New MacBooks and "The Brick": Apple Event

Never one to not crow about some nice numbers, Jobs started off the presentation with a set of slides showing Apple's burgeoning market share, which we've discussed previously.

We already know that Apple PCs are starting to make serious inroads in market share. And Tim Cook, COO went through a checklist of six reasons.

1. Better computers, far superior to what's out there
2. Better Software
3. Compatibility. Boot Camp, even though as Cook said, "When I look at this, it sends shivers up my sign. But it works as an insurance policy, whether you use it or not."
4. Vista. Laugh if you will, but as he said "I think it's fair to say that Vista hasn't lived up to everything that Microsoft hoped it would. And consequently, it's opened doors for a lot of people to consider switching to the Mac. And this has given us an opportunity and Apple has been the beneficiary of this."
5. Great marketing. No one can deny the impact of the Mac vs. PC ads. If it makes me stop TiVo commercial skip to watch it, it's good.
6. Retail store expansion.

Cook then went on to show how the Mac has overtaken Dell as the computer of choice for university students, with slides of market share as well as a lecture hall of students at an unnamed university full of Mac notebooks.

And then they went into the meat of the event.

We now know that "The Brick" is indeed the manufacturing process that was rumored. Instead of starting with a thin piece of aluminum and adding more pieces to the structure, they start with one block ("brick") of aluminum and remove pieces. This results in a "much lighter but much stronger part."

Naturally they recycle along the way. I hate to say it, but at this point in the presentation I was starting to wonder if I wanted to switch from Windows to Mac, or at least to a MacBook with Boot Camp.

That's all cool, but we were also interested in the rumored move to NVIDIA chipsets, and we got that confirmation as well.

The chipset is the NVIDIA 9400M and combines chipset and GPU into one. According to Apple, you get 6x the performance of the integrated graphics in the old MacBook and 86% of the performance of the discrete 8600M GT in the current MacBook Pro for general tasks. Not bad.

Also as expected, new large glass Multi-Touch trackpads with almost 40% more tracking area and supporting more Multi-Touch gestures.

And the MacBook Pro: now that notebook has everything we've talked about already, but it's also the thinnest MacBook Pro ever, at .95 inches. But since we knew the NVIDIA chipset would support Hybrid SLI, you get both the 9400M IGP and the GeForce 9600M GT as the discrete GPU. As we know, with Hybrid SLI, you can use either depending on your needs.

Apple said that with the 9400M, you get 5 hours of battery life, and with the 9600M GT you get four hours of battery life (obviously not while playing a state-of-the-art first-person shooter). Available now, though they won't hit stores until tomorrow. The 17" MacBook Pro get a minor update, with a standard high resolution 1920 x 1200 LED-backlit display and a larger 320GB hard drive or an optional 128GB solid state drive. From Apple's press release:

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.

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.

Don't forget the MacBook Air. The MBA gets the new 9400M, and the hard drive is upgraded from 80 GB to 120GB, or a 128GB SSD. Available early November.

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.

Apple also rolled out the new 24"LED Cinema Display with built-in iSight video camera, mic and speakers in an aluminum and glass enclosure. This display confused some who saw its SKU and $899 price and thought they had found the rumored $800 MacBook (or close to it).

And about that low price point? Sorry, not quite that low. The MacBooks are getting a price reduction, but only to $999. Still, it's the first MacBook that's been priced below $1,000. But that's for the old white MacBook. Yep, the one that's been out there for some time. The new ones, all-metal like all the rest announced today, start at $1,299, and include the NVIDIA 9400M chipsets and IGP.

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.

Sorry, Kevin Rose, looks like there are no Blu-ray drives coming any time in the near future from Apple. When asked about it, Steve Jobs said:

"BluRay is a bag of hurt. The licensing of the technology is so complex that we're just waiting until things settle down and waiting until BluRay really takes off in the marketplace before we burden our customers with the cost of the licensing and the drives."

Translation: for whatever reason our normal hard-line tactics aren't working with the Blu-ray group, so hang on until we get some licensing conditions we like.

And as far as Mac touchscreens, Jobs said:

"We've certainly experimented with it, as you might imagine, and it currently doesn't make a lot of sense to us."

That one doesn't need much translation. And that was it. I'm actually excited about "The Brick" process, all the changes they've made. Honestly, Windows laptops are playing catch-up right now.