The rumors surrounding the fabled 12 inch retina Mac have been swirling for about a year now. While you never know if a rumored product from Apple is real or not, this one has had so many leaks and mentions that I have to believe they are at least considering it. Moreover, as nice as the MacBook Airs are, it has been several years since they received a new design and you just have to know the design team is at least feeling a little itchy about it. Moreover, competitors are now perfecting their copies of the existing design.

So with all this in mind, Mark Gurman, one of the most reliable Apple-scoopers, just published an article at 9to5Mac about the new MacBook Air. Much has been written about this since the rumor first hit a few days ago. I think a higher resolution MacBook Air is a swell idea but if Mark Gurman is right and the new machine has just one USB port to cover power, external display, and external devices, I’m going to go on record as saying that is a little bit crazy. Can you image having to unplug your external drive so you can print or unplugging your power so you can connect a scanner? The very first MacBook Air had just one USB port. It was located on a clever little drop down hinge that reminded me of the docking bay on a particularly sleek spaceship. Everyone hated having just one USB port but at least that Mac had a separate MagSafe port. Speaking of MagSafe, if the 12″ Mac gets power via the USB port, what happens to MagSafe? That would be something I really miss.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark Gurman is generally right about the new Mac specs but wrong about just one USB port. At least, I sure hope he is.