Apple's new MacBook family: non-removable batteries, lower prices

Apple just let loose a new 15-inch MacBook Pro at WWDC 2009, with what appears to be the same built-in, non-removable battery as in the current unibody 17-incher. Phil asserts that the cell will last the average user around five years (1,000 recharges), and could last around seven hours under ideal conditions. There's also an SD card reader rather than an ExpressCard slot (seriously Apple -- replaced? -- why not just add it like every other Wintel laptop available today?). Oh, and the starting tag just dropped to $1,699.

• Starting at $1,699 (down from $1,999 in prior lineups)
  
• $1,699: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
  
• $1,999: 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 320GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• $2,299: 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 500GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro remains the same specs-wise (it's the only Apple laptop left with an ExpressCard slot), but it's getting a price cut to $2,499.
• Shipping today

Not enough for you? There's also a refreshed unibody MacBook, with the same built-in battery promising seven hours of life. This machine also gets the SD card slot, a FireWire 800 port, up to 8GB of RAM, upwards of 500GB of storage and a backlit keyboard as standard. If you're wondering, this little 13-incher is now a part of the MacBook Pro line. You just knew Apple couldn't let its remaining whiteBook outperform its more expensive unibody for long, right? It'll be available (today, we expect) in two configurations.

• $1,199: 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 160GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• $1,499: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard

Wilder still? A new MacBook Air, which starts at $1,499 (while the SSD unit gets going at $1,799). Yeah, that's $700 less than before.


• $1,499: 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 120GB HDD
• $1,799: 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 128GB SSD

Safari 4 released today, offering "unparalled speed"

Among the torrent of news is the announcement that Safari 4 ships today, boasting "unparalleled speed," especially when compared to IE8 (this is Apple talking, not us). Included in the new browser is a full history search, featuring a cover flow view of the user's browsing history (as well as a full spotlight search). And it looks like they've thought a lot about the browser when building the new OS -- In Snow Leopard, when a plug-in crashes, the browser remains intact, meaning you can just reload the page, not the browser itself. Available today for Leopard, Tiger, and -- of course -- Windows.

Apple shipping Snow Leopard in September, $29 upgrade

After showing off Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" at last year's WWDC, Apple is finally ready to ship it out the door this coming September, for a quite reasonable upgrade fee of $29 for Leopard users (as opposed to the regular $129 for larger refreshes). While the added feature list is relatively slim, and there are few surprises between what was confirmed last year and the various leaks from developer previews, Apple's still giving users and developers some fun new tech to play with -- particularly the GPU-exploiting OpenCL, and the GrandCentral tech for developers to ease application optimization for multi-core processors. Pretty nerdy stuff, but if it makes our Dashboard Sudoku Widgets run faster, we can hardly complain. Other updates to the OS Apple is trotting out at WWDC:

• Apple rewrote the Finder, while keeping it mostly the same on the surface, for a bunch of "little benefits."
• There's built-in Microsoft Exchange support in the OS.
• The new version of QuickTime has a new "modern foundation," HTTP streaming and a whole new look.
• Snow Leopard has half the footprint of Leopard, amounting to 6GB in savings and 45% faster installs.
• New trackpads can handle handwriting recognition now, and there's new text selection "AI."
• Safari 4 is available for Windows, Leopard and Tiger, but Snow Leopard adds "Crash Resistance," which keeps browser and tabs intact even if a plugin crashes -- user just refreshes the page.

Possible iPhone 3G 2009 Shot

These shots of a matte black iPhone from Nowhereelse.fr match up to the rumors we've heard so far about a future iPhone, but who knows if it's real.

What we do see is a round hole that could be a front-facing camera, which is one thing that would get us REALLY excited at WWDC on Monday.

Leo Laporte Blows up at Mike Arrington