apple's supply chain are impeccable.
However, good for Apple.
They need to be more willing to say this product isn't good enough, and stop listening to those who say they are too secretive.
They had a good thing going when they didn't comment on products under development (or even acknowledge that they were under development) until they were ready to ship them.
Agreed. I much rather have a company like Apple just flat out say "we can't make this work to our standards, to our customer standards, and we're not comfortable with releasing this product this way."
Versus say Google who'll just never mention it again or launch a broken version only to kill it off within two years.
I hope it’s a sign of change to come. Their hardware has been actively moving from what users want to what their designers want (thinner is always better, ne legacy ports, no finger I’d, etc).
Well there’s a healthy demand for the SE. It’s needed a serious update for quite a while and substantially from their current offerings. There’s similar preferences with the older MBPs as well. All widely commented on user forums.
Usb/video ports are definitely in the same hardware realm as media drives. I don’t think people buy a laptop and never need those things. It’s like they’re tying to make their laptops into iPads.
However, good for Apple.
They need to be more willing to say this product isn't good enough, and stop listening to those who say they are too secretive.
They had a good thing going when they didn't comment on products under development (or even acknowledge that they were under development) until they were ready to ship them.