Apple 2008 Notebook Event: Live Blog

This is coverage of the Apple Notebook Event on October 14th 2008. Most of these quotes are taken from Engadget. We were planning to combine several news feeds; however, many feeds were down or very slow due to high traffic. Thanks to them for their reliable coverage!



11:03AM - Engadget
Q: You've put a lot of work into the new touchpad, do touchscreens not make sense?
A: Steve: so far it hasn't made a lot of sense to us.


11:02AM - Engadget
Q: Are we going to see a netbook?
A: Steve: In terms of netbooks, that's a nascent market that's just getting started.

11:01AM - Engadget
Q: Concern about the glossy screens. Are you going to offer another option?
A: Steve: We're going all glass -- we won't offer another version. Phil: You offset the reflection by the brightness, and consumers love it. One of the great things about a notebook is you can turn it however you want!

10:57AM - Engadget
Q: What's up with the 17-inch?
A: Tim: It's being refreshed today as well.

10:56AM - Engadget
Phil: "We have the best HD movie and TV options in iTunes."


10:56AM - Engadget
Q: "Blu-ray?"
A: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace."

10:55AM - Engadget
Q: No Blu-ray, and display port -- why no HDMI?
A: Steve: HDMI is limited in resolution. Phil: for typical computer use, display port is the connector of the future.

10:54AM - Engadget
Q: Do you have first dibs on this NVIDIA chip?
A: Steve: We're the first taking it to market, but it's up to them.

10:53AM - Engadget
And Steve is back. "The will be on the web today. So what we'd like to do is have a Q & A session. I'm going to ask Phil Schiller and Tim Cook to come up. A few caveats, we can?t answer questions about the quarter ending, and secondly... 110/70... this is Steve's blood pressure." HUGE laughs and applause. "This is all we're going to talk about Steve's health today."


10:45AM
A short documentary on Apple's production process is being shown




10:45AM - Engadget
"I've got a video." Ive talking about the construction. "The new MacBook is remarkable..."


10:44AM - Engadget
"So we think this will be a huge success. So two new notebook families, we're building both in a whole new way, from a slab of aluminum..."


10:43AM - Engadget
"Second model, $1599, 4GB RAM, 320GB HD... and a backlit keyboard. Shipping today, should hit stores tomorrow."


10:42AM - Engadget
"It's going to come in two models -- $1299 for the new MacBook 13.3-inch display, 2GHz Core 2 Duo... that's $700 more affordable for these Pro features."


10:41AM - Engadget
"Again we're using the 9400M. Here's our system architecture, very clean. And of course, we've got that glass trackpad, and we've got 5 hours of battery life." Now he's back on the environmental soundness of this thing. This is the most eco friendly MacBook ever in the history of human existence.


10:40AM - Engadget
It has the same casing, LED backlit display, glass trackpad... the whole nines. Just smaller. Looks like those leaks we saw were right on this too.


10:39AM - Engadget
"We're introing a new generation of MacBook on top of the white plastic model." It's just like the Pro... yet smaller.

10:39AM - Engadget
"But we've heard that people want a metal enclosure, faster graphics, and a lot of them want LED backlit displays... so, we figured out a way to bring these to the MacBook line."

10:38AM - Engadget
"It is the best selling Mac... ever. We sell a ton of these, and people love the. They sell for $1099, and we're gonna keep right on selling these, but we're going to reduce the entry price to $999." Ooh, so close Steve, but not low enough!

10:37AM - Engadget
"Of course that one more thing is the MacBook."

10:37AM - Engadget
"One more thing."

10:37AM - Engadget
"So 24-inch LED backlit display, 1920 x 1200 resolution, stereo speakers... everything you need for $899, available in November."


10:36AM - Engadget
"We're introuducing a new Cinema Display -- our first with LED backlighting. It's got a cable with three connectors: a MagSafe, you can power your notebook, 2nd is a USB port, and third is Display port."








10:35AM - Engadget
"So again at $1799." "We have a second model at $2499, gives you a 1.86GHz CPU and SSD -- available in early November."




10:35AM - Engadget
"We're putting the 9400M in the Air, adding a 120GB hard drive, and we've got a 128GB SSD as an option -- in addition we're putting in a mini display port."


10:34AM - Engadget
"Now, we have another cool product we'd like to talk about today. The Air. We'd like to update it with some of these technologies."

10:34AM - Engadget
"There's a lot of new tech in these products, but we're proud of the things we left out..." Now he's going to talk about how eco these guys are. "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."

10:32AM - Engadget
"And these MacBook Pros are shipping today, in stores tomorrow."





10:32AM - Engadget
"And of course, 802.11n, Bluetooth... .95 inches, our thinnest MBP ever. It's going to come in 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."

10:30AM - Engadget
"So let's get back to this mini display port -- we can drive any display we could before, but at a fraction of the size -- we're building this into everything we make. This will also be the first MBP that we offer SSD on, and you can access the drives from underneath the battery."


10:30AM - Engadget
"Slot load super drive, magsafe connector, Ethernet, firewire 800, dual USB, mini display port, we're going to that on all our products, expresscard 34, and the battery indicator is now on the side."

10:29AM - Engadget
"We've added a new chip from NVIDIA -- the 9600M GT, 32 graphics cores, we're including both the 9400 as integrated graphics, or choose the 9600M for big graphic performance. 5 hours of batter on the 9400, 4 on the 9600."

10:25AM
"Mini display port connector... let's take a look at each of these ports. We're not going to talk about the old stuff we've built in, magnetic latch, backlit keyboard, built in isight... we don't have time to talk about that." "Precision unibody enclosure... exceptionally beautiful... much more rigid construction. We're really happy about this." Steve is passing the case around






10:23AM - Engadget
"Today we're replacing the old model with this..."
"Glass display, all connectors on one side..."








10:22AM - Engadget
"So a new trackpad for notebooks. So let's take this tech and make some new notebooks. We're introducing the new MacBook Pro."

10:22AM - Engadget
New gestures... Steve is showing off one and two finger gestures... now three... uh huh, where could this be going? "And we've added some four finger gestures. "A new way to open expose, and a great way to app switch..."

10:21AM - Engadget
"39% larger tracking area, multitouch, glass -- and we've optimized the friction on the glass... but where's the button? It's the entire pad -- gives you more area, keeps you from hunting... multi buttons via software, just turn on in preferences."


10:20AM - Engadget
"We've got a new trackpad -- a large multitouch glass trackpad."


10:20AM - Engadget
"We've been shipping the 8600M, we're at 55% for heavy graphics performance compared to that chip." "We've got some great new graphics."

10:19AM - Engadget
"This delivers up to 5x faster graphics than the chips we've been using. So what's it look like when we take it into the real world? up to 6x performance."

10:18AM - Engadget
"They've dubbed it the NVIDIA GeForce 9400 M -- it's an amazing chip. Chipset and GPU on one die -- 70% is the GPU, 16 parallel graphic cores, 54gflops of graphics performance. It's a sunner."



10:18AM - Engadget
"We also have some new graphics for notebooks... NVIDIA talked to us about an amazing graphics part they wanted to use." "We said this is fantastic, but can we use it in a notebook?"

10:17AM - Engadget
"So this new way has a relevance beyond the Air -- we've been working super hard on designing new uni-body enclosures. Thank you." And Steve is back!

10:16AM - Engadget
"Through each stage we're cleaning, collecting, and recycling the material. We started with a 2.5lbs piece of metal and end up with a piece that weighs a quarter of a pound."

10:16AM - Engadget
He's going through the very detailed way this piece of metal is machined. "We go through a noisy stage called rough cutting -- we create the holes for the key caps, towards the end we anodize it..."


10:15AM - Engadget
"We discovered if we started with a thick piece of aluminum we could make a lighter and stronger part." "So we make it from a solid piece of aluminum." Uh huh... Brickish.

10:14AM - Engadget
"This new process culminated in the design of this product: the MacBook Air. You couldn't build something this strong and thin in the older way."

10:14AM - Engadget
"We've been looking for a better way -- and we think we've found it."

10:13AM - Engadget
"The palm rest requires the same sort of internal structure. A series of stiffening plates..." "Finally, we had this plastic gasket -- it helps us control the junction."


10:12AM - Engadget
"One of the problems is designing something as thin and light as the Pro, but making it strong." "The structure is primarily derived from this..." Shows the internal frame. "It's made of multiple parts, then assembled into the bottom case... a very thin aluminum pressing."

10:11AM - Engadget
"I'd like to take a couple of moments to tell you about a real breakthrough we've had about how we can design and build our notebooks." "I'd like to start by giving you a sense of context." "I'd like to show you how we build our current MacBook Pro."

10:11AM - Engadget
"Let's talk about notebooks. Before we get into the actual notebooks, we want to talk about discoveries we've made. I'd like to talk about some new ways to build notebooks." Jony Ive is out!

10:10AM - Gizmodo
Steve Jobs comes back on stage.


10:09AM - Engadget
"Macs at major universities -- from 15% to almost 50%" "Many universities requires students have a laptop, we've worked hard to get Mac to be a choice." Shot of a school room... every laptop is a Mac! Ha!


10:08AM - Engadget
"One out of every 3 dollars is spent on the Macintosh. What a difference a few years makes."

10:07AM - Engadget
"If you look at the history, the Mac has outgrown the market for almost 4 years. There's been some key milestones along the way, like our transition to Intel, the Vista announcement and Leopard." "Since we're growing faster than the market, in US retail marketshare we've gone from single digits to 17.6%."


10:06AM - Engadget
Tim: "Retail stores -- 400,000 visitors a day. 50% of the Macs they sell are people that are new to Mac." Now he's busting out a slideshow of new stores around the world: Sydney, Bejing... "Both stores are off to a great start."


10:05AM - Engadget
Now Tim is talking about the PC vs. Mac ads. Playing one now. PC is on a king's throne... good stuff. The gist is switching is easy. PC: "I banish you."

10:04AM - Engadget
Vista -- the 4th reason Macs are doing well. Nasty, nasty burn to Microsoft.


10:04AM - Engadget
"The next up is something we didn't do -- Vista." Big laughs. "I think it's fair to say Vista hasn't lived up to everything Microsoft hoped it would -- and this has given us a door in."

10:03AM - Engadget
"Third reason: compatibility. When people looked at macs in the past, they were concerned about switching -- we fixed that with Boot Camp. We also work with third parties on productions like Fusion and Parallels." Windows on an iMac "Frankly this sends a shiver up my spine." Big laughs.

10:02AM - Engadget
"Why? Superior computers -- they're far superior to anything on the market." Now he's going through the line, iMacs, Air... "And with those better computers comes better software... like Leopard, like iLife, and products like iWork."

10:01AM - Engadget
Tim Cook: "Good morning -- our last reported quarter we sold 2.5m Macs. In several quarters in a row we've been growing 2/3x the market growth."

10:01 PST - Gizmodo
Tim Cook, Chief Operating Officer, is coming on stage to talk to us about the “stage of the Mac.” Steve Jobs is sitting down.

The event starts at 10:00 am PST so stay tuned!