The PowerPage has confirmed that Apple’s forthcoming consumer portable, code named P1, will not ship with any PC card slots. As we previously reported, the new PowerBook will ship with a headphone jack but without a stereo in port. An USB device will have to be used for any form of audio or video capture.
The more relevant juice is P1’s increasingly slipping development schedule. As we previously reported, Steve Jobs had issued an edict to have a prototype ready for his 21 July 1999 keynote address at Macworld Expo New York 1999. According to well placed sources, engineers are having trouble even preparing a working prototype of P1 for the Big Dance in July.
More details uncovered by the PowerPage indicate that a major pow-wow was had at Cupertino this weekend by top executives and engineers involved with the P1 project. The point of the emergency meeting was to determine if 1) Apple should scrap P1 entirely, or 2) to make a final decision if Apple will even show a P1 prototype at Expo. The danger in showing it publicly, is raising consumer expectations without being able to ship product within Apple’s 30-day acceptable delivery window (Note: this window has slipped from zero days to 30-days). Apple does not want the forecasting/production problems of Lombard to plague the P1 project.
The details of the weekend meeting are as of yet unknown, but stay close to the PowerPage for the latest juice as this story unfolds.
