New MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and probably an updated MacBook Air are coming up next week, at the Apple MacBook 2008 event. The MacBook and MacBook Pro are long due for a case redesign but, beyond that, little is known for sure. Here we have collected all the pieces of information we have about them. All the facts, the logical rumors, and the crazy ones, which we will keep updating through the coming days until the MacBook Event liveblog kicks off.
The facts
• There's an Apple event on October 14 and we will be there to liveblog the pants out of it.
• Long overdue, a new MacBook line will be unveiled, with newly-designed MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
• Remember that Apple told resellers not to stock MacBooks or iPods (this was just before the Let's Rock announcement).
The logical and probable rumors
• The MacBook Air, being a recent design, will probably get a features bump, but not a redesign. This could to be supported by price cuts during the summer.
• The new MacBooks may abandon Intel's chipset-not the central processor, but the supporting circuitry-in favor of an Nvidia chipset. Nvidia delayed the launch of their new laptop chipset to October 15, which apparently provides faster built-in graphics and superior HD capabilities, after it was delayed from its original September 30 intro date.
• Despite the pretty mock ups, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro will probably look like the MacBook Air, but on a different scale. In previous generations, there was always a new model that introduced a new look, then the rest followed up.
• Several images of the base top, the base bottom and the display frame of the MacBook Pro have surfaced. It is still not clear if these images are real or not, even while they do look real indeed.
• Some people alleged that these images show a shell carved out of a single piece of aluminum, using a new and revolutionary manufacturing process code-named "Brick".
• However, there are several reasons to believe this may not be the case, starting with an Apple patent detailing a new welding process. However, both manufacturing techniques may have been combined for this product.
• The MacBook in the teaser invitation may be the 13-inch model. Assuming the Apple logo is the same size as before, that is. They have changed its size before.
• Following Apple's commitment for greener computers, all displays in the upcoming MacBook line may be LED-based.
Crazy rumors and wishful thinking
• The usual blurry MacBook spyshots have appeared, some of which, like this one, have been proven to be fake.
• The glass iPhone trackpads are most probably just that, fake.
• Some crazy people really wish to see a touch notebook.
• There's even more crazy people that think that a semi-transparent MacBook Pro may appear, based on an Apple patent.
• Some really really crazy people have been dreaming about tablet Macs since 2007 and before. Maybe the whole brick thing really refers to the fabled "son of Newton" that every fanboy has been dreaming about since forever, the subnotebook-tablet. After all, a pure tablet with no keyboard is really the only device that could be actually carved from a single piece of aluminum.