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.
Those crying about glossy screens: um… CRT monitors were “glossy” and showed glare for… how many years? There were ways around it, and there will be ways around this made-up “problem.” Yes… made up by those of you who are just DYING to join the ranks of the mediocre PC users.
Quit your whining and deal with it.
Thanks, ping. I didn’t think about an adapter for use with that funky break-out cable. Plug up the USB, and forget the Magsafe.
(maybe they will have an adapter for that, too.)
I have no desire for that configuration, just wondering if Apple hobbled it to keep from eating into the iMac set-up.
Ah, just finished arguing over the MacBook Air price with the same PC guys.
Soooo, there seems to be a misprint. When you look at the MBA specs and then the price $1799, it’s clear that it should be $799. Steve just forgot to mention the MBA is the new affortable MacBook. It doesn’t have the CPU power or connections, no optical drive, and it’s using 40% less materials, but you get what you pay for and it still runs OS X.
Apple is going to sell tons of these.
😀
However, it doesn’t show it to be compatible with anything except the new laptops
http://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html
Willie G:
You’re a f*****g a**hole. And your insistence to the contrary labels you a fraud.
I’m still in shock. When I first read that they wouldn’t offer a matte screen option for the MBP, it felt like I’d been raped.
Ok, I’m calmed down now.
I apologize for being a butthead just then.
I am just very disappointed in the new laptops.
I have a job doing what I love and I should be happy.
I think one problem here is that some of both camps on the glossy issue believe that there can only be one answer. That they will lose somehow if it isn’t all their way.
The answer is have both glossy and matte.
I have no problem with those that prefer glossy. Heck, I could even use glossy monitors in my studio with no problem.
The problem is field use.
Again, I could hardly see a presentation in a windowed office yesterday because of a glossy screen. … and it’s going to take more than just turning up the brightness to make it better.
So those that love glossy… enjoy! No hard feelings. We are not demeaning you.
Our beef is that Apple has just made our tool of choice a little less desirable.
Our purchases will have to wait until the next cycle when someone markets the next, new, cool thing… “the matte screen”! (and charges us more for it.)
OMG! I just got into the store and realized… NO FIREWIRE on the MacBook!!!
What are we paying more for again?
It used to be style and substance. Now it’s style before substance.
Oh well… I have work to do.
The market will punish or reward Apple accordingly.
I just hope the stock hasn’t jumped the shark.
Can’t believe they yanked firewire off the MacBooks. And no FireWire 400 in MacBook”Pros” ? Wow what junk!
Apple really screwed the pooch here on essential features, on price they stink, the technology has advanced in other ways but nothing makes up for dumping FireWire.
Really disappointed, and the prices are going to make these a hard sell. I guess I can be proven wrong but I’m highly unimpressed.
Hopefully it’ll have a retina display!