Since the Mac Pros announced earlier today are using the "Harpertown" desktop version of the chip, it should be no surprise that Intel's Penryn family of processors are shipping and in use, as announced at CES yesterday. The full suite of chips includes 16 devices, including four for server use, seven desktop parts and five for mobile devices or laptops.
With premium laptop vendors Sony, Lenovo & Toshiba announcing products built around the new Core 2 Duo parts, it would be downright shocking if next week's Stevenote did not feature at least one Apple portable sporting the new and improved 45nm processors. With the desktop and server bumps out of the way a week ahead of time (and who can remember the last time that happened?) the way is clear for plenty of excitement a week from now.
Our sister blog Engadget has the goods on Intel's newest notebook chipset which was released yesterday and is called "Santa Rosa." This chipset is the followup to earlier notebook chipsets which are presently powering the MacBook and MacBook Pro. This presumably means new and faster Mac portables sometime down the road. However, given that there was a delay of a couple of months between the first Windows PCs with the "Merom" Core 2 Duo and the first MacBook Pros sporting that processor, this doesn't mean that there will be new Macs in the immediate future. Whenever they do drop expect the top of the line to increase to 2.4 GHz (though it will remain a Merom Core 2 Duo chip), with front side bus speed increasing to 800 MHz over the 667 MHz of today. There's also a more powerful Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics chip, which should definitely help performance on a new MacBook or Mac mini. The chipset also supports more wireless networking standards, but of course there's no guarantee that Apple will use them.
It had to happen sooner or later, Apple has released new MacBooks making my MacBook obsolete. The newest member of the Apple portable family comes in three flavors: white 1.83 GHz and 2.0 GHz, and black 2.0 GHz. All three sport the Core 2 Duo Intel processor which Apple claims gives these suckers up to a 25% boost over the previous MacBooks. The top of the line model also features a gig of RAM standard (though in two DIMMs), a double layer SuperDrive, and 4MB shared L2 cache (as opposed to 2MB in the other models). And yes, the glossy screen is still the only screen option on these bad boys.
Macworld UK reports that play.com, an online retailer, has a pre-prder page up for the not-officially-announced MacBook Core 2 Duos. According to the listing, the 2GHz/512MB/80GB/DVD±RW/13.3" Widescreen Core 2 Duo MacBook will be available on Nov 13.
What's your bet - is Play.com's pre-order page an intentional publicity generating fake, or an innocent publicity generating mistake?
The Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros are hitting the streets and MacRumors is reporting that the wireless card is identified as a D-Link RangeBooster N 650 which is described as "Up to 650% Faster & 5X Farther than 802.11g".
Since another "draft 802.11n" card was found in the Core 2 Duo iMacs , there is added speculation on the rumor sites that the upcoming iTV product will also support the unfinished 802.11n protocol, granting us faster speeds and greater range than the current 802.11g standard. Let's hope!
Dan pointed out some nice tidbits about the new MacBook Pros, but he didn't mention something that I just noticed while perusing the MacBook Pro site. The base model (2.16 Ghz core 2 Duo, 15 inch) comes with one gig of RAM standard. This is up from 512 MB. The other two models come with 2 gigs of RAM.
Kudos to Apple for finally shipping portables with a decent amount of RAM in them from the get go.
Laurie just covered the release of the new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros, which tout an impressive 39% speedboost (or so Apple claims). But some of the best new tidbits are hidden inside the press release:
All MacBook Pro models now include a FireWire 800 port -- meaning we can all rest assured in the belief that Apple isn't slowly abandoning FireWire after all. Also great news for everyone who purchased FireWire 800 hard drives during the PowerBook G4 reign.
The MacBook Pros also support more memory -- up to 3GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM.
Storage capacity has increased, too -- you can get a 200GB HD via Apple's online store.
All MacBook Pros also now come standard with a double-layer SuperDrive (I don't remember specifically if these were included in the previously-updated MBP models -- if not, they are now!)
The gap between the MacBooks and MacBooks Pros is constantly growing, as we see Apple pushing the Pros in a more Pro-line direction. At least now it's easier to justify the huge price difference.
Update: Interestingly, Apple also released a MagSafe airline adapter. From Apple: "With a MagSafe Airline Power Adapter, you'll never again worry about losing power while traveling. Just plug it into your airline seat power port and keep your MacBook or MacBook Pro powered up for the entire flight." It comes with two different connectors (EmPower and a 20mm adapter) and costs $59.00.
The Apple Store (US) is still down as I type this, but the apple.com splash page shows the MacBook Pro with Intel Core Duo, as many of us suspected was coming when the store went down this morning.
Apple says the new Core 2 Duo MacBook is up to 39% faster than it predecessor. That's pretty freakin' fast. Prices start at $1999 for the 15-inch 2.16GHz with 1GB of RAM and top out at $2799 for the 17-inch 2.33Ghz. The 15-inch 2.33GHz is $2499 and both 2.33GHz model ship with a whopping 2GB of RAM! That's double the RAM across the board. It's about time!
Thanks, as always, to all of you who sent this in!
UPDATE: I just noticed that Firewire 800 is back as the standard on the 15-inch models, as well as the 17-inch. Yay :)
It appears the just-released Windows Vista RC2 and the latest Boot Camp 1.1.1 don't play well for some reason. I just tried installing it to round up that Vista + Intel Mac post I've been working on, but the Vista installation process kept telling me it wasn't happy with the drive Boot Camp creates, and thus wouldn't touch it even after formatting.
This is extra strange, as the RC1 installed and worked on Intel Macs just fine, and as far as I know, Boot Camp 1.1.1 has been updated for full compatibility with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo iMacs like the one I'm typing this on. What broke since RC1, how and whodunit (it was Ballmer in the meeting room with the office chair!) are a mystery to me, but what about you guys? Anyone else know what's going on?
Boot Camp, Apple's software that allows Mac users to run Windows XP on a separate partition, has been updated to version 1.1.1. Specific in this release is support for Core 2 Duo Macs (Mac Pro and new iMac), though the Boot Camp page lists other updates, such as support for built-in iSight cameras and improved Apple keyboard support, that actually appeared in Boot Camp 1.1.
While trying to figure out why my TUAW Tips mailbox just choked and cried uncle, I finally found the source of the clog: too many tips to count started pouring in that the announced September 12th special event (not to be confused with the 25th) could be the announcement of a 23-inch iMac Core 2 Duo, not to be confused with the Core Duos in many Macs right now. This new chip is code named Merom (aren't Intel and their code name games cute?) and promises a 40% performance increase over current Core Duo chips, but with zero increase in power consumption.
This rumor has blown up everywhere, from AppleInsider to MacRumors and, of course, Engadget. September 12th could easily be something big, as it isn't simply some arbitrarily chosen day - it coincides with the first day of Apple Expo Paris.
Today Intel took the wraps off their 10 chip Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors. Expect fast processing and lower power consumption to be hallmarks of these chips that have a host of technologies with names like 'Intel Intelligent Power Capability,' and 'Intel Smart Memory Access.'
Here's hoping that some Core 2 Extreme processors find their way into the PowerMac's replacement.
Since the Mac Pros announced earlier today are using the "Harpertown" desktop version of the chip, it should be no surprise that Intel's Penryn family of processors are shipping and in use, as announced at CES yesterday. The full suite of chips includes 16 devices, including four for server use, seven desktop parts and five for mobile devices or laptops.
Our sister blog Engadget has the 
The 
Dan 
Laurie just 
It appears the just-released 
Boot Camp, Apple's software that allows Mac users to run Windows XP on a separate partition, has been updated to version 1.1.1. Specific in this release is support for Core 2 Duo Macs (Mac Pro and new iMac), though the Boot Camp page lists other updates, such as support for built-in iSight cameras and improved Apple keyboard support, that actually appeared in 
While trying to figure out why my TUAW Tips mailbox just choked and cried uncle, I finally found the source of the clog: too many tips to count started pouring in that the announced
Today Intel took the wraps off their 10 chip 
