MacDailyNews’ live coverage of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ presentation at Apple’s ‘spotlight turns to notebooks’ event at 10am PDT/1pm EDT today.>
Live coverage of Apple’s “Spotlight Turns to Notebooks” event in reverse chronological order:
• End of event.
• Do touchscreen laptops make sense? Jobs: So far they don’t to us.
• What about matte screen options? (told you, it’s already started) Jobs: “We’re going straight glass. VAST majority of our customer prefer glossy.” Increased brightness of LED-backlit displays will make up for reflections (outoodr, in transit, etc.)
• MB and MBP = 0.95″thin, weigh 5.5lbs and 4.5lbs respectively.
• 17″ MacBook Pro being “refreshed” as well. NOT updated as the 15″ has been updated according to Jobs.
• Why no Blu-ray, HDMI? HDMI is limited res, can;t drive our 30″ display, display port is better. “Blu-ray is a bag of hurt.” Not for the consumer, its great for movie watching, but the licensing is so complex. Waiting for it to settle down.
• Apple on of first to have 9400M on market – we’re going to use a lot of their chips.
• Q&A: Jobs, Cook, Schiller
• Jobs puts up slide: “110/70 Steve’s blood pressure” – That’s all Steve will talk about his health today.
• Jobs: We will post the quicktime movie of the event later today
• AAPL down $3.44, or -3.12%m to $106.82 in current NASDAQ trading.
• MBP: glossy only, not matte. We predict uproar from some pros.
• Showing a movie about the production processes of the aluminum cases…
• MB: Upgrades and Accessories: 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, 320 GB 5400 rpm hard drive, 128 GB SSD, DVI, Dual-DVI and VGA adapters
• MB: US$1599: 13.3″ LED-backlit display, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 3 MB L2, 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, 250 GB hard drive, Slot-loading SuperDrive, Backlit keyboard.
• MB: US$1299: 13.3″ LED-backlit display, 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 3 MB L2, 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, 160 GB hard drive, Slot-loading SuperDrive.
• MB: 5 hours battery life.
• MacBook: precision aluminum unibody enclosure, LED-backlit display, Next-gen graphics (9400M), Multi-Touch(tm) glass trackpad, Mini Display Port connector, Environmentally responsible.
• Next-gen MacBook!
• New 24″ LED Cinema Display, MagSafe, 3-port USB 20 hub, Display port, built-in iSight camera and mic. 1920×1200, stereo speakers: US$899 (available next month).
• Air: US$2499 – 13.3″ LED-backlit display, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 6MB L2, 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, 128 GB solid state drive
• Air: US$1799 – 13.3″ LED-backlit display, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 6MB L2, 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, 120 GB SATA hard drive
• Jobs: We’re putting the 9400M in the Air, adding a 120GB hard drive, and we’ve got a 128GB Solid State Drive as an option, plus we’re putting in a mini display port.
• MacBook Air!
• MBP: US$2499 – 15.4″ LED_backlit display, 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 6 MB L2, 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT / 512 MB, 320 GBhard drive, Slot-loading SuperDrive
• MBP: US$1999 – 15.4″ LED_backlit display, 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 3 MB L2, 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT / 256 MB, 250 GBhard drive, Slot-loading SuperDrive
• Slot-load SuperDrive on right side (facing screen), On left: MagSafe, gigabit ethernet, FireWire 800 (no 400), two USB 2, Mini Display Port, audio in / out, ExpressCard 34 slot, Battery Indicator.
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M in the MacBook Pro AND a 9600M GT (“state of the art mobile graphics”) with 32 parallel graphics cores, 120 Gigaflops and 512MB video memory. Apple is including both of these in the MacBook Pro. User chooses can switch between them. 9400 = 5hrs battery, 9600 GT= 4 hours.
• Display looks like iMac – black around edge
• Unibody alum. piece passed around audience – very rigid
• Display looks like iMac – black around edge
• Precision aluminum unibody enclosure, LED-backlit display, next-gen graphics, Multi-Touch(tm) glass trackpad, mini display port connector (going on all Macs), environmentally responsible
• Jobs introduces new MacBook Pro!
• 39% larger tracking area, Multi-Touch(tm) for gestures, Glass for silky-smooth travel, Entire trackpad is the button, Multi0button via software, New four-fonger gestures.
• Jobs: We have a new trackpad: Large Multi-Touch(tm) glass trackpad
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
• Chipset + GPU on one die, 70% of area is GPU, 16 parallel graphics cores, 54 Gflops of performance which is up to 5X faster than Intel integrated graphics.
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
• Jobs returns to stage…
• Instead of building upon sheets of aluminum, Apple’s going to start from one piece of aluminum and remove pieces – makes the structure more rigid.
• “For years, we’ve been looking for a better way in building a notebook…”
• Ive: talks about how to make notebook thin and light, but also strong
• Ive: we’ve had a real, significant breakthrough about how we design and build our notebooks
• Ive: talks about how to make notebook thin and light, but also strong
• Jony Ive, Apple SVP Design, talking about new ways to build Apple notebooks
• Jobs back onstage: “Let’s talk about notebooks… First, I’d like to talk about some new ways to build notebooks.”
• Mac has 17.6% retail market share in U.S.; 31.3% revenue share
• 50 percent of Macs sold in retails stores are still to those new to Mac
• 247 Apple Retail Stores in 8 countries (400K visitors per day)
• The Mac vs. PC ads have really struck a chord with so many switchers. Playing ad…
• Talking about Boot Camp, virtualization: “Windows on Mac frankly sends a shiver up my spine.”
• Cook: “Leopard is far ahead of Vista.” (duh)
• Steve Jobs onstage – introduces Tim Cook, COO, to talk about “The State of the Mac”
• Audience being seated…
• 15 minutes from start of event
• 8:00am PDT – Apple Store currently offline.
It’ll be great to finally see those new LED displays that let the new Macbook dock into them.
Really hope there is 899 ibooks… unfortunately finance no longer looks at quality but rather price of the machine.
My prediction: Steve won’t be able to please everyone….
Seems to me with the growing interest for Apple’s products, that the list of sites giving live coverage is also growing.
Live coverage here, in Danish.
http://mediamac.comon.dk/index.php/news/show/id=20296
just for fun
I believe the $899 product is not an LED Display, but rather a sub-notebook with an 8 inch screen, clamshell design with just a keyboard on one side and a touch screen on the other. It has a 64GB SSD (i.e. two 32GB iPod touches), wifi, NO optical drive, and runs Mac OS X. There’s your $899 laptop. Besides, why would they talk about an LED Display if this event is has the Spotlight on notebooks?
MDN Magic Word – alone – as in, I’m probably “alone” in my prediction here.
I wrote some more details about my prediction for a MacBook mini on my site, imacazine.com
my prediction…apple stocks will tank no matter what they introduce
Uhhh How about 9 am ALASKA time…..
We are really a state in this great union after all….
(And have the highest per capita Internet use/penetration in the nation)
John in Fairbanks
I really hope Jobs unveils something more than just eyecandy and some slightly new form features. I want to see a GAMECHANGER, a huge price drop in macbooks would give PC-box makers nosebleeds!
@Boyarsky
It isn’t surprising that Alaska has the “… highest per capita Internet use/penetration in the nation.” After all, a few Apple Extreme base stations and a bit of T1 line is all that is needed to get most of Alaska’s population hooked up, right? And it is easy to bury T1 cable in snow…
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Still stating the obvious
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“Let’s talk about notebooks… First, I’d like to talk about some new ways to build notebooks.”
WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP
Maybe they’re starting to groom him to host Macworlds post-Steve? He’s certainly got the look and the charisma.
This is exciting! “What will they think of next?”
MDN’s coverage is still by far the worst of them all! Totally pointless! Use Ars or even cnet’s… ignore the MDN “feed” that is woefully behind and short on detail. FAIL.
where are those brilliant people who said that it wasn’t possible that they would use a single aluminum piece now? still wondering what you know that Jobs and Ive don’t…..
Four finger gestures?
Windows still uses one finger….
All-glass screen… ugh. I’ll have to get a previous model I guess.
What?!
glossy ONLY display’s?!!
what is this?
http://live.macobserver.com/article/2008/10/
@shen
I did not say that it was not ‘possible.’ But I honestly did not believe that it was viable to hog out a laptop chassis from billet aluminum from the standpoint of cost and numbers of parts. Apple warned about reductions in margins, and this might be one of the big factors driving that. Price reductions will hopefully be a part of the reduced margin story, as well.
I haven’t heard the chassis details yet, so it may still be some type of hybrid plastic/aluminum backbone approach, or even machine finishing of a near-net casting. Still, it appears that my initial skepticism might have been unwarranted.
It does not pay to underestimate Apple, or what is possible and feasible given sufficient thought and effort.
On second thought, I’ll still get one of these. I’ll just have to use an external display for some things. Ah well… I’m sure it will be pretty for day to day use.
Except when… MDN: outside. Freaky!
“It does not pay to underestimate Apple, or what is possible and feasible given sufficient thought and effort.”
yeah, i think that is the point…..
WTH!!! Glass screened Cinema display?!?!?
FAIL.
ah the little book gets some love too…..