Notes from the Apple Notebook Event

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on October 14

Cliff Edwards was at the event and sent some emails.

The headline is the expected round of new MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
Here’s the rundown:

MacBook Pro, with a 15.4-inch LED-backlit screen, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3 MB of Level 2 Cache; 2 GB of DDR3 memory; Two Nvidia GeForce cards one a 9400M, the other a 9600M GT; 250-Gig hard drive. Starting price $1999.

Above that, there’s another MacBook Pro, same screen size. 2.53 GHz processor with a little more level-2 cache; 4 GB of memory; a better version of the Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT; 320-gig hard drive. Staring price $2,499.

Both sport a new glass trackpad that supports the kind of multi-finger gestures that the iPhone does.

MacBook Air gets an upgrade: Nvidia 9400M graphics card. 120-gig hard drive or 128-gig solid state drive. Also includes a new mini display port. Starting at $1,799, and going to $2,499 with the solid state drive and an better Intel Chip.

There’s also a new Cinema Display, ending a long dry period for additions to this product line. It’s a 24-inch LED backlit display resolution is 1920 x 1200 pixels, and it contains stereo speakers. Price is $899.

“One More Thing” was a new MacBook, the lower-end family of Apple notebooks, which CEO Steve Jobs says is the “best selling Mac ever.”

The entry-level price on the existing model with the white plastic enclosure is now $999, and improvement of $100.

There’s also a new MacBook that sports a metal body similar to the MacBook Pro. It also sports faster graphics cards than prior MacBooks, an LED backlit display, as on the MacBook Pro. Staring price is $1,299 for a 13.3-inch display, a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB of memory. One Nvidia GeForce 9400M, 160GB hard drive.

For $300 more, or $1,599 you can boost the specs to a 2.4 GHz Intel chip, 250 GB hard drive, and a backlit keyboard.

Johnny Ive has just talked about the new manufacturing process. “A real breakthrough we’ve had in how we can design and our notebooks…”

“We discovered that if we started with a thick piece of aluminum and removed material, we could make a much lighter and importantly much stronger part.”

Looks like the rumors about the body being cast from a single piece of aluminum turned out to be true. What starts out as 2.5 pounds of aluminum cuts processed down to 1/4 pound.

Q and A with Steve Jobs, Tim Cook and Phil Schiller

110 over 70. This is Steve’s blood pressure. This is all we’re going to talk about on Steve’s health today. If you want to see the number go higher, just ask questions. (Laughter).

Question on relationship with Nvidia. Jobs: We helped them a lot over the last many, many months. We’re clearly the first to be able to take [this chip] it to market. We’re going to be using lots of their chips.

Question on Blu-ray and HDMI?

Jobs: As you know, HDMI is limited in the resolution it will drive. The computer industry has really chosen a much higher standard.
Schiller: Displayport really is the connector in the future of the computer. Larger flat-panel panels may ad DisplayPort as well.

Jobs: Blu-Ray is just a bag of hurt. I don’t mean from the consumer point of view. The licensing of the technology is so complex that we’re just waiting until it settles down.

Status of the 17 inch MacBook Pro?
Cook: It is still available. It’s Refreshed but available.

Question about Netbooks.
Jobs: That’s a nascent market that’s just getting started.

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