Apple has in the past made a point of specifically mentioning that these are individual downloads, NOT updates. While I don't know, I think we can assume that this is the case here.

So. My studio is not high-end, but I have eight hard drives, an external monitor, and two audio interfaces connected to the ProBook. On the road, I use external bus-powered drives and bus-powered Firewire or USB interfaces. Explain to me how any S-ATA-based tech would make my life easier and scale five to ten years into the future.

iPods got progressively cheaper, but were later replaced by higher-end Flash devices. The entry price for the iPod touch is still substantially lower than the original iPod in October 2001. The original iPhone got cheaper within months. iBooks got progressively cheaper over their lifespan. Just in the space of the last year, we've seen price drops for iMacs, Mac mini, MacBook, MacBook Air, and (in Europe) MacBook Pros.

It's like LightPeak in EVERY way EXCEPT that it is currently not optical.

awesome case of post/sig disagreement

and then your sig:

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but Apple switched over to the Dark Side when they ditched Motorola 680x0 and formed an alliance with the mortal enemy, IBM, to forge the PowerPC. THAT was earth-shattering. The switch to Intel has been nothing but positive for them - and us, as users. Also, Apple actually did pre-install MS-IE as their default browser for about five years, from 1998 up until Safari was released, whenever that was.

The thing about patent lawsuits is that they result in licensing agreements. If you win the rights, the market turns into a win-win situation, either because even losing market share means you make money off the competitors' products, or because you can cross-license to get access to others' IP that YOU would have to pay royalties for on every device you sell.

It used to 160 kbps AAC, not 128.

Hang on. That Lenovo 420s STARTS at $1300, and has a dual-core Sandy Bridge i5 - which is only available in the 13" MBP for $1200. In addition, battery life "can be extended up to 10 hours by adding an additional battery that goes into the optical drive bay". Okay. So it's *considerably* less than 10 hours with the stock 6-cell battery, and boosting it adds a lot more weight, presumably, and probably brings the price up, too. So you've got "the OS, the design, and some other features like higher-contrast-ratio LCD", and Thunderbolt, and a compromise on weight vs. battery life, without needing to drop the optical drive, vs. Larger display, slightly lighter (or heavier, if you drop the optical for battery life), and higher price. Honestly, it sounds like Apple is just offering a slightly different set of compromises, and is absolutely in the same ballpark.