As we sat there waiting, I overheard two different people come in one after the other with the identical problem. The cord on their MacBook Pro power adapters had failed. Fortunately, both were promptly given a brand new power adapter and they went happily on their way.

This kind of situation is not uncommon with power supplies on all kinds of electronics. It first happened to me with my Atari 2600 back in the day, and it will probably happen to my MagSafe adapter one day.

While I was glad that the situation had a happy ending for these two customers, I could not help but feel a bit bad for Apple. It seems a shame to waste a perfectly good $80 power supply because of a worn-out cable. Just then, this popped into my head:

Why not make the power cable removable?

That way, when it wears out or if it breaks internally, you can just replace $5 worth of cable and not the whole unit. Simple, no?

Granted, a double-ended MagSafe connector might be overkill, but I’d rather have the adapter and not my MacBook Pro feel the yank when somebody trips over the cord. The basic idea is to separate the cable from the power unit. Any standard power connector on the non-MagSafe side would do.

I love all my Apple toys, but there’s always room for improvement. Can’t wait for Steve Jobs to announce this new feature at the next keynote!

With that, the conversation shifted to a recent post on appleinsider.com discussing a patent filing made by Apple on a hand-held device (iPod, duh!) that displays its output on a front display screen but receives input through a touch-and-force-sensitive backside interface.

The idea is to free the front of the device from any buttons, clickwheel, etc. and fill all of that space with a nice, bright screen. You don’t really look at the buttons when you use them, so why not just put them on the back? This by the way, is what I think is one of the major design shortcomings of the Microsoft Zune (in my opinion). I like what they did the case, the screen is nice, the interface is good (I guess)… but the buttons on the front are ugly and they make less sens once you turn the darn thing sideways.

Anyway, back to the patent…

Such a device, while super-cool, would probably be expensive and not happening any time this year. Some other cloudy details in the filing mention some elaborate interface tricks that would again delay such a device until that kind of software gets developed.

Then it hits me! What if they use hardware that exists today to pull-off the same tricks?

And so, here is my vision ladies and gentlemen… the widePod

Yes. This is what we all need right now. A big, non-touch sensitive (a.k.a. cheap) wide screen in the same size and form we all know and love. Apple already has this case… all they need is a new front (easy). And throw-in some coverflow goodness. Why not?

But the magic happens on the back.

Yes! Stick a regular clickwheel back there and we are done! The thing is already touch sensitive, and all Apple would need to do is rearrange the guts of the thing and cut a nice round hole in the back.

I would buy it today!!

Would you?

The iPhone is great, but it does have its limitations. I, for example, could not fit all my music in 4 or even 8 gigs of storage that doesn’t even take into account the browser, OS and other stuff that’s already going to be in there. I don’t have $500, $600, much less $700 for a new device. I already have a 3G iPod, two iPod Videos, and a Shuffle (yes, I have a problem). But mostly, I’m stuck with my current cellphone deal where the penalty to drop them and switch to AT&T would add a good $200 bucks to the mix.

So, what do you say Apple engineers? Can you make something like this happen while we wait for a pimped-out ubber-iPod with mind-control, HD video, corkscrew, Wi-Fi and bluetooth?

Let’s hope something like this is this year’s “One more thing….”

Apple, iPhone, Shuffle and iPod are trademarks of Apple Inc. Zune is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Please don’t sue the crap out of me.

In the dim light, it struck me as odd how the reflection of the bright screen looked over the keyboard… and then it hit me. Instantly my mind raced from the Nintendo DS in my pocket, to the iPhone, to Steve Job’s last keynote, to the MacBook Pro.

It all suddenly made perfect sense.

The future will bring a product that combines the best traits of at least these three gadgets, and if I could take a look at the Apple site with the “wayforwardmachine”, I would probably bring back a screencap like this:

And yes, Apple will most probably be the company to pull this off. It should probably be called something like: “MacBook Pro DS.”

In his Macworld Expo 2007 keynote, Steve Jobs mentioned that multi-touch has made the stylus obsolete. What better and more intuitive instrument is there, than using your own finger to touch the interface exactly where you want something to happen? In my opinion, he held back the fact that this new method of interaction will eventually do away with the mouse, the trackpad, and the keyboard itself.

The keyboard will no longer need to be a physical hardware requirement in laptop (or desktop) design. In fact, if you make both screens multi-touch, there is virtually no need for any physical buttons at all. The keyboard can become a beatiful, ethereal interface that you can simply vanish down into the dock when you no longer need it, and the trackpad can be a simple square than you can resize and place anywhere, unbound from its historical front-and-center position.

Talk about an illuminated keyboard.

Apple, iPhone and MacBook are trademarks of Apple Inc. Nintendo DS is a trademark of
Nintendo of America Inc.