What Apple fan of small-and-light computing doesn’t remember that Macworld Expo Keynote? The one where, uncovering Apple’s then-latest laptop and holding it aloft, Steve Jobs declared it “the smallest full-featured notebook in the world.” By the self-satisfied smile on his face, you knew Apple was back in the ultra-portable market for good.

Two years and change later, it was canceled.

That would be the 12” PowerBook G4 of 2003 that met its demise in 2005, but what happened then seems eerily familiar in 2009. Since the manila-envelope unveiling at Macworld Expo 2008, the MacBook Air has gotten less Apple Event love than the time it takes Yael Naïm to sing “New Soul.” Phil Schiller spent about 30 seconds detailing a spec bump and a price drop at WWDC 2009, the same event at which the MacBook Pros saw major redesign. It was that seeming indifference to the Air that led me to ponder the history of the smallest PowerBook in relation to the fate of the thinnest MacBook. 

Comparative Updates: 12" PowerBook G4 vs. MacBook Air

Spooky, huh? The overlap is like looking at some old soul reincarnated and doomed to relive the same life of regret. Note that after the first revision that included new video options, both models subsequently received “drop-in upgrades,” incremental increases in CPU and storage capacity. Also, the 12” PowerBook G4 ended its model life at $1,499, which is the same price as the MacBook Air now.

Of course, comparing the timeline of the PowerBook G4 with the MacBook Air hardly predicts the future of the latter — though a mirrored RAM boost for the MacBook Air would be nice. If there is any foretelling of the Air’s future to be had, it’s more likely to be found in the demise of the PowerBook. That demise, in my opinion, would be the iBook.

When the 12” PowerBook G4 was introduced, it had several big advantages over the 12” iBook.

• G4 CPU vs. G3 CPU
• CD-RW/DVD vs. CD/DVD player
• GeForce4 420 Go and display spanning vs. ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 and display mirroring
• Infinitely Awesome Keyboard vs. Chicklet Keys

By the time the last iBook model was introduced, the only advantage left to the higher-priced PowerBook was the keyboard and the ability to run dual displays. When Apple switched to Intel, the MacBook did spanning, and the superior keyboard was no more. The black MacBook effectively replaced the 12” PowerBook G4 in the laptop lineup. The question now becomes whether the 13″ MacBook Pro is replacing the MacBook Air.

Feature Creep: MacBook Air to MacBook Pro

At Macworld Expo 2008, Steve Jobs might as well have likened the manufacturing of the MacBook Air from a sheet of solid aluminum to Michelangelo discovering David within a block of stone, so lavish was his praise of the technology. If you aren’t familiar with the process, there’s a video on Apple’s web site, on a MacBook Pro page. Symbolism noted.

The timeline shows the migration of technologies from the MacBook Air to the 13″ MacBook Pro. Though it’s a given that Apple always intended to diffuse the tech throughout its portables, the 13″ MacBook Pro puts these features in a design similar to the MacBook Air. Further, several MacBook Pro features are arguably missing from the MacBook Air, including: better battery life, more RAM, buttonless trackpad and SD Card slot.

Originally promising five hours of “wireless productivity,” battery life declined with the second revision of the MacBook Air due to its faster CPU. The third revision brought battery life back to five hours with a change from a 37 to 40 W/Hr battery. However, the new built-in battery in the 13″ MacBook Pro has increased battery life to six hours. While it is possible the MacBook Air has reached the limit of battery life, the memory situation is not up for debate.

In January of 2008, 2GB of RAM in a MacBook Air was a good deal; not so much in 2009. Even Apple’s white MacBook comes with 2GB standard. Worse, the high-end 13” MacBook Pro comes with 4GB standard. In stark and embarrassing contrast, the the high-end MacBook Air still has the same 2GB of RAM soldered to the motherboard. It’s a change that should have happened, but hasn’t, like the single-button trackpad.

Button, button, whose got the button, and why?

The MacBook Air was the first Mac portable to have multitouch input, with that functionality later duplicated across the Pro lineup. The question concerning the MacBook Air trackpad is why is there still a button? Clearly, Apple has moved away from that design with the high-end portables, a lineup that includes the MacBook Air at $1,499. A button-less trackpad may be more a matter of form than function, but what about the SD Card slot?

While one could argue that the SD Card slot might not fit into the MacBook Air, certainly no Mac laptop would benefit from such a feature more than one without an optical drive. Instead of purchasing a SuperDrive, you could boot OS X off an SD card for troubleshooting, or even installation. Imagine where that could lead.

When asked about bringing Blu-ray to the Mac at an Apple Event in 2008, Steve Jobs replied that “Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt.” By this, Jobs meant Apple didn’t want to burden Mac users with the “cost of the licensing and the cost of the drives.” While that sounds altruistic, it’s a little difficult to understand, as companies like Dell have sold sub-$1,000 laptops with Blu-ray drives for over a year.

More understandable would be history repeating itself with Apple and removable media. In 1998, Apple introduced the original iMac without an integrated floppy drive. The future is clearly digital downloading, the way video is rented and sold at the iTunes Store. Unlike the floppy, Apple has a vested interest in speeding the demise of the optical drive. Should Apple remove the optical drive on Pro lineup, the impact would be immediate for the MacBook Air.

The handwriting for the optical disc is not on the wall, but the back of the MacBook Pro case.

Removing the optical drive and supporting structure from the 13” MacBook Pro could reduce the weight by as much as half a pound. How much could Apple engineering then do to reduce the size of the motherboard? Adding a longer, thinner battery could allow for a wedge-shaped case, making the 13″ MacBook Pro look and feel a lot like the MacBook Air. Would a prospective MacBook Air buyer then pay an extra $300 for one less pound in weight? It’s the story of the 12″ PowerBook G4 all over again, though the story won’t end this year.

Fall is for iPods, perhaps desktops, but not laptops, and not during an Apple-less Macworld Expo in January 2010. Between February and April would be a good guess for the next round of laptop updates. Ironically, a last MacBook Air update in the spring would nearly complete the comparison to the 12″ PowerBook G4. Sometime later that year, the first MacBook Pros without optical drives could be introduced, leaving Apple’s latest foray into ultra-lights to vanish into the thinest air.

When reading TAB writer Darrell Etherington’s article on how Mac users were left out of the Microsoft Office 2010 launch party, the first thing that struck me was that not only that it’s true, but it’s also nothing new. For the most part, Mac user are left out of most launch parties.

Aside from Microsoft, consider these other examples:

• The Mac wasn’t invited to the Quicken launch party, but isn’t it nice of Intuit to throw it some crumbs next year?
• The Mac wasn’t invited to the Google Chrome launch party. But it’s OK, because Sergey Brin said it was “embarrassing.” Right. As if Google just forgot about the Mac, and was blushing about it. It wasn’t embarrassing, it was planned; don’t insult us by acting like it was some sort of mistake.
• The Mac wasn’t invited to the Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 or 6.0 launch parties. In fact, the 5.0 party was completely canceled for the Mac.

The above are just some of the Big Boys who operate “business as usual.” There are plenty of examples in the smaller development houses as well.

I know Windows has the commanding market share and user base in the PC world. I understand why you’d choose Windows if you just wanted to write for one platform. I have zero problem with this. However, I do take issue with vendors that support both platforms still spitting out one after the other instead of twin releases.

Don’t tell me it’s a resource issue; I see Apple do it all the time. Ever notice Safari comes out on both platforms at once now? As does iTunes, and QuickTime. Sure, Apple must cater to the larger Windows user base while not ignoring its own, but my point is Apple is proof you can release to both platforms simultaneously. Other vendors don’t do this because they don’t care enough about the Mac to change their ways, not because it can’t be done. Much like Mr. Brin, they’ll pay lip service to the Mac, but I’d prefer to judge them by their actions.

Any time Mac users get to thinking that Apple’s great success the last dozen years has changed how developers view the Mac, it hasn’t. Twelve years ago it was seen as a tiny percentage of PC users (maybe 2.5 percent globally). Today, it’s still seen as a tiny percentage of PC users (maybe 4 percent). True enough, so the Mac sits last in line despite the BS from various vendors. The only thing that’s really changed is how developers talk about the Mac.

The Mac user base used to be a lot more vocal about this. I’m not sure why it has gotten so quiet lately.

I thought once the Dev Team got on board with George Hotz (better known as Geohot, the man responsible for the very first iPhone jailbreak), all differences between the two would be resolved and he would quietly rejoin the fold. Not so, apparently, as he continues to release new software using the Purple prefix, with a new iPhone 3GS unlocking program dubbed Purlesn0w…like what Prince would name his song if he grew up north of the tree line.

The new unlocker, which is out, albeit in beta form (and the source code is available now via Geohot’s blog), is meant to improve upon thee somewhat clumsy solution currently used by Ultrasn0w, which doesn’t actually truly “unlock” anything. Instead, it uses a daemon to generate a ticket that allows the baseband to support carrier sim cards other than the official one. Purplesn0w likewise can’t “fully” unlock anything, but it does use a more elegant solution that takes up fewer system resources.

As a result of his improvements, Hotz also claims that users who unlock via Purplesn0w will sidestep many of the problems plaguing many early Ultrasn0w adopters, including spotty Wi-Fi, battery and unlock failures. There are some caveats, the biggest of which being that you can’t unlock using the new software if you don’t have a legit SIM card with which to activate. Hacktivation support is supposed to be coming in a future iteration, though, so unofficial users won’t be left completely out of the loop.

While some may see the apparent split between Geohot and the rest of the Dev Team as a “breaking up the band,” negative thing, I think it’ll be good for the jailbreak community as a whole. Teamwork is lovely, but a little productive competition never hurt anyone, and usually helps push the envelope. Check out detailed instructions about how to get Purplesn0w on your phone at Hotz’s blog.

Sometimes I feel like Microsoft keeps the Mac BU around just so it can mock and ridicule it. The unit never seems to get to join in the fun when it comes time to release a new iteration of Office. Not, at least, until well after its PC counterparts. The official line is that the development cycle for both products is always around two to three years, so the schedule dictates when new releases become available — which explains why we won’t be seeing Office 2010 until 2011. Regardless of cycles, Office for Mac is badly in need of an upgrade — right now.

I have Office 2008, but I can count the number of times I use it in one month on one finger. Whenever possible, I use Google Docs or Bean (an excellent freeware multiformat text editor for Mac) for any Word doc editing I may need to do, which is almost none now that I’ve left school and the corporate world behind. Even though a lot of people still depend on the format, as the number of Mac users grows, I suspect Office will continue to lose ground, especially if Microsoft continues to offer such seriously unpleasant Mac-specific software.

Sometimes I swear Office 2008 was just a ploy to get me to install Windows on a Boot Camp partition and run Office 2007. I find command and menu placement to be completely unintuitive and just plain awkward on the Mac version. Google Docs in an SSB seems like a natively designed OS X app by comparison.

Of course, a big part of the announcement of Office 2010 was the revelation of a suite of online apps, which theoretically should be accessible from any browser on any platform (unless MS pulls a classic IE-only block, which I don’t think it would for fear of inciting riots). So, Mac users will be able to join in on the fun, right? Not quite. The web portion of Office 2010, from what I gather from Microsoft’s press releases about the software, will complement and work together with the old-fashioned installed media portion. I think it’ll end up looking much more like iWork.com and iWork than Zoho Writer or Google Docs.

Microsoft, if you want to be a software company, be one. Clearly you think it makes business sense to develop for Mac, or the Mac BU wouldn’t exist (unless my conspiracy theories above are correct). If that’s the case, treat it as you would any other software, and build excitement by launching cross-platform products of consistent quality, all at once.

I’ve been playing with Fluent News on the iPhone for the last day, and consider it a fine first effort as a news reading app. However, when it comes to sharing the news stories you’re most interested in, it falls short.

Reading

On my iPhone’s first Home page, I have readers for the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and AP Mobile. I may very well be able to replace them all with Fluent News. It culls news from a myriad of sources’ mobile sites and aggregates them into its page views. By default, you see Top News, but are only two taps away from other categories (e.g., U.S. News, Business, Sports, etc.).

I’m impressed with the speed of the app, as it does most of its work in the background. I’m also impressed that it shows only one headline for a given major story, and then adds a button for “related” stories that lets you see other sources’ stories. This keeps the primary lists short, yet still allows you to see full coverage. And all from one app. It’s a very good idea, and for reading purposes is well implemented.

There’s an ad at the bottom of the first page of links, but instead of being stationary, it scrolls with the page, so the majority of the time you don’t see any ads when reviewing headlines. When you click on an article to read it, you see exactly what that particular source’s mobile news looks like. This means articles do not display consistently, but only because, say, the NYT mobile format does not look like CNN’s; it’s not a bug in the program. By grabbing these sources’ already-formatted data, it keeps things fast.

Finally, the data when pulled down is local to the phone, so you can read it even when not on a network (though of course you won’t pull in later data until connected). All in all, the reading experience on this thing is very good, and I like the idea of replacing several icons with just one on my Home page.

Sharing

So you’ve read a great story and want to share it with your friends/family/whatever. Fluent News allows this, but it falls down here. The app has ties to email, Twitter and Facebook.

For Twitter, go into settings and enter your account information. Then, when reading an article, click the Share button (you get all three choices) and click Twitter. What happens is that a tweet is composed for you, and all you can do is say OK or cancel. You don’t get to write the tweet, or modify it any way. Did you want to quote the article in your tweet, or shorten the URL? Too bad.

Clicking the email button transfers you to the email app. Here, at least, the pre-written text can be modified, but it leads to another issue with Fluent News’ sharing: Its article reader is “dead.” It’s a read-only environment. Click a link? It goes nowhere. Click and hold a picture to save it? Nope. Copy and paste? Nope. So even with an email there’s no way to quote from the article, or do anything else.

The above reader limitations wouldn’t be bad if the reader had a button to open the article directly in Safari, but for now it has no way to do so.

And the above isn’t even the worst part. I haven’t yet discussed the URL it sends. You might reasonably expect it to be a URL for the article you’re reading, but no. Instead, it’s a link to a Fluent News page that contains a link to the article you’re reading, and in some cases an ad for downloading the iPhone app (as if you only share articles with iPhone users).

Frankly, lots of people I share with are not going to get this. If they get an email saying this is a great article to read, and then click the link only to see a Fluent News page of links, they’re going to reply to me that I must have sent them the wrong URL because it isn’t the article I mentioned. I don’t see why Fluent News has to turn sharing a link into a page hit/ad for their site.

So how do I get around this?

1. Email the link to myself.
2. Click the link in the email.
3. Click the link on the resulting Fluent News web page.
4. Now I have the article in Safari, and can interact, email or Twitter as I normally would.

That’s quite a bit of extra work, but at least I know everyone will get a link that takes them directly to the article I’m raving about. Well, the mobile version of the article I’m raving about, which looks pretty weak in a desktop browser.

In some cases, the mobile page allows you to select the “normal” view, in which case that would be step 3.5 above. But in the example shown here, I don’t have the option.

Summary

If you don’t share lots of links, or are fine with pre-written text and a detour through a Fluent News web page to get to the article, or have no desire to interact with an article you’re reading, then none of this matters to you. For me, I’m using the reader, but will take the workaround above any time I decide to share a link, and hope Fluent News will save me a lot of trouble by adding a button to open the current article in Safari. And do it soon.

Fluent News is available in the App Store for free.

Late yesterday evening, the folks at Google made official what many have suspected for months, or even years: They’re working on an operating system. The new OS, dubbed Chrome OS after Google’s recent entry into the ongoing browser wars, will have speed and Internet connectivity as its two top priorities, and be based on a Linux kernel, making it the ideal candidate for netbooks (and, as a result, probably the strongest competitor for Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7).

Chrome OS is still a long way off, since Google says it won’t be available for consumer use until the second half of 2010 (when it’ll ship on some netbook devices), but when it does drop, it will no doubt change the OS landscape significantly and irreversibly. The question is, who will take the most significant blow as a result of Google entering the fray as a major third competitor in the mainstream OS wars?

The spin seems to be that Google is aiming their guns squarely at Windows 7 with Chrome OS, since netbooks appear to be the devices which would benefit the most from running the extremely slimmed-down OS. Basically, Chrome OS will run Chrome the browser, and that’s about it. User interface elements will be kept to an absolute minimum, and the sole purpose of the OS itself appears to be to get you online as fast as possible so that you can begin using web applications, which will be the bread and butter of Chrome. It’ll work automatically with any existing ones, and development for Chrome OS will be as simple as developing a new web app.

Considering my current set-up with my Eee PC 1000HE, on which I’ve created Chrome application shortcuts or Prism SSB apps for just about every major function I need, Chrome OS sounds like exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for. But Google’s OS, while said to be “initially” targeted at netbooks, will be compatible with any computer using ARM or x86 architecture, so it could be used on other systems, too.

So while Windows will definitely lose some users to the new OS, how will Apple fare? Will Boot Camp installs of Chrome allow people to ignore future iterations of Leopard a pass, in favor of what promises to be a much more lightweight and direct approach to how we use our computers? I think the days of a web-based OS being used as our primary operating system are much farther off than Google would hope, since many people still either aren’t aware of, or don’t trust, cloud-based information storage and retrieval for most types of data. And I think that will save Apple significant revenue impact in the short term. TheNextWeb is already thinking about a Google/Apple face-off as a result of Chrome OS, and I think they’re right, in terms of the long view.

What’s more immediately relevant, though, is what Google’s announcement means for Apple tangentially, by way of netbooks. Apple still staunchly refuses to play that particular game, despite the fact that other holdouts like Sony are finally coming on board with the concept. The first reply I received when I posted the news about Chrome on Twitter this morning was a friend asking whether this will finally push Apple to follow suit. It’s an obvious question, and one everyone from Redmond to Cupertino must be asking themselves right now.

Given a smart, simple solution that just works from Google, casual users who need a laptop but don’t necessarily need it to do that much will be flocking to Chrome-toting devices in droves, abandoning other potential notebook markets to do so. Despite Google’s announcement being software-related, I think the real impact will be in hardware, at least where Apple’s concerned.

One of the only reasons I’ve stuck it out with my MobileMe account, despite numerous quirks, annoyances and outright failures, is push email. For the iPhone to be useful to me as a business device, I need it to keep me up to date on my email in real time (or as close to it as MobileMe’s push can achieve). Contact and calendar syncing are nice, but both can now be done using your Google information if you’d rather not pay the $100 annual MobileMe subscription fee. Gmail push would complete the picture, and it could be on the way.

And by could, I mean it definitely exists, as demonstrated by TechCrunch’s hands-on with the app that makes it possible. Yes, it’s via a third-party app, and there is no official word from either Google or Apple that Gmail push on the iPhone has finally arrived. Not surprising, considering the money Apple stands to lose in MobileMe subscriptions if Gmail, which is not only incredibly popular, but free, manages to replicate the one trick MobileMe still has up its sleeve.

The app, called GPush, is the product of a development company called Tiverias, and it uses Gmail’s IMAP IDLE feature and Apple’s push notifications to deliver near-live updates from your Gmail inbox. All the app itself does is provide a login screen, after which point you never really have to open it again. Once set up, it will display text alerts containing the sender address and subject from each new email you receive. That is, if it’s allowed to.

The question surrounding GPush isn’t whether it can pull off what it claims to be able to. That it can do just fine, as TechCrunch’s tests prove. The question is, will Apple ever allow GPush to exist in a form that’s widely available to all users via the App Store? Cupertino has a vested interest in blocking Gmail push, since some users (like me, for instance) might walk away from MobileMe were it to become available, resulting in an obvious loss in revenue.

If Apple does block the app, regardless of what (if any) excuse it cites as the reason for the rejection, it will cast even more doubt on the already suspect App Store submission review process. Basically, it seems like the only reason to keep IMAP IDLE support out of the built-in Mail app is to block Gmail push, so it wouldn’t surprise me if GPush never sees the light of day. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

If you thought bankruptcy would keep the industrious folks at Psystar from making any more Mac clones, you were sorely mistaken. Like a zombie rising from the dead with an insatiable thirst for lawsuits, the little clone-maker that couldn’t is advertising a brand new model of its “Open” line of computers on its web site today.

Not only that, but it’s also claiming that its bankruptcy filing was an unfortunate, but necessary, step toward ensuring its continued viability as a company. Maybe so, but how many of you out there are eager to order a new computer of questionable build quality from a bankrupt company engaged in an ongoing legal battle with Apple, especially with notebook price drops in place, and similar desktop discounts rumored to be on the horizon?

If you’re willing to look past these minor superficial details, you can now order an Open(7) starting at $1,499. For as much as you’d spend on a real iMac, you’ll get a tower desktop PC with a 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Nehalem processor, 6GB of DDR3 RAM, a 1TB 7,200RPM SATA2 HDD, and an NVIDIA 9500GT graphics card with 512MB of onboard memory. As is standard on Psystar computers, niceties like wireless Internet and Bluetooth will cost you extra. And they’re apparently in stock right now, if you’re feeling brave.

The company’s re-emergence comes hot on the heels of news that Apple has been given the “OK” to proceed with its legal action against Psystar, which was granted last week by a Florida bankruptcy court judge. In the interim, Psystar’s Chapter 11 filing means that it has probably been able to temporarily escape its previous debts and acquired new ones through a different funding source, whose identity remains a mystery. Many hardware manufacturers would obviously benefit were OS X to be made available for any platform, so there’s probably no shortage of people interested in having a stake in Psystar’s legal case, though none would likely be very comfortable with that position being made public.

News of the new Open(7) came via Pystar’s online mailing list, in a PDF newsletter (check it out at SlashGear) sent out to subscribers detailing it, its new DUBL (Darwin Universal Boot Loader), and, in a bright red box at the bottom of the document, a rather flippant take on its recent financial and legal turmoil. Also according to the newsletter, for a limited time only, you can get free shipping on the Open(7) within the continental U.S. using a special coupon code to “Celebrate Independence.” Cheeky, Psystar. Very cheeky.

Greenpeace released the 12th edition of its Guide to Greener Electronics today (PDF), with Apple falling somewhere between tangerine and burnt orange. For those who take the rating seriously, Apple scored 4.7 out of 10, unchanged from last time, though the company slipped from 10th to 11th place in the ranking of 18 companies.

The guide is based on three “demands” (their word) by Greenpeace: eliminating toxic substances, e-waste recycling and energy usage. Those demands are then broken down into four sub-demands, which are ranked: bad, partially bad, partially good, and good. Overall, Apple scores mostly in the middle, but with several bad grades.

The single, wholly positive ranking Apple receives is for the timeline on phasing out nasty PVCs and BFRs from manufacturing. As Apple and the Environment notes, “Printed circuit boards, electrical components, mechanical parts, and internal cables are BFR-free and PVC-free.” However, Greenpeace even takes issue with that claim because Apple has “unreasonably high threshold limits for BFRs and PVC in products that are allegedly PVC-/BFR-free.”

Greenpeace criticizes Apple strongly on e-waste recycling, while at the same time noting the company has extended coverage of its recycling program to Asia, and that Apple has set a goal of a 50 percent recycling rate by 2010. The main problem, according to Greenpeace, is a matter of disclosure on the part of Apple. On the issue of energy, Apple again scores poorly. First, because the company does not report on GHG (greenhouse gasses) emissions, Apple fails. Second, because the company does not report on renewable energy usage, Apple fails.

If you don’t see a pattern here, what it comes down to is that Greenpeace grades companies on words as much as action. Apple is a secretive company by nature. Considering how confrontational Greenpeace has been with Apple in the past, it’s hardly a surprise that Apple makes no effort to meet the “demands” of Greenpeace.

The real question here is why Greenpeace focuses so much on Apple. Both Dell and HP sell far more computers than Apple. Both have dropped in ranking, according to the latest guide, and both now score lower than Apple. Does this mean we will see protestors at the headquarters of HP? Will there be advertising campaigns about a “yellow” Dell? If Greenpeace followed its own guide, that’s what should happen.

However, the difference between Apple and every company in the guide is brand. Apple is easily the most popular brand. By focusing on Apple negatively, Greenpeace can theoretically threaten Apple’s brand popularity. Further, any changes Apple makes because of pressure from Greenpeace could then be leveraged against companies that actually pollute more than Apple. Finally, attacking the most popular company raises awareness of Greenpeace itself, not that the environmental organization would ever be so self-serving.

Keep going green, Apple, but keep going without Greenpeace.

If you bought a MacBook Pro between May 2007 and September 2008, you might be painfully aware of NVIDIA’s major screw-up in providing fundamentally faulty 8600M GT graphics processors for Apple computers, as well as others. Apple no doubt still remembers that, too, since the warranty extension and repair refund policy is undoubtedly costing it large sums of money. That unpleasant memory may have partially led to a falling out between the two, according to recent reports.

SemiAccurate is reporting that, according to multiple sources, at recent negotiations between the two companies, discussions became rather heated, in part due to NVIDIA’s apparently arrogant stance concerning its supplier relationship with Apple. Evidently, Apple was expecting more modesty from a company that has cost it so much cash, thanks to a problem it didn’t even acknowledge existed.

The end result of the rift will basically see NVIDIA locked out of Apple for at least three to four years, according to SemiAccurate’s sources. Which means the sweetheart deal that saw the advent of the now ubiquitous 9400M graphics processor and NVIDIA chipset may be at an end. According to the same report that announced the split, Apple will be going back to Intel for its chipset needs in the immediate future.

But why now? Apple has known about NVIDIA’s somewhat questionable dealings with it for a while now, and hasn’t yet stopped rolling out computers boasting graphics processors from the chipmaker. Part of the reason might be that NVIDIA has only now started to become unbearably arrogant in its dealings with Apple, following the success of the 9400M.

A more likely reason we’ve yet to see the effect of the fallout on actual Apple products is that the company’s design cycle is so long that the current models were already irrevocably in the queue when news of the faulty 8600M GT processors broke. Apple’s own investigation only wrapped up in mid-2008, at which point its product plans for at least the next year are no doubt pretty much set in stone, especially regarding major internal components. Other companies affected by the NVIDIA screw-up are likewise only just beginning to show signs of the fallout, lending credence to this idea.

While NVIDIA screwed up huge when it supplied Apple with a large number of faulty graphics cards and then refused to own up and take responsibility, does a lock-out really benefit current Apple customers? I spent most of last weekend playing Spore on my brand new 13-inch MacBook Pro, something which I never would’ve been able to do enjoyably (or at all) using a model sporting an integrated Intel chipset. To me, going back that way would feel like backsliding.

Maybe Apple’s own chip design machinations will pan out when it comes time to show NVIDIA the door, in which case it could shock us all with a completely revamped platform. Let’s hope so, because I’m not so sure I want my next computer to bring back the Intel GMA headache I only just managed to get rid of.