They noted this apparent GPU acceleration when playing back 1080p trailers from Apple's site, which saw CPU utilization drop from 100 percent in previous gen MacBook Pros to just 28 percent in current MacBooks, even though the CPU is the same speed and the Pro has more RAM (new MacBooks have a faster FSB, but it wouldn't account for this kind of bump). Nvidia cards do have hardware support for video decoding, so this would make sense, but Apple hasn't used it before.

The other possibility that MacRumors floats is that these changes could be based on improvements slotted for Snow Leopard, namely Quicktime X, "which optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback." Apple hasn't confirmed this, so if you've got one of the new MacBooks and old one to compare, check it out and let us know how it looks. [MacRumors]

The Apple Tax is a popular term for people who believe Macs are overpriced. It's usually screamed at the top of lungs (or the blog-commenter equivalent), but it's rarely been dissected. The truth about the Apple Tax is straightforward on one level—you will pay more for the same specs on a Mac—and surprisingly complicated on another. It definitely exists, but it's not a flat tax. Even avoiding build quality and OS differences by looking only at Apple products, a Mac's price tag is justified in some configurations while in others, it's downright punitive. If you're a PC user thinking about switching, or just a Mac user looking to upgrade, our comprehensive look at the Apple Tax is for you. It's what you really get for what you pay.

In the case of Macs vs PCs, you could argue that customer support, the Leopard OS and design elements such as the new unibody construction and glass trackpads are what make up the Apple Tax. The only problem with this logic is that, when you compare Apple computers alone with no PCs in sight, the tax still swings wildly.

Click on the chart for an even larger view

Here we've compiled for you two massive tables of raw specs. One covering the lower-end MacBook, new and old, and its best PC equivalents; the other covering MacBook Pros in the same manner. Each is organized by price, lowest to highest, in order to show value tradeoffs. While they're broken into two charts for readability, really you can think of them as just one—prices and capabilities of the MacBook line bleed into those of the MacBook Pro now more than ever before. Just because they're easy to read, doesn't mean they're easy to read, though.

Click on the chart for an even larger view

As you can see, in a purely spec-based, part-to-dollar fight, PCs win. HP's dv3500t handily beats the new cheap MacBook in specs—same Intel chip, more RAM, discrete graphics for over $100 less. Similarly, HP's dv5t essentially matches for the high-end MacBook Pro's specs for $1,000 less, and you can add Blu-ray playback and a 400GB hard drive—features not available on the Pro—and still save more than $600. Asus's m50V stacks up similarly for an even lower base.

Interestingly, Dell fares pretty poorly in comparisons. Pricing isn't terrible, but the chipsets used to get the prices are last-gen; we're still waiting for Dell to join the Centrino 2 party. The end result is that the XPS M1330 is neck-in-neck in performance with the new cheap MacBook—Nvidia says the integrated GeForce 9400M performs comparably to the older discrete 8400M GS—with a similar price. Same situation on the XPS M1530, which gets handily trounced, spec-wise, by Asus and HPs in the same price bracket. The point worth making is that PCs are not generically of better value—it varies from brand to brand. But what you save may cost more later in less measurable things like durability, or even customer support.

When it comes to Macs alone, here's how specs and prices stack up—surprisingly, this where the Apple Tax reveals itself to the be most sinister and disconcerting. Two things make looking at Apple's lineup right now extremely messy—the beefed-up specs (and price) of the new MacBooks against the Pros, and the end-of-life last-generation notebooks that are currently available at steep discounts.

Strictly speaking, the best value right now are the last-gen MacBook Pros—they're so cheap they essentially negate the Apple tax, and destroy the new ones in performance-to-dollar ratio. The older, discounted black MacBook is also a decent alternative to the new "cheap" MacBook model.

The real takeaway is that Apple's lower-end $1,000 models appear to be shitty value propositions. The performance gap between the cheapie white MacBook (available for $150 less at Amazon) and the new $1300 MacBook is significant. Thanks to the faster RAM and graphics upgrade, it's dumb to pay Apple $1000 instead of getting the new one. But its 2GHz processor is not exceptionally fast and it lacks a backlit keyboard, so there's an even more compelling case to step up to the $1600 model, especially when you consider the hard drive bump alone is $100. Like the bottle of wine second from the bottom of a wine list, that $1,300 appears to hold a slightly larger profit margin than its more expensive ilk.

The MacBook Pro situation is worse, especially when you factor in the oh-so-viable option of a $1700 last-gen MBP delivering the same basic performance as the current $2500 model. But even when you consider the $2000 config against the $2500 one, the pricier one holds more value: Double the RAM, video memory, L2 cache and more storage/speed. It's almost dumb to get the $2000 one. Except for the fact you're now talking about a $2500 computer.

The real takeaway about the Apple Tax is that it's regressive—that is, lower-priced models get hit harder. It's like a tax break for the rich, cuz it almost always makes more sense to buy the higher-end product, especially given that build quality, customer support and warranties are all equal here. This is especially galling now, since being able to configure a cheaper model with what you really need—just the better graphics card, for instance—matters more than ever in this crappy ass economy.

Correction: The previous-gen MacBook on Amazon has a combo drive; the current-gen white MacBook on Apple's site has an 8x Super Drive.

Says one of their readers:

Apparently, Apple doesn't want anybody talking about the lack of FireWire ports on the new MacBooks, because they keep deleting every thread that people are posting about the lack of FireWire ports on the New MacBooks! I was participating in 3 different threads on the Apple Discussion Boards regarding the lack of FireWire from the new MacBooks, and Apple has removed every single thread regarding this topic. There are no threads left on the Apple Discussion Boards regarding this issue!"

Yes, it's possible that these threads were totally unproductive circle jerks, but there are legitimate technical issues to discuss here—workarounds for Target Disk Mode, what to do with FireWire cameras, etc., so if they're deleting every thread, it's definitely overboard. The official Apple word from an employee in at least one thread though, regarding how no FireWire gimps out some camcorders with iMovie '08, is that "USB is the preferred interface for iMovie '08." You know, even though a ton of cameras use FireWire.

Apple might not let users talk about the loss of FireWire, but their message seems to be loud and clear: Deal with it. [MacFixIt]

Before Tuesday, there was no way a MacBook and a MacBook Pro could appear in a single review. Too much separated the two systems, from outer appearance (build materials and backlit keyboard) to inner nitty gritty (graphics processors, etc.). To group the two classes together would have been like simultaneously reviewing a Ford Focus and a Ford Mustang. But the new MacBook and MacBook Pro are far more similar than they are different. From the glass-bezel screen to the front side bus, these computers finally deserve to share the name MacBook. They're brothers, one a pro, the other a vastly accomplished amateur. Here's our verdict, after two days of thorough nonstop testing.

Build

Stylistically, distinguishing the new MacBook from the MacBook Pro is nearly impossible. They are both cut from a single piece of aluminum in what looks to be an identical manner, save for the MB obviously being smaller.

This new "unibody construction" process does make for a more solid laptop, too. The chassis is one piece, made stronger by its lack of connecting corners—and less prone to manufacturing flaws, according to Apple.

The case is indeed more rigid, flexing less while carrying the notebook one-handed and supporting our wrists better during typing. (The old MBP supported wrists just fine as well, but only because the weight was distributed from the case to the hard drive and optical drive. Carrying it would cause it to give a bit.)

Side beveling distinguishes the laptops as part of the MacBook Air generation, ditching the clean box design of yesteryear. But unibody construction has updated the design in subtle ways, recessing the keyboard through a formerly impossible non-welded aluminum curve—and a similar rounded chunk has been cut from the front of the system to make for easy opening.

When you open the new MacBooks, be careful not to smudge your iSight lens. It's positioned right where your fingers go—and ours is now covered with grease. In fact, the entire black gloss surrounding the screen is in pretty poor shape. Closing the computers is vastly improved, however. Instead of the bang of plastic and click of the hook lock, it's a gentle impact, soft like felt, held closed by invisible magnets. Setting down the laptop is more pleasant as well, as both the MB and MBP feature the Air's larger rubber pads.

Unfortunately, the new aluminum build still interferes with Wi-Fi signals. Historically aluminum laptops have had shorter ranges than their plastic counterparts and the new MacBooks are no exception. Stretching the limits of the new MacBook, the old MacBook (above left) located hotspots where the new MacBook (above right) did not. That's not to say the metal laptops are particularly bad and there's no indication that they're worse than current MacBook Pros.

The MB is half a pound lighter than its predecessor, and that's a weight difference you'll notice. It's significantly thinner, too, shaving off 0.13 inches, while retaining the same footprint. The MBP, however, is 0.2 inches wider and longer than its predecessor, while only losing a minor 0.05 inches of thickness. It is also 0.1 pounds heavier. (You can read more about these differences in our Sizemodo.) These adjustments help unify the design: Both new MacBooks share a thickness of 0.95 inches, which appears all the thinner due to the design's narrowed edges.

To many MacBook users, the greatest change will be the updated, clickable Multi-Touch trackpad. It's said to be made of glass, but it doesn't look or feel like glass, so don't expect the iPhone's screen to be transplanted below the keyboard. It feels almost the same as the old MBP trackpad, and the finish offers a perfect level of resistance, allowing the finger to slide around easily but not in a skating-on-ice kind of way. As for the clicking, it's the source of mixed feelings for us.

The base of this controversy is that the entire pad doesn't click. Instead, the surface sort of pivots like a springboard from the top edge. In turn, users will find the bottom part of the pad to have the most give when clicking, so much so that it almost feels like the old trackpad button is still there. Unfortunately, the springboard design also causes a dead zone in the middle where clicking takes a good deal of effort.

From a design perspective, the clicking allows the trackpad to be sleeker. The joke is that Jobs, long a proponent of single-button mice when most people favor two, has finally gone to zero buttons. From a usage perspective, not much changes. You can drag and drop with one finger by firmly pressing as you move, but there's a better chance you'll still use two fingers like you did with the old trackpad.

The new four-finger gestures, like sliding down for Exposé or sliding right to swap programs, are a win, but it can be awkward to make that four-finger claw while typing. We'd argue that Exposé is such a useful function that we'd like to reassign it to a less awkward three-finger slide, perhaps. Unfortunately, remapping gestures is not an option—boy, would it make a great firmware update.



On the laptops' underside you'll notice a big difference. The removable battery has been tucked under a panel next to an easily removable hard drive. Apple is offering a lot of expensive drive upsells, including a 128GB SSD for the Pro, but who cares? Replacing a MacBook hard drive with your own Newegg purchase no longer requires the complicated dissection of one's laptop. Held in by just a few screws, it's easier to replace than some tower hard drives. Of course, this elegant solution is like a gateway drug. Why not have another hatch for replacing the memory?

To the chagrin of at least a few long-time MBP users, the keyboards of both the MB and MB Pro have also been influenced by the Air as they're black, separated and intensely backlit. There's a ton of side light spill, which looks neat until it gets distracting. (Note: the entry-level silver MB does not have a backlit keyboard.) The function keys have been rearranged a bit as well.

But while the keyboards look indistinguishable from one another, they feel different. The MacBook's is softer and similar to the former MacBook. The Pro's is clickier and similar to the former Pro's. See a pattern? Not visible with the naked eye, you can feel the lineage of these systems, evidence that Apple has not forgotten its history or the taste of its various demographics.

The screens, too, are deceptively different between the MB and MBP. Both share LED backlighting and the shiny screen coating that can be quite a distraction—a user will find himself staring at his reflection with any decent amount of ambient light. But it's important to note that, beyond the spec-sheet distinction of the 13-inch screen's 1280x800 pixels and the 15-incher's 1440x900, these are not identical LCD technologies in different sizes.

The difference is clear when demoing an MPEG4 of Batman Begins. The MBP screen is warmer than the MB's to the discerning eye, but any dunce will catch the massive differences in contrast and viewing angle. Our shots in the dark exacerbate the MB's less impressive black levels, but this photo really is close to what we saw. As for the unwatchable distortions in image quality when five feet out or standing at a not-so-unthinkable viewing angle, those are just as bad to the naked eye as they are to camera. Notice the MBP screen remains unblemished from any angle/distance.

One design element of note: Both screens now tilt back another 10 to 15 degrees over previous generations. If you've ever sat there watching a Windows person pushing your MacBook display past its rotation point, you'll recognize just how important this update will be.

Connecting to an old external screen, however, could be problematic. The DVI port has been replaced by a mini DisplayPort in both new laptops. As for your old monitor, no biggie, if it's 24-inches or smaller just use a mini-DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter ($30). But if you're driving a 30-inch monitor, you'll need a mini-DisplayPort-to-dual-DVI adapter, which isn't bundled with either laptop and runs $100 on its own. Ouch. We're hoping for an aftermarket solution.

In terms of other ports, the MB offers gigabit Ethernet, two USBs, mini DisplayPort, mic and headphone jack. Note the one major omission: FireWire. Even the $1000 plastic MacBook has FireWire, though in truth there isn't a lot of FW support these days beyond professional applications—even new iPhones and iPods have ditched it completely. Upgrading to the MBP gives you all the ports in the MB but adds FireWire 800 and an ExpressCard slot. (FW400 devices need to track down a FW400-to-FW800 cable.) Plus, both new MacBooks have the snazzy battery-life indicator on the side next to the ports.



Operation and Performance

Examine the MB and MBP under the hood, and it quickly becomes apparent that the similarities are more than skin deep. For instance, while the MB starts at 2.0GHz, its processor reaches 2.4GHz in the $1600 configuration. This processor is the exact same one that you'll find in the lower-tier $2000 MBP—including the same 3MB L2 cache and 1066MHz front side bus. In fact, the only MBP to reach a 6MB L2 cache starts at $2,500. In other words, there's not much CPU benefit in that $700 gap between the baseline aluminum MB and the entry-level MBP. Oh, and no matter what you're willing to spend, both the MB and MBP hold a maximum of 4GB of memory.

So where's the power difference? Aside from the optional 2.53 and 2.8GHz CPUs, it's mainly in the video processing. The MB features a GeForce 9400M integrated graphics card that promises to be 5X faster than similar offerings from Intel. The MBP features that same integrated graphics card, but then adds a 256MB or 512MB GeForce 9600M GT alongside of it. Just make sure to note that the MBP doesn't run its dual graphics cards simultaneously. Only one runs at a time—the low-power one when the MBP is in "Better Battery Life" mode, and the amped one when in "Better Performance" mode—and you need to log out of the system in order to switch from one card to the other. Some notebook makers such as Alienware allow a computer to do this on the fly, and even use both video cards at once for full-throttle performance. (For more on this, check out Giz Explains.)

Next-gen GPUs used to be of consequence for only gamers, but the next generation of OS X, Snow Leopard, promises to use the GPU for lots of subtasks, especially anything math intensive like encoding video. We're already seeing individual apps like those in Adobe's new CS4 making use of the GPU for non-gaming tasks. A faster GPU with the new OS just over the horizon won't just do 3D faster—it'll make your whole computer faster. (More here, here and here.)

To test out the CPU and GPUs, we put the new MacBook, last generation MacBook Pro, the new MacBook Pro with power savings and the new MacBook Pro running at full speed through XBench and Geekbench performance tests.

From a CPU standpoint, the metal MB really is just a tiny MBP (our tested processors have nearly identical clock speeds). So unsurprisingly, performance gains between our MB and MBP test systems were negligible. GeekBench confirmed that basic and floating point processing were pretty much the same across the board.
In XBench especially, you'll notice that the old MacBook Pro has an edge. Most of this performance gap can be explained by its slightly faster 2.6GHz processor. However, in real world application, when dealing with big chunks of data the newer MB's 1066 MHz front side bus will offer benefits not seen in this graph. Notice the small performance spike in the memory task in current gen laptops. That's because the new memory is clocked at a faster speed.

Still, benefits from the previous generation to this one, or from the MB to MBP are slim, often falling below 5 and 10% even in the limited GPU benchmark tests. The differences are there, sure, but the performance gains between the $1600 MacBook and $2400 MacBook Pro are not astounding.

But benchmark programs can be deceiving with simple tasks that don't take into account how the whole system fits together, especially when we're talking about graphics. So we tested the systems in a real world application that could most accurately judge its GPU power, 3D gaming. We loaded Spore.

Spore demoed on MacBook. 1280x600 resolution, all settings maxed.

Spore demoed on MacBook Pro. 1440x900 resolution, all settings maxed.

Admittedly, Spore may not be the best graphics benchmark as its animations are a bit rough to begin with. Still, the MB has noticeably more pop-ins and seems to be struggling loading complete textures. Then toward the end of the MacBook clip as the ship zooms back to land, the MacBook's integrated graphics, even while rendering the scene at a far lower resolution, can't compete with with the MacBook Pro and its discrete graphics. Unplayable choppiness ensues.
Just for kicks, we ran Spore with the MacBook Pro in "Better Battery Life" mode to see what it would look like on the integrated GPU. Draw your own conclusions, but we still consider the performance a half step above that of the new MacBook—especially as the MBP is running the game in 1440x900 resolution. We'd attribute the performance gains to the slightly faster processor and extra 2GB of RAM. (On a side note, does anyone else notice that despite us cranking all test settings to high detail, there's obviously a software automated detail curve? The MB has fewer objects and less intricate textures than the power friendly MBP. And there's a similar jump between the power friendly MBP and the normal mode MBP.)

We'll be testing the GPU more in the future, but where the benchmarks came up short our eyes cannot be fooled. That integrated graphics card just doesn't compete.

According to Nvidia, those using Boot Camp should note that whatever power/graphics setting was last used in OSX will be applied to Windows. UPDATE: According to Apple, Boot Camp can only utilize the more powerful discrete graphics on the MBP.

But no matter how quickly these laptops are crunching numbers, the great news is, they're doing it with less lap heat. Both the new MB and MBP operate with cooler bottoms than before. Heat seems less likely to pool in the rear of the system now, and that's probably because of the unibody construction: Without rivets, screws or seams, it makes a great half-pound heatsink. This thermal update is critical, since Apple recently recalled a great number of their last-gen notebooks for heat-related video-card failures.

As for battery life, we tested the laptops under identical operation settings playing back an H.264 movie and then a DVD movie. (Screens were set to medium brightness, Wi-Fi on and keyboard backlighting on low.)

As you see, be it a digital download or an optical disc, it's tough to make it through any movie on the MBP. The DVD playback was worse even than older versions of the MBP. However, disabling discrete graphics in Power Saver mode buys over 40 minutes of DVD playback. So the good news is you'll make it through a movie. The bad news is that you'll have to neuter your MBP to get there.

So Who Needs The MacBook Pro over the Macbook?

In one word, pros. (Suiting, we know.) Video professionals will need the MBP because the MB no longer has FireWire, still a big deal for video guys. USB is fast, but its speeds aren't sustained. Those who use FireWire require predictable transfer rates, a connection that won't drop during realtime video playback from an external hard drive or capture from a video deck.

Anyone who requires an ExpressCard, too, will need to spend the extra cash on a MBP. Many 3G peripherals use this slot—and some correct Apple's willful memory-card ignorance by filling it with an SD/MS reader—but there are just as many USB peripherals, so its omission in the MB probably isn't as damning as FireWire's.

And then, of course, there's the group that requires the MacBook Pro's discrete graphics card with a half-gig of dedicated RAM. Large textures and massive Photoshop files require a level of performance that the basic MacBook's integrated graphics, even Nvidia's most boastworthy—just can't replace.

In this regard, we see the line drawn in the sand between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. Similar processors, different graphics and FireWire and ExpressCard only if you pay up.

Through the course of this review, we've focused on what makes the new MacBook different from the new MacBook Pro. We've sifted every detail we could find in what we're sure looks like a lot of nitpicking. So let us make it clear: The new MacBook is our favorite MacBook to date, and the same can be said about the new MacBook Pro. If you respected Apple build quality before, know that the latest unibody construction takes that quality to the next level with systems that are both durable and extremely comfortable to use.

But better still, the people who in the past might have been suckered into paying extra for the MacBook Pro's superior design now have the chance to buy a standard-priced MacBook and still glow with pride. It's not the huge price drop some were hoping for, but it's certainly savings for some.

The class boundary remains, but it's blurrier than ever. [All the New MacBook Details]

Two graphics cards? It sounds crazy, preposterous, retardiculous. It's actually not. It's not unique to the MacBook Pro at all. PC users might be more familiar with Nvidia's Hybrid SLI, which pulls similar dual-card wizardry. In a nutshell, it lets you use the less power-hungry integrated graphics processor when you're doing lighter stuff to save battery, and then when you want a lot of video-crunching Mr. T powah, you can flip on the discrete graphics card. Of course, there's balls-to-the-wall full SLI too, which uses two entirely separate graphics cards in one notebook for Hulk power and about 45 seconds of battery life, like in one of Alienware's beasts.

Nvidia's standard hybrid SLI for PC actually uses both the integrated and discrete GPU at the same time when it goes into turbo mode, and it'll let you switch on the fly or have it automatically flip between the two depending on the power source. But the MacBook Pro uses Apple's spin on Nvidia's tech that simply lets you pick one or the other (not both, booooooo) and you have to manually flip the switch in system prefs, log out and back in, pretty annoying. Battery life is apparently an issue with the new MacBook Pro, considering that the integrated 9400M card now nets you five hours of go-time, the same as the separate, more power-hungry 8600M GT in the previous model, whereas the new discrete 9600M GT now gets you only four.

The other major reason for the huge upgrade to more proficient graphic cards in both the MacBook and Pro is Snow Leopard, which will be big on parallel processing and offloading work to the graphics card—graphics cards are particularly adept at parallel processing because of the way they're designed and the fact that they have a buttload of cores. (Here's a more in-depth explanation of that.) And if graphics cards are driving more and more of the general computing experience, the truly shitty ones in the last generation of MacBooks just won't cut it.

Nvidia's been heavily investing in "General-purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units" (GPGPU)—again, using the graphics card for more general applications—on its own for a while, actually. When they demoed their latest, most badass cards for me a few months ago, it was heavily tilted on those types of applications, including in-game physics and Folding@Home. They actually have their own development kit called CUDA that lets programmers leverage graphics cards using a standard programming language—PhysX, a physics gaming engine, is probably the most well-known application of it so far. (Nvidia isn't sure when PhysX come to Mac, but they're looking at it.) Not so coincidentally, CUDA for Mac came out in August. These cards also support Apple's own graphics programming language, called OpenCL.

So even if you're the type of person that browses the net, edits Office docs and fiddles around in Photoshop rather than the type that plays WoW: Wrath of the Lich King or cuts video, graphics cards will matter to you almost as much as it does to those people: They're going to be critical not just in a lot of the awesome stuff you'll see coming out in the next couple of years but increasingly so in the way operating systems run, whether it's from Apple or Microsoft or anyone else. So get ready to hear a lot more about them.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about games, snow kitties or pancakes to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Steve Jobs is leaving Apple. Not tomorrow, but probably very soon. That's why he started to say good bye today, doing something more important than just presenting new MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and an updated MacBook Air. Today's event was a play in which he clearly told everyone that the company is more than himself. Since the very first minute, when he immediately sat down to let Tim Cook talk, he was saying: "Hey, look, Apple is more than Steve. These are The Guys, the Goodfellas, the A-Team. They share the same vision I have. And they are going to push the company forward when I change my office chair for a hammock and caipirinhas on my private beach in Hawaii".

In the past, Steve Jobs was always the Star of the Show. Like his dear Johnny Cash, this man in black would come out on stage with an orchestra behind him, enthusing his audience with his voice and inflections, make his magic moves and leave everyone hypnotized until he left the building. He wasn't the best singer or the best guitar player, but he had it. Like Johnny, he also shared the limelight with others from time to time, but it was only for a song or two. The concerts were always "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash". The keynotes were always "Hello, I'm Steve Jobs."

It was Steve's Show from beginning to "one more thing," and there was no doubt about it.

Today it was the confirmation that those days may be over forever. It seems like Steve has decided it's time not to appear like Johnny Cash anymore, but time to become Mick Jagger. And with him, he brought Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood. Today Steve's band played all the tunes in harmony, showing to the world that there's more to Apple than just the frontman, even while his DNA is deep inside every single aspect of the company's culture.

Instead of kicking off with a market analysis to prepare the ground, this time it was Tim Cook who took the stage wearing Steve's color scheme: Blue jeans and black top. Psychologically, this puts them at the same level, easing the future potential power transition. Seems stupid, but you can bet it wasn't coincidental, even while Cook has zero appeal when compared to the rockstar CEO. Then came "Jony" Ive to talk about the design and aluminum laser making, and it wasn't until minute 18 that Steve took over to present the actual toys. 27 minutes later, for a man that has taken on two-hour presentations without even blinking, the MacBook 2008 video kicked off only to be followed by a short Q&A—with Cook and Phil Schiller as wingmen—after which he had time to crack a quick joke about his own health.

Obviously, that's what lies at the heart of this transition. He joked about his blood pressure, taking a dig at this obsession with watching him decline, with the World's Press looking for the Biggest News Ever in Tech History this side of Steve Ballmer announcing his sex change and a new name (probably Dorita Estevez). But while, like I said before, it's not your business or mine to get into his private life, the man clearly understands that his baby, the company he created with the Woz from scratch, deserves a plan and a bright future.

It's part of him. He created it, he was pushed off it, and then he rescued it back from the pits of hell to the top of the world. Along that path he made plenty of mistakes, but getting together the team that have been directing the company with him during the last few years is not one of those mistakes. It may prove to be his biggest lasting achievement.

I'm sure we still have a lot more shows like this, and that Steve Jobs will always stay at Apple like Bill Gates will always stay at Microsoft, even after his retirement. But the play we saw today was the prologue of the new Apple Without Steve but With Steve Era, Jobs signaling that he's not alone at the helm, and that if he moves on, nobody should panic. Not explicitly, but the message was there in big neon letters for everyone to see.

Or maybe he just had diarrhea, like Jason.

In his thorough analysis of a leaked manufacturing pic a few weeks back (that turned out to be legit), Jesús spelled out our hard and fast policy for dealing with Apple rumoring: "Whatever the case is, always remember our first rule of rumors: Never believe them. Especially the ones about Apple." In that sense it is a credit to the good work being done here and elsewhere that most of this list of rumors and leaks did in fact turn out to be true.

Last Minute Photos Show MacBook Pro 2008 Curviness (Machome-China Forums): TRUE.
Yep, that's the MacBook Pro. Information about the hard drive being accessible behind the rear panel was also confirmed to be true.

Last Minute MacBook Rumors: Entire Glass Trackpad Is a Button, Pro Has TWO Graphics Cards, and More (Daring Fireball): TRUE.
Jon Gruber took last night's leaked (and real) pic as an opportunity to spill the beans entirely, and he nailed just about everything—dual GPUs on the MacBook Pro, MacBook as a MacBook Pro Mini, and on down the line.

Spyshot Shows What Looks to Be The New MacBook Pro (Tipster JR): TRUE
The aforementioned pic that hit Monday night—this most certainly is a legit shot of the new MBP...

New MacBook Pro 2008 Mock-Up Lights My Credit Card On Fire (Jesús): TRUE
...which then led Jesús to create this note-perfect mockup that may as well have come directly from Apple.

Apple's $899 Product Might Be LED Display Rather Than Ultra-Cheap MacBook (Macrumors): TRUE.
Hopes of a brand-new low-cost notebook looked grim after this one hit and was verified today, but the 24" LED Cinema Display dashed 'em right quick.

Supposed Best Buy Listings for New MacBooks Show No Price Drop (Tipsters): FALSE
This looked like the current Apple notebook pricing lineup for a reason—it was. Missing is the $1599 top-end MacBook and the $999 reduced original MacBook—and the original $1099 low-end MacBook price point is still there. False false false.

New MacBook 2008 Alleged Aluminum Case Photos Hit the Web (MacX): TRUE
Another Chinese site produced photos of the top portion of the aluminum MacBook's case on Monday, which are now confirmed to be real.

Mysterious MacBook Event Teaser Image is 13.3-inch Model, Says Deduction (Apple): TRUE
Look at this—Apple's brazen enough to picture an actual new product—here the new aluminum 13" MacBooks—in the event announcement itself. Times surely have changed.

New Pics Surface of Anonymous Apple Laptop (Apple Pro - Taiwan): TRUE
More legit manufacturing-stage pics of the MacBook's case, with the correct port configuration, keyboard layout and side-loading optical drive.

New MacBook Pro Rumor Control (Chinese Manufacturing Sites/Engadget): TRUE
Jesús put this shot through the Photoshop ringer and found a few suspect details, which in the end were not enough to debunk this thing completely. Turns out his instincts were correct—it's an actual shot of the new MacBook Pro's port panel.

Apple's 'Brick' is a Revolutionary Aluminum Manufacturing Process? (9to5Mac): TRUE
As we pointed out, this one was not a huge stretch, considering the MacBook Air and iMac have used aspects of this manufacturing process already.

Rumored MacBook Pro Spy Shot Has Touchpad Display, Yet Terrible Photochop Flaws (Nowhereelse/Engadget): FALSE
Another one put through the wily Photoshop ringer, this 'chop had the basic idea of the design down, but turned out to be a fake—note the front-loading optical drive, the resemblance to the MacBook Air in the edges and the keyboard, and the numerous horrific perspective botches. Skepticism does pay.

Nvidia Launch Points to Possible October 14 MacBook Intro (Homemedia): TRUE
Got the date nailed, as well as the full transition to Nvidia chips for the whole line.

Rumor: New MacBook and MacBook Pro Will Look Like Air + iMac (Appleinsider): TRUE.
With a little bit of iPhone thrown in for good measure, we would add, but that's definitely the gist.

New MacBook Pro Revealed? (T-Systems): FALSE.
General design scheme is right on, but the front optical drive again reveals this early rendering to be false false false.

Glass Multi-touch Trackpads Only Make Sense With Displays Under 'Em (Computerworld): TRUE/KINDOF
The glass multi-touch trackpad was nailed 100% here, but our wish for a touchscreen instead of a touchpad went sadly unrequited.

Could This Be a New MacBook Pro? (Apple Pro): TRUE
The oldest of the bunch from July 7—this is definitely the new form factor's top clamshell lid, along with the main portion of the bottom. As you can see, the latch hole to release the not-pictured battery and HDD panel is the same as the real thing, as is the roundness of the edges of the case.

Phew. So yes, this has been the story with Apple events for a while—back in September of last year when the last batch of iPods came around, Brian pined for the days when we didn't get shoved so forcefully into the Xmas present hiding place with our eyes wide open. But the sheer volume of information and photos out there this time is almost enough to make us think twice about or Apple rumor policy. Abandoning prevalent skepticism and rigorous analysis is the last thing we would ever do when it comes to Apple rumoring, but at this point, the volume of good leaks seems close to overtaking (if it hasn't already) the volume of good fakes.

I guess we can't believe in Santa Clause our whole lives though, right?

See all of our MacBook Event 2008 coverage right here.

It defies Apple convention. MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs and PowerBooks—those systems don the silver finish of aircraft-grade aluminum. iBooks and MacBooks? They can settle for plain old white.

That was, until today when Apple presented their redesigned MacBooks featuring the new "unibody enclosure" manufacturing process. So is a new finish and more rugged build enough to make the budget laptop feel like its premium counterparts? In one word, yes.

The new MacBook feels exactly like the new MacBook Pro, just smaller. Literally, if there was not a "MacBook" label on the front, you could not tell the difference without closely examining the ports. The same buttonless trackpad, the same glossy black frame, the same beveled edges, the same keyboard with back-lit keys, the same conveniently side-mounted battery display and the same optical-drive placement make this look a lot like the fabled 12-inch MacBook Pro we've been waiting for...even though it technically isn't—especially since the firewire port is gone. (The ports left include two USB, mini Display Port, ethernet, mic and headphone jack).

Let's talk about that buttonless glass trackpad for a moment. It's really fantastic. The finish is just right, providing that perfect balance of tactile resistance generally reserved for the MacBook Pro trackpad.

The feeling of physically clicking the trackpad (like a mouse button), while it sounds awkward for sure, is something I unconsciously adjusted to in seconds. The only oddity was when I used a two finger press for right clicking. On my current MacBook Pro, right clicking is a simple two finger tap and I caught myself tapping as opposed to pressing frequently when I right clicked. (If you can't adjust to the clicking pad, you can simply turn the click feature off and default to touch settings alone).

The 4-finger awareness is better than I thought. A simple swipe of four fingers pops up Expose. So could I fool it? Maybe if I only used 3 fingers. Maybe if I slipped in a thumb. Nope. It was too smart for me.

A quick tour of Spore outputted on the new 30-inch Cinema Display showed that while the MacBook's new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M is decent, it doesn't make for a flawless, unbelievable gaming machine. The system achieved passable framerates while running at 1280x800 resolution at mostly medium settings (like shadows and textures). Not horrible, but not great either.

It'll be interesting to hear the final verdict on the new metal MacBook when we have time to sit down and test it fully. But for now, as a premium computer for the average Apple user, I'm digging it.

The MacBook Pro refresh feels exactly what you'd imagine it to feel like from the images in our liveblog. The screen is bright and goes almost right up against the edge of the display portion of the top. The keyboard is similar to the MacBook Air and has the now-standard Apple separation between keys. Trackpad action is super smooth (the friction coefficient is lower than the trackpads that came before), which gives you much slicker feel when gesturing. For those of you that are afraid that your mouse button has been killed in favor of just a "touch" click, don't worry—the entire trackpad is a clicker. You can even assign part of the pad to right click. The whole thing works just about as well as the old button.

Also improved are the pads on the bottom of the body, which are now more like raised mounds than nubs. The hard drive/battery case comes off easily and you can actually get to both these things easily for hard drive replacement. The power button is smaller (nice), the hinge is strong enough to hold up the laptop backwards (also nice), and the vents in the back seem to be slightly smaller and more "blended" into the body. The body is thinner than it was, but it's nothing super dramatic.

Everything about the Pro is solid, and although we didn't forcefully try to bend it in half (too many witnesses), we gently felt how much more solid it is than current models, and it felt good. The rounded cover and edges add a more MacBook Air feel to the line, which is a welcome change to the more razor-sharp edges of previous models.

The glossy screen is what it is, and is bright, fast to light up and a bit too reflective if you position it with the sun behind you (no matte option anymore). Quick verdict is that it's definitely a step up in most ways over your current MacBook Pro.

Update: We have edited this post to reflect the real hardware/price comparison between the Dell and the Apple laptops. The bottom line: They are not comparable. Our apologies for the mistakes in the original article. —J.D.

Let's just look at the 13-inch MacBook that was just announced, for example. For $1,300, it comes with a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. Over at Dell, I can grab an Inspiron 13 laptop with a 13.3-inch screen, a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo, 3GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. For $750. For those of you keeping score at home, that's a $550 difference, and the specs are better on the cheaper Dell.

Update:

Actually, the specs on the Dell are not better, as reader Giz James Topoleski pointed out. In fact, the MacBook seems like a much better machine than the Dell except for the 1GB of extra RAM and larger hard drive.

• The Dell uses Intel graphics instead of the much better NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, which is currently unavailable in any other computer.
• The Dell uses a 802.11g Mini-Card as oposed to the MacBook's Wireless N card.
• While it has 3GB of Shared Dual Channel DDR2 RAM at 667MHz, the 2GB of RAM in the MacBook is 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM.
• The Dell has an Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 with 667MHz bus and 2MB cache as opposed to the Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB on chip and 1066 MHz bus on the MacBook.
• The Dell has no Bluetooth by default.
• There's no HD video output on the Dell and no option for one.
• There's no gigabit Eithernet.

So as you can see, the price difference is quite reasonable, and that's without counting on things like the multi-touch no-button glass trackpad or the iLife multimedia suite, both things not included in the Dell. It's like comparing last year's car model with this year's.

-

And it's not like Apple is offering anything great for my $550. You have a fancy new manufacturing process, awesome. Your trackpads are glass. OK. I'd rather have $550 and a plastic trackpad, thanks. I'm not sold on no physical buttons anyways. (Update: The whole trackpad is a physical button. —J.D.)

Apple has always put a price premium on its products, and people pay it, which is great for them. But for people who aren't already on the Apple bandwagon and for people who aren't having their computers bought for them by rich parents, like the college kids who snap up these laptops every August, there's no incentive to switch.

Maybe Leopard is way better than Vista. I don't know, I haven't extensively used either. But when the time comes to buy a new computer that comes loaded with one or the other, one thing is going to make my decision for me, and it isn't shiny glass things or funny commercials. It's the price. And I don't think I'm alone on that one.

Note: While this last point may be arguable, it's certainly not the case of the MacBook. Even while the MacBook has less storage space and memory than the Dell, it seems competitively priced looking at the technologies including in the package. —J.D.

Blu-ray is a bag of hurt. I don’t mean from the consumer point of view. It’s great to watch movies, but the licensing is so complex. We’re waiting until things settle down, and waiting until Blu-ray takes off before we burden our customers with the cost of licensing.

Takeaway? Huge battery drain, likely replaced by digital downloads in the not-too-distant future, so we'll hold off on the big price jump, thanks. Me? I still love 'em on my PS3, but I'm going to have to start using "bag of hurt" way more often.

Joining the MacBook Pro, Apple's MacBooks, their best-selling mac ever, also received a complete hardware re-tooling today, with rejuvenated hardware packed inside a brand-new aluminum case, thus putting one of the final stakes in the heart of white and black plastic in the computer line (the original plastic MacBook is still available, at a reduced $999 price) and linking the consumer and pro notebooks under the same design vocabulary for the first time.

(More pics by Mark Wilson from our liveblog are here.)

•Built with the "Brick" manufacturing process that casts the entire notebook's frame from a single piece of aluminum (removing cut-out pieces, rather than bolting on additions), the Air-inspired chassis takes the formerly dorm-roomy vibe of the previous iteration and fully wraps it into Apple's more grown-up polished-aluminum-and-black-glass design philosophy that Mr. Ive has been cranking on of late.

•The rumored Nvidia chipset is now in, with a brand new Nvidia 9400M integrated GPU replacing the previous Macbook's Intel integrated graphics. It has 16 parallel graphics cores, pushes 54 Gigaflops and runs up to 5 times faster than Intel Integrated graphics (huge). It's the same card found in the MacBook Pros, but without the secondary Nvidia unit.

•The 13.3" LED-backlit screen features the same corner-to-corner glass cover as the MBP. The LED 30% more power efficient.

•Like the MBP, the MacBook also meets EPEAT Gold certification for energy and manufacturing green-ness, and has 42% smaller packaging size.

•5 hours of stated battery life.

•It's a "half-pound lighter" than the previous MacBooks and 0.95 inches thick, and weight is 4.5 lbs.

•Also brand new is Apple's next generation glass multitouch trackpad, which eschews a traditional button in favor of making the pad itself the only button. New four-finger multitouch gestures (four!) for exposé and app switching, and multi-button clicks are done via software.

•The low-end $1099 model has been dropped (old MBs available now for $999), leaving only the 2.0GHz/160GB/2MB RAM/Superdrive for $1299 and the 2.4 GHz/250GB for $1599—much to the chagrin of those looking for the rumored sub-$1000 NEW notebook. A 128GB SSD is available on the top end, with no price mentioned.

•Shipping TODAY, and available in-store tomorrow. It seems like they're hyping the MacBook hard, with a new commercial showing the fabrication process and the powerful new Nvidia graphics.

•“In many ways I think it’s more beautiful internally than it is externally” - Ive.

Full, incredibly long press release covering both the MacBooks and MacBook Pros:

New MacBook Family Redefines Notebook Design

Industry’s Greenest Notebooks

CUPERTINO, California—October 14, 2008—Apple® today unveiled an all new MacBook® family that redefines notebook design, and at the same time dramatically lowers the entry price for advanced notebook features including all-metal enclosures and pro-performance notebook graphics by $700 to make them far more affordable. The new MacBook and 15-inch MacBook Pro both have a precision unibody enclosure crafted from a single block of aluminum, resulting in thinner, more durable and incredibly beautiful designs. In addition, every member of the new MacBook family includes state of the art NVIDIA graphics, brilliant instant-on LED-backlit displays and new large glass Multi-Touch™ trackpads that offer almost 40 percent more tracking area and support more Multi-Touch gestures. The entire new MacBook family meets stringent Energy Star 4.0, EPEAT Gold and RoHS environmental standards, and leads the industry in the elimination of toxic chemicals by containing no brominated flame retardants, using only PVC-free internal cables and components, and using energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass.

“Apple has invented a whole new way of building notebooks from a single block of aluminum. And, just as important, they are the industry’s greenest notebooks,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The new MacBooks offer incredible features our users will love —like their stunning all-metal design, great 3D graphics and LED backlit displays—at prices up to $700 less than before.”

“Traditionally notebooks are made from multiple parts. With the new MacBook, we’ve replaced all of those parts with just one part—the unibody,” said Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of Industrial Design. “The MacBook’s unibody enclosure is made from a single block of aluminum, making the new MacBook fundamentally thinner, stronger and more robust with a fit and finish that we’ve never even dreamed of before.”

The new MacBook line features the powerful new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, a revolutionary new 3D integrated graphics processor that features 16 parallel processing cores and delivers up to five times the 3D graphics performance as previous MacBook and MacBook Air™ designs. Apple has worked together with NVIDIA on this groundbreaking graphics processor and is the first to bring it to market in the new MacBook family.

The new smooth glass Multi-Touch trackpad on the MacBook and 15-inch MacBook Pro gives users almost 40 percent more tracking area than before, making it even easier to use Multi-Touch gestures like pinch, rotate and swipe. New gestures allow users to activate Exposé® or switch between applications at the touch of a fingertip. The entire trackpad surface is also a button, allowing users to both track and click virtually anywhere on the trackpad. Users can easily enable multiple virtual buttons in software, such as right-clicking.

Every member of the new MacBook family features an LED-backlit display for brilliant instant-on performance that uses up to 30 percent less energy than its predecessor and eliminates the mercury found in industry standard fluorescent tube backlights. The ultra-thin displays provide crisp images and vivid colors which are ideal for viewing photos and movies, and the edge-to-edge cover glass creates a smooth, seamless surface. Every display in the new MacBook line uses completely arsenic-free glass.

The new MacBook delivers the top three features that MacBook customers have told us they want in a new MacBook—an all metal enclosure, high performance 3D graphics and LED-backlit displays—at an entry price that is $700 less than the $1,999 price of the MacBook Pro. At only 0.95-inches thin and weighing just 4.5 pounds, the new 13-inch full featured aluminum MacBook is an incredibly compact and durable notebook starting at just $1,299. Featuring the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor, MacBook delivers outstanding 3D game play on a consumer notebook, with up to five times faster graphics performance than the previous generation. The new MacBook is available in two models: the 2.0 GHz MacBook with a 160GB 5400 rpm hard drive, and the 2.4 GHz MacBook with a 250GB 5400 rpm hard drive and a backlit keyboard.

The powerful new 15-inch MacBook Pro at only 0.95-inches thin and weighing just 5.5 pounds offers ultimate performance and extensive expansion features in a remarkably portable design. Starting at $1,999, the MacBook Pro uses the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors available, running up to 2.8 GHz, and a new graphics architecture that allows users to switch between the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor for better battery life and the powerful NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics processor for higher performance. The new MacBook Pro is available in two models: a 2.4 GHz model with a 250GB 5400 rpm hard drive and a 2.53 GHz model with a 320GB 5400 rpm hard drive.

Today Apple also updated MacBook Air and the 17-inch MacBook Pro. MacBook Air, measuring only 0.16-inches at its thinnest point, 0.76-inches at its maximum height and weighing just three pounds, now includes new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics and a faster architecture to provide robust support for 3D games and enhanced performance. Starting at $1,799, MacBook Air is available with a 120GB 4200 rpm hard drive, a 50 percent increase from the previous generation, or a new 128GB solid state drive. The updated 17-inch MacBook Pro keeps its original aluminum design, and now comes standard with a high resolution 1920 x 1200 LED-backlit display and a larger 320GB hard drive or an optional 128GB solid state drive.

Setting a new standard for environmentally friendly notebooks, every model of the new MacBook family achieves EPEAT Gold status.* Each MacBook unibody enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. The new MacBook family meets stringent Energy Star 4.0 requirements, contains no brominated flame retardants and uses internal cables and components that are PVC-free.

The new MacBook, 15-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air include a next generation, industry-standard Mini DisplayPort to connect with the new Apple LED Cinema Display featuring a 24-inch LED-backlit widescreen display with a built-in iSight® video camera, mic and speakers in an elegant, thin aluminum and glass enclosure. Part of the next-generation DisplayPort industry standard, the new Mini DisplayPort delivers a pure digital signal that can drive up to a 30-inch widescreen display. The Mini DisplayPort is ultra-compact at just 10 percent the size of a full DVI connector, perfect for the sleek design of the new MacBook family. Adapters are available for using the MacBook’s Mini DisplayPort with older generation VGA, DVI/HDMI and Dual-Link DVI displays.

Every Mac® in the Apple lineup comes with iLife® ‘08, Apple’s award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications, featuring iPhoto®, the easiest, fastest way to organize and share digital photos, and a completely reinvented iMovie®, both seamlessly integrated with the MobileMe™ Gallery for online photo and video sharing.** Every Mac also includes Leopard®, the world’s most advanced operating system which features Time Machine™,*** an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac; a redesigned Finder™ that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs; Quick Look, the best way to instantly see files without opening an application; Spaces®, an intuitive feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; and major enhancements to Mail and iChat®.****

Pricing & Availability

The new MacBook, 15-inch MacBook Pro and 17-inch MacBook Pro are now shipping and the new MacBook Air will be available in early November through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. An updated 13-inch white MacBook featuring 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors, a 120GB 5400 rpm hard drive and a slot-load 8X SuperDrive® is now available for $999 (US).

The 2.0 GHz, 13-inch aluminum MacBook, for a suggested retail price of $1,299 (US), includes:

* 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;

* 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;

* 1066 MHz front-side bus;

* 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;

* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;

* 160GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;

* a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;

* Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);

* built-in AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;

* Gigabit Ethernet port;

* built-in iSight video camera;

* two USB 2.0 ports;

* one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;

* glass Multi-Touch trackpad; and

* 60 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

The 2.4 GHz aluminum MacBook, for a suggested retail price of $1,599 (US), includes:

* 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;

* 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;

* 1066 MHz front-side bus;

* 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;

* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;

* 250GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;

* a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;

* Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);

* built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;

* Gigabit Ethernet port;

* built-in iSight video camera;

* two USB 2.0 ports;

* one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;

* glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard; and

* 60 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the MacBook include the ability to upgrade to 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 250GB 5400 rpm, 320GB 5400 rpm hard drive, a 128GB solid state drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple USB Modem, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare® Protection Plan.

The 2.4 GHz, 15-inch aluminum MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:

* 15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;

* 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;

* 1066 MHz front-side bus;

* 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;

* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;

* NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 256MB GDDR3 video memory;

* 250GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;

* a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;

* Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);

* built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;

* Gigabit Ethernet port;

* built-in iSight video camera;

* two USB 2.0 ports;

* one FireWire® 800 port;

* ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;

* one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;

* glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard; and

* 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

The 2.53 GHz aluminum MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

* 15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;

* 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;

* 1066 MHz front-side bus;

* 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM;

* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;

* NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3 video memory;

* 320GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;

* a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;

* Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);

* built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;

* Gigabit Ethernet port;

* built-in iSight video camera;

* two USB 2.0 ports;

* one FireWire 800 port;

* ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;

* one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;

* glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard; and

* 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the MacBook Pro include a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, the ability to upgrade to 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, 250GB 7200 rpm, 320GB 5400 rpm or a 320GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB solid state drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple USB Modem, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

The 1.6 GHz MacBook Air, for a suggested retail price of $1,799 (US), includes:

* 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit high resolution 1280 x 800 glossy display;

* 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;

* 1066 MHz front-side bus;

* 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM;

* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;

* 120GB serial ATA hard drive running at 4200 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;

* Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);

* built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;

* built-in iSight video camera;

* one USB 2.0 port;

* one headphone port;

* Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard; and

* 45 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

The 1.86 GHz MacBook Air, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

* 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;

* 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;

* 1066 MHz front-side bus;

* 2GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM;

* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;

* 128GB solid state drive;

* Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);

* built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;

* built-in iSight video camera;

* one USB 2.0 port;

* one headphone port;

* Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard; and

* 45 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options and accessories for the MacBook Air include the MacBook Air SuperDrive, Apple USB Ethernet Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple USB Modem, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter, Apple Remote and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

The 2.5GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), includes:

* 17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1920 x 1200 glossy display;

* 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;

* 800 MHz front-side bus;

* 4GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM;

* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 512MB with GDDR3 video memory;

* 320GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;

* a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;

* DVI output port for video output (VGA adapter included);

* built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;

* Gigabit Ethernet port;

* built-in iSight video camera;

* three USB 2.0 ports;

* one FireWire 800 port and one FireWire 400 port;

* ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;

* one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;

* Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard; and

* 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the 17-inch MacBook Pro include a 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a 320GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB solid state drive, anti-glare display, Apple USB Modem, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

*EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit www.epeat.net.

**The MobileMe service is available to persons aged 13 or older. Annual membership fee and internet access required. Terms and conditions apply.

***Time Machine requires an additional hard drive (sold separately).

****Video chatting requires a broadband Internet connection; fees may apply.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

One of the biggest new features in the new MacBooks that Apple just unveiled is the glass trackpad, one that ditches the button in favor of turning the entire trackpad into a button. It also works with a bunch of new gestures, using up to four fingers to make doing things like switching between applications and flipping through a photo slideshow easier. It's pretty cool, but definitely not as cool as the concepts we've seen with a screen underneath, making the whole trackpad-is-the-buttons much more logical. Where's the screen, Apple?

Anyhow, this new trackpad has 39% more of a surface area than the old ones. As for the new gestures, some of them will include things like a two finger gesture to pinch and rotate for zooming and panning, a three finger gesture for swiping between photos or a four finger gesture for expose and app switching. Of course, all of this could have been done with the old plastic trackpads, making me wonder what, exactly, is the benefit of a glass trackpad with no screen underneath. I personally prefer the feel of my plastic trackpad to the screen of my iPhone for dragging my finger around on, as there's less resistance and fingerprint-gunkery on plastic.

From the press release:

The new smooth glass Multi-Touch trackpad on the MacBook and 15-inch MacBook Pro gives users almost 40 percent more tracking area than before, making it even easier to use Multi-Touch gestures like pinch, rotate and swipe. New gestures allow users to activate Exposé® or switch between applications at the touch of a fingertip. The entire trackpad surface is also a button, allowing users to both track and click virtually anywhere on the trackpad. Users can easily enable multiple virtual buttons in software, such as right-clicking.

[Live.Gizmodo.com]

The MacBook Pro 2008 comes with

• The latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors running at 2.4GHz and 2.53GHz.
• Nvidia GeForce 9400m, a chipset that includes a graphics processors. 70 percent of it is the processor, with 16 parallel chips in one and 54 gigaflops.
• Nvidia GeForce 9600m GT graphics:
- 32 parallel graphics cores
- 120 gigaflops
- 512 MBytes.
• New multi-touch glass trackpad that acts as single button, providing a click feedback when you push it.
• The trackpad is 39% larger than previous models.
• It admits four-finger gestures, so you can call exposé now by using the four fingers, as well as to activate app switching.
• LED displays, which makes the screen a lot thinner.
• All connections are one side.
• Black MacBook Air style keyboard.
• Mini DisplayPort connector.

The specs and prices

• Standard Model: $1999
- 15.4-inch screen
- 2.4GHz processor
- 2GB DDR3-RAM
- Geforce 9400M and 9600M GT
- 250 Gig HDD
- Super-Drive

• Better Model: $2499
- 15.4-inch screen
- 2.53GHz
- 4 GB RAM
- 512 MB on 9600GT
- 320 GIG HDD

Like with the MacBook Air, you can get a 128GB solid state drive as an option. Both are shipping today and you can get a Best Model with a 2.8 GHz processor.

Jobs also had a laundry list for the hippies and the treehuggers at Greenpeace. The new MacBook Pro is:

• Arsenic free
• BFR free
• Mecurry free
• PVC free
• Recyclable
• Ships in a a 37% smaller packaging.

Apple official press release on the MacBook Pro

The 2.4 GHz, 15-inch aluminum MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:

15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 256MB GDDR3 video memory;
250GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire® 800 port;
ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard; and
85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
The 2.53 GHz aluminum MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;
1066 MHz front-side bus;
4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM;
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3 video memory;
320GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
Gigabit Ethernet port;
built-in iSight video camera;
two USB 2.0 ports;
one FireWire 800 port;
ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard; and
85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.
Build-to-order options for the MacBook Pro include a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, the ability to upgrade to 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, 250GB 7200 rpm, 320GB 5400 rpm or a 320GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB solid state drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple USB Modem, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

[Apple event liveblog]

Apple has confirmed their new way to make laptops in the new MacBook 2008 line-up. Previously, manufacturers—including Apple—would add layers to form a body, welding each of them to give the laptop rigidity. Now, they have changed the whole game: instead of adding pieces, they will eliminate matter from solid pieces of aluminum using lasers and other machinery to create the new MacBook bodies.

The whole thing starts with a solid block of aluminum. This goes through an extrusion machine, in which the block is flattened on a thick, continuous metal sheet, like giant aluminum tagliatelle, which then get cut into the blocks that make the base of the MacBooks.

These blocks go through 13 different milling operations, using all kinds of machinery including lasers, until the part is completely finished and ready to be sent to the assembly line.

Jason Chen:
Apple's MacBook event starts Tuesday Oct. 14 at 10:00 AM Pacific. Check back early Tuesday for coverage!
10:03 pm ON Oct 10 2008

Jason Chen:
Don’t forget to check out our MacBook Event Bingo, where you can have fun AND win a free pizza.
1:10 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
Everyone print out their bingo cards?
7:15 am ON Oct 14 2008

Mark Wilson:
Remember everyone, printing that bingo card in full color is free on your office printer. We checked with your boss and it’s cool. Promise.
8:19 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
It’s chilly, yet sunny at the same time.
8:35 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
Bingo players ready? First bingo square: Jason in the W.C. with diarrhea.
Mark Wilson:


8:42 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
Everyone got their predictions? Comments go here. We need your top 3. We're thinking MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Super Pro, a 27-inch laptop that weighs in at a svelte 51 pounds.
8:51 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
My only wish for this event is for my car to not get stolen. Times are tough, and Apple employees are desperate. I may have seen two fighting over a dumpster on the way in.

Mark Wilson:

Three dudes, yes. But all have hair. No bingo!!
8:54 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
Spotted: first bald guy of the morning. Surprisingly enough, this is the ONLY bald guy we’ve seen all day. What the F Steve? Did you mandate hair plugs for everyone to reduce the light reflection off the audience?
8:59 am ON Oct 14 2008

Mark Wilson:

Official weaponry of Apple SWAT. You feeling lucky, punk?
9:01 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
The feeling in the crowd here is between muted excitement and pumped apathy. It’s a much smaller crowd.
9:04 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
We’ve just been upgraded from lining up outside in the sun to lining up inside in the lobby. Also, bathrooms are now open.

Jason Chen:
I wonder how Phil Schiller prepares for these things. My thinking is he drives over to Jobs’ house, honks his the crap out of his horn, pees on Jobs’ Mercedes, punches the dog in the face, steals the PennySaver, throws a (real) brick through the window and takes off his shirt, setting fire to it as he peels off into the distance.
9:10 am ON Oct 14 2008

Mark Wilson:
Note: Apple keeps the food outside while we wait inside. Jobs despises pastry crumbs.

Jason Chen:
44 minutes left.
9:18 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
The employees are running around, super excited and somewhat nervous. They have the home court advantage–wonder what they’re worried about.

Mark Wilson:
Headcount: about 65 people. Most have hair.

Jason Chen:
30 minutes left. Anyone check Apple stock lately?
9:26 am ON Oct 14 2008

Mark Wilson:
For a moment I thought a guy was holding a can of Bud Light. Ends up it was just a Diet Pepsi. Kind of a letdown.

Jason Chen:
The wardrobe for these events range from black polos to business casual to porn star dbag to hipster to I’m-about-to-retire wrinkled jacket.

Jason Chen:
Spotted: Phil Schiller. Surprisingly enough, he’s NOT punching a dog in the face here. He may be punching ME in the face if he ever reads these updates.
9:31 am ON Oct 14 2008

Mark Wilson:
Apparently MacBooks have a lot in common with my freshman year of college. Ok, senior.

Jason Chen:
You guys probably don’t know this, but Wilson Rothman of Gizmodo fame was once the nation’s number one consumer of Coors Light. Next time you have one, dedicate it to him with a “this Coors is for you”.

Jason Chen:
Why isn’t he the number one Coors fan anymore, you ask? His esophagus exploded.
9:36 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
Excitement level seems to be rising. People are getting antsy. Tech writers, on the whole, aren’t used to standing for more than six minutes at a time. On the scale of strength, we’re somewhere inbetween arthritic grandma, coma victim and dying jellyfish.

Jason Chen:
Everyone’s getting seated, we’re inside.
9:55 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
They’re playing classical music, NOT Coldplay. Unless this is a track off their new album I haven’t heard. “Lute and Plunder,” perhaps.
Mark Wilson:

9:57 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
It’s starting! Steve Jobs is coming out on stage, and says they’ve got some exciting stories about notebooks and how they were made.

Jason Chen:
Tim Cook, Chief Operating Officer, is coming on stage to talk to us about the “stage of the Mac.” Steve Jobs is sitting down.

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Cook: Apple has “better computers” and “better software”, saying “Leopard is far ahead of Vista.” The general gist of this part is telling everyone about the entire package of the “Mac”.
10:02 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
Cook says they fixed the fact that people thought Macs wouldn’t fit into a Windows environment by shipping Boot Camp, as well as working with Parallels and VMWare for third-party virtualization.

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
“Another thing we didn’t do, Vista”. “Vista hasn’t lived up to everything Microsoft has hoped it would. It’s also opened doors for a lot of people to switch to the Mac. It’s given us an opportunity, and Apple has been the beneficiary of those.”

Jason Chen:
“The Mac vs. PC ads have struck a chord with many PC users.”

Jason Chen:
They’re showing a Mac vs. PC ad, the one with Hodgman playing a king. Cook: “Isn’t it great?”

Jason Chen:
Cook is showing two international Apple stores, Sydney and China.

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
The Mac has outgrown the market for the last 14 of 15 quarters. Two points that accelerated sales are Vista and Leopard intro.
10:07 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
The Mac now represents 17.6% of unit sales in the US. If you look at “revenue share”, because Apple “focuses on fully featured systems”, they actually have 31.3%.

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Apple has 39% unit share for notebooks in education, surpassing Dell.

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
In one unnamed university, Apple has 47% marketshare. Now Cook is showing the photo of that college lecture with a bunch of Macs.

Jason Chen:
Steve Jobs comes back on stage.

Mark Wilson:

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
First, Steve Jobs is going to talk about a new way to build notebooks. Or Rather, Jony Ive is going to talk about it.

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
First, Ive is going to talk about how they CURRENTLY build their MacBook Pro. One of the challenges of building a MacBook Pro is making it strong and rigid.
10:12 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
The Aluminum structure that you SEE contributes only a small part of the “structure”. The main structure is actually from the internal frame, which holds up the system (and “creates a strong system, a robust system”).

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Above the frame, there are support plates that are welded to the structure underneath the top plate. All these things work together to give the laptop rigidity. (Ive is saying this in his charming British accent, btw.)

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
“For years, we’ve been looking for a better way in building a notebook. We had a really significant breakthrough that culiminated in the manufacture of [the MacBook Air].”

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Instead of starting with a thin piece of aluminum and adding more pieces to the structure, they’re now going to start from one piece of aluminum and remove pieces. This makes the structure stronger and more rigid.

Jason Chen:
To make the MacBook Air’s wrist rest, they start with one piece, then go through many stages (punch holes, etc).

Jason Chen:
In the manufacturing stage, they start with a 2.5 pound piece of aluminum. The end structure is only 0.5 pounds (for the MacBook Air).
10:17 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
This method of course, extends past the MacBook Air, for some new notebooks. Ive leaves the stage, and Jobs comes up.
Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Jobs: Nvidia came to talk to them a few months ago about a product that would include the chipset and the graphics processor.

Jason Chen:
Nvidia GeForce 9400M is the name of the product.

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
This combimes both the Chipset + the GPU, 70% of the die is the GPU. It has 16 parallel graphics cores, pushes 54 Gigaflops and runs up to 5 times faster than Intel Integrated graphics.

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
In real world performance, you get anywhere from 3x to 8x performance increase. Compared to the Nvidia 8600M GT in the MacBook Pro, this new one is at 55% of the performance instead of 11%, compared to the old Intel.
Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Jobs: We’ve got a new trackpad for notebooks. A large, multi-touch GLASS trackpad.

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
It’s a 39% larger tracking area, has multi-touch gestures, and has a glass for “silky-smooth travel”.


Jason Chen:
The entire trackpad is the button. You can also get multi-buttons via software.


Jason Chen:
There are also now four-finger gestures.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Jobs is now going through some of the gestures. Two finger gesture = pinch and rotate for zooming and panning. Three finger gestures = swiping between photos. Four fingers = expose and app switching.
10:22 am ON Oct 14 2008


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
“So let’s take these technologies and more and make some notebooks. Today, we’re introducing the new MacBook Pro.”

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
The new MacBook Pro has full glass, an instant-on LED display, all the connectors on one side, and “it’s just gorgeous.”
It’s got a precision aluminum unibody enclosure, next-gen graphics, mini display port connector.


Mark Wilson:

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
First, the unibody enclosure is made from one piece of aluminum. Jobs is actually passing around the body down every row to give people a sense of what it looks like up close. Pics coming in a sec.


Jason Chen:
We’ve just held it, and we tried fairly hard to bend it. It was definitely rigid and didn’t bend at all, at least on the places we pushed at.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Lights back down, Steve is talking again.
10:27 am ON Oct 14 2008


Jason Chen:
New graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M in the MacBook Pro. There’s also a 9600M GT, which is the “state of the art mobile graphics”, with 32 parallel graphics cores, 120 Gigaflops and 512MB video memory. They’re including BOTH of these in the MacBook Pro.


Jason Chen:
You can use either the integrated graphics, 9400M, or switch over to the 9600M GT if you want “Turbo mode”.


Jason Chen:
Under the 9400, you get 5 hours of battery life vs. 4 hours on the 9600 GT.


Jason Chen:
The connectors are, in order from the left, Magsafe, Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire 800, two USB ports, a Mini Display Port, Audio In/Out (analog and optical digital), ExpressCard 34, and a battery indicator.


Jason Chen:
The Mini DisplayPort is downsized from the full sized DVI connector. The Mini DisplayPort can drive everything the big DVI can (30-inch displays).


Jason Chen:
Both the battery and the hard drive will be easily accessible from the back.
0.95 inches. Thinnest ever.
10:32 am ON Oct 14 2008


Jason Chen:
It’s going to come in two models. $1999, 15.4-inch LED backlit display. 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB L2 Cache, 2GB 1066MHz DDR3 Memory, the two GeForces, 250GB hard drive and SuperDrive.
Second config is $2499. 2.53GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 4GB memory, 512MB video memory and bigger hard drive.


Jason Chen:
These MacBook Pros are shipping today.
Jason Chen:
Just as important as what they put in is what they left out, for environmentally concerned users. This MBP has 37% smaller packaging and earned the EPEAT Gold rating.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Next up is the MacBook Air. They’re putting the 9400M into the MBA. 4x faster graphics. They’re upgrading the 120GB HDD (up from 80GB), or a 128GB SSD. Also has a Mini Display port.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Steve Jobs just let it slip that there’s going to be a new display coming!


Jason Chen:
The new MacBook Airs will be available in early November.


Jason Chen:
Also being revealed today is a 24-inch LED-backlit cinema display.


Jason Chen:
Three connectors on this new 24-inch Display: MagSafe connector, USB connector and Mini Display Port.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
The 24-inch display has 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution, a Built-in iSight and mic, stereo speakers and a three port USB hub.
10:37 am ON Oct 14 2008
Jason Chen:
It will be $899 in November.
Jason Chen:
One more thing…and it’s the MacBook.
Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
The MacBook is the best selling Mac, ever.


Jason Chen:
“They are one of the best products in the industry.” The entry price is $1099, but they’re reducing the entry price to $999.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Things people want from the Macbook: Metal enclosure, faster graphics and LED backlit display.


Mark Wilson:

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Introducing a new generation on top of the white plastic MacBook. Corner to corner glass on the display, same aluminum unibody enclosure like the MacBook Pro, LED backlit display, next-gen graphics, multitouch trackpad, Mini Display Port connector and environmental features.

Jason Chen:
Five times the graphics performance with the NVIDIA 9400M chipset.


Jason Chen:
The glass trackpad also has the same four-finger gestures as on the MacBook Pro.


Mark Wilson:
p>

Jason Chen:
It also gets five hours of battery life.


Jason Chen:
The MacBook also meets EPEAT Gold, and has 42% smaller packaging size.


Mark Wilson:

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
These new features on the MacBook, you can get today at $1299 (lower than the $1999 for the MacBook Pro). There are going to be two models. 13.3-inch LED backlit display, 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 3MB L2 Cache, 2GB 1066MHz DDR3 memory, 9400M GeForce, 160GB hard drive and SuperDrive.
10:42 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
Second model, $1599, adds 2.4GHz processor, 250GB hard drive and a backlit keyboard.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
To be clear, these two models are going to be on top of the white plastic MacBook which comes at $999.


Jason Chen:
The MacBooks ship today to hit stores tomorrow.


Mark Wilson:

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Jobs is showing a video now (Coldplay in the background!)


Jason Chen:
Fill in that bingo square!


Jason Chen:
Jon Ive is talking about how great the new MacBook and MacBook Pros are.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Ive is a handsome, handsome man. Ahem, sorry. Yes, he’s talking about the unibody aluminum construction, which is thinner, lighter and more robust.


Jason Chen:
They’re showing gigantic sheets of aluminum that they carve the body from. It starts with a solid “block” of aluminum, and outputs long strips which then get cut and carved into the MacBooks.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
“In many ways I think it’s more beautiful internally than it is externally” - Ive
10:47 am ON Oct 14 2008


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
The glass display goes up “right to the edge of the product.” Advantages of the LED backlight is that it’s on instantly, it’s 30% more efficient and the colors are brighter (higher intensity).


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
They’re showing a Need For Speed game running on a MacBook.

Mark Wilson:

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Now they’re talking about how the choices they made are the best in the industry from an environmental perspective.


Jason Chen:
A U2 song is being played (that’s not a bingo square, but, you know, just FYI).


Jason Chen:
Relevant side story: Jon Ive once touched me on the shoulder.
10:52 am ON Oct 14 2008

Jason Chen:
Now, Steve Jobs is holding a Q&A session along with Phil Schiller.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
110/70 is Steve’s blood pressure. This is all Steve is going to talk about Steve’s health today.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Apple is the first people to take the 9400M to market, and might be the only one for a while (”We’re going to be using a lot of their chips”).


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Q: Why isn’t HDMI or Blu-ray in there? And Display Port is?
A: HDMI can’t drive our 30-inch display, so we put in Display Port.


Jason Chen:
Jobs: “Blu-ray is a bag of hurt. I don’t mean from the consumer point of view. It’s great to watch movies, but the licensing is so complex. We’re waiting until things settle down, and waiting until Blu-ray takes off before we burden our customers with the cost of licensing.”


Jason Chen:
Q: What’s the status of the 17-inch MacBook Pro.
A: It’s also being refreshed.
10:57 am ON Oct 14 2008

Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Q: Is the MacBook upgrade going to steal some demand from the MacBook Pro?
A: Pros buy MacBook Pros. So we’re going to see a refresh demand in both spaces.


Jason Chen:
Both the MacBook Pro and MacBook are .95 inches, and weight is 5.5 and 4.5 lbs, respecitvely


Jason Chen:
Q: Are you going to have matte screens or just go with glossy glass ones? How about with reflection problems?
A: Just glass, and we’re going to compensate for the reflection from pushing more light through the back. And, since these are notebooks, you can position it any way you want.


Mark Wilson:

Jason Chen:
Q: Did Apple design the motherboard in house?
A: Yes.
11:02 am ON Oct 14 2008


Jason Chen:
Q: How about touchscreens in laptops?
A: So far it hasn’t been a lot of sense to US, but we may see it in the future (we’ve experimented with it before).


Jason Chen:
That’s all! Thanks for reading. Hands on impressions to come in a sec. Check the front page of Gizmodo for more.


Mark Wilson:
Read our hands on impressions of…

The new MacBook
The new MacBook Pro
The new Cinema Display

1:41 pm ON Oct 14 2008

• Print out the bingo card.

• Follow our MacBook 2008 liveblog event and take note of the timestamp as the event in the bingo card happens.

• You can shout bingo if you fill out one line or, alternatively, one of the 2 x 2 brick groups.

• When you get a bingo, quickly send us an email including the events and their timestamps to tips@gizmodo.com.

The first person who sends us a bingo wins the prize, which—in case you are a girl—it will be a dinner for two with me at Good Enough to Eat or—if you are a boy—a dinner for two with Jason at his lair. OK, I just made that up. But you will get our respect and love. Tons of it.

And one free pizza (if there's pizza internet ordering where you are located, that is). Nothing like an edible prize to warm up my heart and my stomach. In fact, we should make this a tradition for each event: The Giz's Liveblog Pizza Bingo. I like how it sounds.