As we get closer and closer to Apple’s announcements about the new MacBook Pros they’re going to unleash on us this year, speculation is at an all-time high. Rumors are flying around rampant on the interweb, with topics ranging from “retina displays” to new, better graphics to faster processors to the death of both the optical AND hard drive. Thought these rumors all have validity, which ones will come to fruition? And which ones will Apple make us wait another year for?

The display rumors seem to be at the top of everyone’s list, as they are expected to DOUBLE the pixels, at least on the 15″ MBP. That said, the new displays would be 2880 x 1800 pixels, which would be an incredible resolution, better than the quality of Blu-Ray. There has been no confirmation as of yet that these are going to be the new displays, but that would be an unparalleled computer viewing screen, and one that would have competitors scrambling to produce something comparable.

Another rather major rumor circulating is that Apple may be getting rid of the traditional optical drive. Now, while the majority of apps and software has gone the way of the download, there are still CDs and DVDs (last time I checked) that would require an optical drive. While these have been virtually included on most computers for the past 15+ years, suddenly they are obsolete in the eyes of Apple? They already have done away with the optical drive on the Mac Mini, which I had to learn the hard way. My rather expensive Abode Creative Suite CS4 came on discs, and not knowing about the lack of optical drive, I was forced to borrow another Mac and transfer the files over Wi-Fi, which was time-consuming and unexpected. Lots of people I know actually still buy CDs, and what are they to do when they want to add their newest gem to the iTunes music library?

Solid State Drives. They’re incredible, no doubt, but how much cost will this tack onto an already expensive machine? As it is right now, as expensive as SSDs are, you would need to have at least one external hard drive (probably 2 or 3, depending on how much storage you need) just to keep your music and pictures on. At $600 for a 500GB SSD, external solutions are definitely the cost-effective way to go. And there are still users who do not trust the reliability of SSDs yet, as they are rather new, and haven’t been truly time-tested just yet. Hopefully, the consumer will have a choice as to how big the SSD that ships with their new Mac is, and maybe still have the choice to stick with a regular hard drive instead.

These rumors, as well as others, are exciting and frightening at the same time. We love when Apple releases its newest technology on us, let’s just hope the prices don’t continue to climb too high…