Coverage of Apple’s 2008 Notebook Refresh Media Event

8:32 am, October 14th, 2008, Lonnie Lazar

The gathering of the tribe has begun at Apple HQ in Cupertino this morning, where, in 30 minutes or so, the company will turn the spotlight on its line of notebook computers. I’ll be updating this post with relevant details of the pronouncements from the Town Hall stage during the event, so refresh the post to keep in the news and check back later today for Cult of Mac reaction to and analysis of all the new gear.

The Apple Store has gone off-line in preparation for the stocking of new inventory; no doubt the company’s server array will get a workout in the next 24 hours.

Follow the news after the jump.

With 15 minutes until curtain, shares of AAPL are trading at 110.35, up about a dime on the day, after opening strong at 116.25.

Cell phones set to “silent.”

Steve looks about the same as he did for the Let’s Rock event several weeks ago; he immediately turns the stage over to COO Tim Cook, who gives the audience the “State of the Mac” address. It’s pretty good. Over 2 million sold in the last quarter, 2-3 times more than market growth.

They just can’t keep from poking the stick in the Redmond cage. Jokes about Vista. A new Mac vs. PC ad. Do they have new notebooks for us today?

Cook touts Apple’s market share growth in the past 4 years. From single digits to now over 17%.

Macs own the education market. Over 47% market share at one unnamed “major” university. Steve comes back to the stage to introduce Design Head Jony Ive, who says, “I’d like to talk about some new ways to build notebooks.”

Ive’s giving a much more detailed primer on the manufacture of computer notebooks than 98.5% of the world is probably interested in knowing. “Plastic gaskets”? “Junction controls”? “Stiffening plates”? Oh well, that’s his bailiwick. The bottom line: new Mac notebooks will have aluminum uni-body enclosures. Thank you very much.

Jobs is back to talk about new notebook graphics processors from NVIDIA - Nvidia GeForce 9400M is the name of the product.

And new trackpads. Jobs: “we’ve got a new trackpad for notebooks. A large, multi-touch GLASS trackpad.” The new trackpads are 39% larger, support multi-touch for gestures (a new 4 finger gesture!), the entire trackpad is a button and software supports multi-button functionality.

Finally, MacBook Pro is up first: it has a full glass, instant-on LED display, with all the connectors on one side, and “it’s just gorgeous.”

It’s got a precision aluminum uni-body enclosure, next-gen graphics, a mini display port connector.

New graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M in the MacBook Pro. There’s also a 9600M GT, which is the “state of the art mobile graphics”, with 32 parallel graphics cores, 120 Gigaflops and 512MB video memory. They’re including BOTH of these in the MacBook Pro. You can use the 9400 for integrated graphics or switch to the 9600 for “turbo” mode; 5 hours of battery life on the former, 4 hours on the latter - of course your mileage will undoubtedly vary.

The connectors are, in order from the left, Magsafe, Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire 800, two USB ports, a Mini Display Port, Audio In/Out (analog and optical digital), ExpressCard 34, and a battery indicator. The mini-display port will drive up to 30″ external displays.

There are two models, shipping today, in stores tomorrow: two models. The first, $1999, 15.4 inch display, 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, NVIDIA 9400 and 9600. We have a second config at $2499, you get a faster CPU with double cache, 4GB RAM, double graphics memory, 320GB hard drive.

Don’t forget Apple’s commitment to the environment. Jobs: “We think we’re leading the industry with this… arsenic free glass, BFR free, mercury free, PVC free, 37% smaller packaging.” “And for the first time, the MacBook Pro has earned an Epeat gold rating.”

Next up is MacBook Air: it gets the Nvidia 9400 as well, plus a 120GB hard drive with a 128GB SSD as an option — also the mini display port.

AND that’s not all, folks, we’ve got a new Cinema display! The 24-inch display has 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution, a Built-in iSight and mic, stereo speakers and a three port USB hub. $899 in November.

One more thing: The best selling Mac ever, the MacBook is now pretty much a smaller version of the MacBook Pro, and $999 gets you in the door.

Corner to corner glass on the display, same aluminum unibody enclosure like the MacBook Pro, LED backlit display, next-gen graphics, multitouch trackpad, Mini Display Port connector and environmental features.

Correction, $999 is for the still-in-production white plastic MacBook. The new features on the MacBook, you can get today at $1299 (lower than the $1999 for the MacBook Pro). There are going to be two models. 13.3-inch LED backlit display, 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 3MB L2 Cache, 2GB 1066MHz DDR3 memory, 9400M GeForce, 160GB hard drive and SuperDrive. The second model, at $1599, adds a 2.4GHz processor, 250GB hard drive and a backlit keyboard.

Now they are showing a documentary of the company’s new production process, which I’ll take as a cue to go in search of reaction to the days events and for pics of the new things many a good little boy and girl might find under the tree this Holiday Season.

Btw - market reaction is not immediately favorable: AAPL shares are currently trading 106.86, off $3.40 and near the lows of the day.

Posted by Lonnie Lazar in News | Comment on this article