Did you hear the news? Supposedly, Apple will be lifting the lid on a newfangled can of MacBook Pro updates this week, presumably on Thursday, February 24 to coincide with CEO Steve Jobs’ birthday (no, we’re not making that up!) -- and here are five very good reasons why you should care.

Everybody loves an Apple product refresh, especially when said product is due for something more than a speed bump courtesy of Intel’s latest processors. With new MacBook Pros apparently just around the corner, we figured it was a good time to put our thinking caps on and come up with a list of the five most important things we’d like to see in Apple’s next pro notebooks.

Need for Speed

Certainly the first thing on every MacBook Pro owner’s wish list is speed -- as in, a faster processor. Apple has certainly delivered on that front with recent models, although in general, notebooks tend to be slower than their desktop counterparts for obvious reasons (mostly space, power and heat issues).

Thankfully, Intel continues to rise to the occasion, and the next MacBook Pro is widely expected to use the chip supplier’s latest dual-core “Sandy Bridge” processors. According to MacRumors, the most likely configurations for Apple’s pro notebook line are as such:

Core i7-2620M (4M cache, 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 2.70 GHz 32nm)
Core i5-2540M (3M cache, 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 2.60 GHz 32nm)
Core i5-2520M (3M cache, 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 2.50 GHz 32nm)

Apple’s current MacBook Pros already feature Core i5 and i7 processors, but don’t be deceived -- the new Sandy Bridge updates that Intel started shipping this month are considered the “second generation” which claim some considerable speed improvements even over last year’s models, not to mention overall improvements to the processor architecture as well.

Thunderbolt or Bust

Many people don’t remember that Apple was instrumental in pushing adoption of the USB specification in a big way with the original iMac in 1998, and jumped on board with USB 2.0 soon after it was introduced. That has led many to wonder why Cupertino isn’t throwing some weight behind USB 3.0, which has been available now for more than a year.

Windows users have been enjoying the benefits of USB 3.0 for a while now, with many hard drive and accessory manufacturers having adopted the technology, particularly since it’s backward compatible with the first two variations of USB.

What’s widely believed to be holding back Apple from adopting USB 3.0 is Light Peak, an optical cable interface for peripherals capable of bandwidth speeds reaching 10 gigabits -- nearly double the theoretical speed of USB 3.0, and triple the more realistic speeds real-life users are actually getting. The difference is that Light Peak is intended to be a “single universal replacement” for a wide array of bus types, which currently include USB, Firewire, SATA, PCI Express and even the aged SCSI.

As we reported earlier this month, Apple’s adoption of Light Peak would essentially negate the need for native USB 3.0, since Intel’s technology would allow users to plug just about anything into a single universal port, assuming manufacturers provide the physical connection needed. Light Peak also allows for daisy chaining of devices from a single cable, which would further up the ante for Apple.

On the heels of a MacRumors report late Tuesday that Intel will be making an announcement on Thursday to “discuss a new technology that is about to appear on the market,” the website revealed leaked photos on Wednesday morning which appear to show specs for a new 13-inch MacBook Pro packing a “high-speed I/O” port dubbed “Thunderbolt” -- which we’d wager more than a guess marks the arrival of Light Peak on the Mac at long last.

SSD Storage

Perhaps the most intriguing rumor about the next MacBook Pro is that it will follow the MacBook Air and include solid-state storage (SSD) -- at least in some form. MacBook Pro users are accustomed to larger hard drives, and since SSD storage is still a rather costly proposition, Apple may take a radical step with their new notebooks.

Yet unknown is how Apple might implement SSD storage into the MacBook Pro -- going SSD only would allow the notebook to shed some weight and size, but the high cost of diskless media would keep storage capacity lower than most pro users would prefer.

BGR reported this week that SSD storage may, at the very least, be used as a home for Mac OS X and related system files -- which would require a minimum of 8GB of SSD, if not a more comfortable 16GB. Other speculation claims that SSD storage may also be used as a home for the user’s Applications folder, although this seems less likely to please power users.

Using SSD for the operating system while user files are stored on hard disk is an interesting concept, but the current Mac OS X isn’t really designed for such use, and the 10.6.7 update which is still in beta likely wouldn’t introduce such a key feature.

The obvious incentive for using SSD storage is to gain the faster boot times and “instant on” sleep mode that users of the latest MacBook Air models are enjoying, which aren’t really attainable with current 2.5-inch hard drives used in notebooks.

Weight Loss

The rumor mill has been also speculating that the new MacBook Pro will shed some weight, which is likely welcome news to hardened road warriors who frequently need to cart their notebook with them everywhere. How much weight are we talking about? According to knowledgable sources, as much as half a pound.

Of course, half a pound is hardly as appealing as the 2.9 pound weight of the diminutive 13-inch MacBook Air, but the current 15-inch MacBook Pro is only 5.6 pounds to begin with -- hey, we’ll take what we can get, right?

Bring Back the Duo!

Do you remember the PowerBook Duo? First launched in 1992, the Duo line could be viewed as the predecessor to today’s MacBook Air, with one big exception -- a unique docking connector that could magically transform the stripped-down subnotebook into a full-fledged desktop, complete with extra ports, expansion slots, the monitor of your choice and external keyboard/mouse.

Now imagine, if you will, that Apple’s next bold move in the notebook space was to reinvent the Duo concept for today’s Mac laptops. At home, you could close the lid on your MacBook Pro and slide it into a dock to gain the full advantages of a desktop computer, but retain the ability to slide it out on a moment’s notice and hit the road, with all of your files ready and waiting.

Sure, maybe times have changed and the Duo concept is a great idea whose time has passed -- but as longtime MacBook Pro users who spend more time docked at home or work than we do on the go, we’d certainly appreciate Apple taking another crack at this long-lost technological advance for their new notebooks.

Bonus Round

Okay, so we couldn’t see fit to leave our ideas at just five, so here are a few remainders that aren’t Earth-shattering developments in the MacBook Pro line, but things we’d sure be happy to see, just the same.

More RAM: Today’s MacBook Pro models top out at 8GB of RAM, which is plenty for most folks -- but let’s face it, Mac OS X and the wide variety of applications written for it consume more and more memory as time goes on. We can max out last year’s iMac desktops at 16GB, so why not have the same option for notebooks, too?

Optional Optical Drive: Thanks to services like Dropbox and technology like the USB thumb drive, we find ourselves using CDs and DVDs less and less. There’s already an add-on optical drive out there for the MacBook Air, so it’s not crazy to imagine that Apple will finally open up a lot of extra space inside the MacBook Pro by eliminating the optical drive and allowing us to buy the same external unit.

Better Battery Life: This one is pretty much a given, since Apple rarely goes in the other direction. We predict the new MacBook Pro will squeeze even a bit more life out of its sealed battery, period.

And that’s a wrap for our predictions… who’s excited for Thursday? Chime in with your own thoughts in the comments below!

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(Images courtesy of MacRumors, DoobyBrain.com, LowEndMac.com and Wopico.Blogspot.com)