Apple Announces New MacBook, iMac, Mini

Today’s announcements by Apple were good news for those waiting on updates to the MacBook, iMac, and the Mac Mini. All three were given major updates.

MacBook

The past few updates to the MacBook line have been uneventful, but that hasn’t stopped the MacBook from being the best-selling computer in the company’s history. The new design and $999 price point will probably insure that it stays that way.  Here are the basic stats:

2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor

2GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM

320GB Hard Drive, 8x Double-layer SuperDrive

13-inch LED-backlit Glossy Widescreen Display, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics

Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard, Up to 7 Hours of Battery Life

iMac

The new iMac has undergone some nice changes. Both the 21.5- and 27-inch screens give it the feel of a home entertainment center, instead of a merely a desktop PC.  The standard hard drive on the high-end iMacs is now 1 Terabyte (TB). That’s a lot of room for downloaded video and music, but if it’s not enough, you can purchase the optional 2 TB drive and up to 16 GB of RAM.  The fastest 21.5-inch model has a 3.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB shared L2 cache, while the fastest 27-inch iMac has the 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache. Remember that 2.8 is a QUAD-CORE chip. That’s some major number-crunching.

Mac mini

With either 2GB or 4GB of memory, Mac mini has twice as much memory as the previous generation. You also get a 2.26GHz or a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a blazing-fast 1066MHz frontside bus, and 3MB of L2 cache.

As usual, Amazon all the new goodies with no shipping charges (and no tax, depending on what state you live in!)

The New MacBook

The New iMac

The New Mac Mini

Is Apple Releasing An $800 Laptop?

New MacBooks are on the way.  This is not in question by most Apple observers.  The mysterious part regards the rumors of a new manufacturing process whereby the main shell of the laptop is created out of a “brick” of aluminum using lasers and water.

Another mystery revolves around the price point.  Duncan Riley is reporting at The Inquisitr that Apple will be releasing a sub-$800 MacBook.  This would be a great time for it and it may help Apple’s stock rebound in the midst of so much economic uncertainty.

Apple is expected to clear all of this up with an announcement some time this month.

MultiTouch Trackpad Added to MacBook Pro

The MacBook and MacBook Pro line was updated on Tuesday, providing more momentum to a strong line of Apple products.

The new Penryn chips are now providing the processing power, but I was most excited about the addition of the MultiTouch trackpad which was added to the MacBook Pro. The MultiTouch was first introduced in Apple’s MacBook Air laptop. It allows the user to pinch, swipe, or rotate to enlarge text, advance through photos, or adjust an image.

I think we are going to soon begin to see a number of significant changes to input technology. It is only a matter of time before our MacBook screens are touch-sensitive, similar to the way the iPhone interface responds to direct contact to the screen.

The trackpad and keyboard have remained relatively unchanged since they first appeared in tandem, but we are due for a massive shift. My best guess is that we will look back on the iPhone as a precursor to a new way of entering and rearranging data in our typical user interface.

(All the new specs are well-outlined here at MacWorld’s site)