Apple's Skinny MacBook: Tear-Shaped, Real Hard Drive?

Another year, another victory for Apple's tight corporate lips: There's been tons of speculation, but little in the way of hard facts about Steve Jobs' upcoming keynote. That said, Wired thinks it has details about an "unbelievably thin" Mac laptop the company will announce.

An Apple insider told Wired today that the company's new ultraportable, expected to be seen in public for the first time [Tuesday], has an extremely thin profile and is shaped like a teardrop when closed — thicker at the top behind the screen, tapering at the bottom behind the keyboard.

This would be a shift from Apple's current lineup of flat, rectangular laptop designs. But if a slight angle helps make the rumored "Macbook Air" as thin as humanly possible, it's plausible. (See their mockups, right.) Wired's mole, who works for an "Apple third-party vendor," says the black and silver machine is made of aluminum and glass.

Some sort of small/slim laptop has been widely anticipated for today's presentation, which starts at 12pm EST. Apple's notebook lineup has lacked a super-small device since the company discontinued its 12-inch PowerBook after switching to Intel chips, so it makes sense for them to add one now.

Many observers have predicted Apple's new laptop would use Flash-based storage, instead of a spinning hard drive, to cut down on heft and power consumption. But one bit of smart, unconventional wisdom from 'Daring Fireball' writer John Gruber: Why not use a hard drive? Apple's iPod Classic proves the company can squeeze a 160-gig hard drive into a super-thin case. And hard-drives are cheaper, gigabyte for gigabyte, than flash drives. So why not save money and space?

See Also: Hours To Go: Macworld Prediction Roundup
What's In The Air For Apple?
Five Things You Won't See At Macworld
Blu-ray Not Coming To Apple's Macs
Wu's Macworld Picks: MacBook Mini, Blu-Ray, Movie Rentals
Why Wait For Macworld? Tablet Mac Already Shipping
Apple At Macworld: Tiny MacBook, No 3G iPhone?