Apple's HDTV will reportedly carry 16 speakers giving a "complete surround sound experience...

This rumor is not new. Robert X. Cringely has been making this prediction for a while now and it's never come to pass. Still, I am a little bit intrigued by the idea of an Apple television. Flat panel TVs nowadays have been somewhat ho-hum. 3D technology is pretty bunk and the only thing to compete on are whose got the better tech specs. To most people, there really isn't a difference between a Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, etc. You can bet Apple would make a TV that not only looked good on but also looked good off. Whether that's worth a premium or not remains to be seen.

Along with today's Mac OS X Lion release, Apple refreshed the MacBook Air and Mac Mini with new chipsets and beefier configs while keeping prices the same or lowering them in some cases. While no major structural changes were made to the MacBook Air (Thunderbolt added and backlit keyboard brought back!) the Mac Mini lost its internal Superdrive completely. Last year's server version removed the optical drive and now the desktop version is DVD free, as well. Yet another sign of Apple's march towards zero internal optical drives for all its machines.

The move is hardly a surprise. Forget about Apple's desire to be cutting edge. CDs and DVDs as a technology are just outdated. People don't carry around CDs for listening to music any more. Virtually all movies released to date are on Blu-ray or are being streamed via Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, etc. CDs and DVDs to deliver software is dying a slow death (hastened by App Stores of all types) and optical discs never really caught on for on the go data storage. USB thumb drives are more practical and the combination of continuously falling prices and ever increasing sizes make it a no brainer. Would I want to carry around 4-8 DVDs or one 32GB USB flash drive (currently priced at about $40 and falling). Also, Apple just killed another reason for you to use an optical drive by letting all new Macs reinstall the operating system over the internet (very cool).

I'm not against optical drives in general. I do see the need for them when watching Blu-ray movies (though not available on a Mac) or when needing to store huge files cheaply (about $1 per 25GB blank disc or $7 for 50GB blank disc). I just don't need to use them ALL THE TIME. That's why a laptop (or Mac Mini) coupled with an external USB Blu-ray drive is a great solution. You shouldn't have to devote 25%-35% of your machine's internal real estate to a peripheral you only use 1% of the time, if that much.

As expected, Apple destroyed it's Q3 2011 earnings forecasts. It seems like nothing can bring down this juggernaut. But 15 years ago a little company called Microsoft was doing the exact same thing. Year after year, nothing could stop Microsoft's dominance of the computer industry. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer would high-five at analyst meetings where they reported billions upon billions in profits every quarter. Today, Microsoft is still reporting billions of dollars each quarter in profits but they're no longer the king of jungle. But remember, everything is a cycle. It is with absolute certainty that I say Apple will one day falter and another company will step up to claim the crown. Whether it's Microsoft, Google, Facebook or some new entry, somebody will take them down. Such is life in tech.