The MacBook Pros — with 15.4-inch displays — start at $1,999. Jobs touted it as the thinnest and fastest operating laptop in Apple’s portfolio.
All the new computers will include Apple’s
Front Row software and a remote control, which lets users watch videos, listen to music or browse photos from across a room.
High iPod sales send stock soaring
Jobs also reported that Apple had a record $5.7 billion in sales during the holiday quarter, topping Wall Street expectations and sending the stock soaring.
The company has now sold 42 million of the popular digital music players, Jobs said. “That’s 100 sold every minute 24-7,” he said during the Macworld Expo show Tuesday. “And it still wasn’t enough.”
Apple sold 14 million iPods in the holiday quarter and its
iTunes music store has sold 850 million songs to date, said Jobs.
Also announced Tuesday was a new
iPod Radio Remote, available now, which can remotely control functions on an iPod, such as volume, and can broadcast FM radio stations on the portable audio player. Although there are already FM tuners available for iPods, this is the first tuner made by Apple.
The Radio Remote will retail for $49. Separately, users can buy an iPod AV Connection Kit for $99, which includes an iPod universal dock, an Apple remote, an iPod AV cable, an iPod dock connector to a USB 2.0 cable, and an iPod USB power adapter.
Embracing Intel
For years, Apple shunned Intel, which has provided chips that power a majority of the world’s PCs, along with Windows software from Microsoft Corp. (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
In the late 1990s, Apple even ran TV ads with a Pentium II glued to a snail and others with a toasted clean room suit.
But Apple, looking for faster, more energy-efficient chips, became increasingly frustrated in recent years as its chip suppliers, IBM Corp. and Motorola Corp.’s spinoff, Freescale Semiconductor Inc., failed to meet its needs.
Of particular concern was IBM’s apparent inability to develop a G5 chip that would work well in notebook computers.
Intel, on the other hand, has been focusing on developing chips specifically tailored for notebooks. In 2003, it launched its Centrino notebook technology with a processor that boosted a longer battery life by minimizing its power demand without a major hit to performance.
During last week’s International Consumer Electronics Show, Intel unveiled the latest generation, the Core Duo, which features two computing engines on a single piece of silicon.
It was that chip that the Apple decided to fit into the new iMac.
The Core Duo chip’s low energy requirements are expected to enable ever-smaller computers, including some built right into television sets as the industry gears its machines more toward multimedia use.
Though the change to Intel has occurred faster than expected, it still poses some risks.
Besides potentially alienating a fan base that’s accustomed to doing things differently, Apple’s move opens up the issue of backward compatibility and the possibility that PC users might run pirated versions of Mac OS X, Apple’s critically acclaimed operating system, on their generally cheaper non-Apple computers.
During his speech, Jobs demonstrated software that that will make older software work on older Macs with a minimal performance hit. But he did not comment on how the company will lock its operating system to its hardware.
The change, however, does not appear to have alienated another important player, Microsoft, which offers a Mac version of its popular Office productivity suite. (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
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