iGame Radio

(Thanks to Macworld.com’s Live Update and Jason Snell for this info)

Everyone’s been waiting to find out what Steve Jobs would announce this morning regarding laptops. Speculation ranged from a Mac tablet to a sub800 notebook, to even wilder thoughts. Reading the responses to the announcement, many people might have felt a bit disappointed by it. But for gamers, the announcement was great.

Steve Jobs began the event with a review of the State of the Mac by Tim Cook. 2-3 times the market growth, better software, like Leopard, compatability (boot camp), not making the mistakes of Vista, advertising campaign that struck a cord with switchers (Mac-PC ads), and retails stores. It was all about growth, market share, and economy. And when he started talking about education and students (showing a lecture hall with almost all of the students using Mac laptops), I kind of thought I knew where this was going…into a sub800 laptop reveal.

Jonathan Ives came on stage to talk a bit about how Apple designs and builds their laptops. He talked about how the Macbook Pro’s aluminum outer cover contributes only a small part to the overall structure of the case…it’s mostly from the internal frame, which is made up of several parts bolted together. Well, now they’ve figured out how to merge those parts together into one lighter frame which is the Macbook Air.

Steve Jobs came back and talked about graphics chips. And this was the best part so far. “We also have some new graphics for notebooks. Nvidia came to us many months ago and talked to us about an amazing graphics part they wanted to build, that would combine the chipset and an extremely powerful embedded graphics processor, all in one part, for a desktop computer. And we said, ‘This is fantastic, but we’d like to use it in a notebook. Can we work together on this?’

Steve Jobs then introduced the Nvidia GeForce 9400M. It combines the Chipset and GPU on one die. 70 percent of the die area is the GPU. There are 16 parallel graphics cores on it, and they deliver 54 gigaflops of graphics performance. We’re talking some great performance…Jobs said that in tests they’ve found it’s up to five times faster than integrated graphics. He showed slides revealing performance of up to 2.8x in World of Warcraft and up to 6.2X for Call of Duty. Not that this is really that much of a big surprise…after all, it doesn’t take much for anything to be faster than the Intel integrated graphics chipset.

They’ve also added a new trackpad for notebooks too…a large glass trackpad. I heard about this earlier, and I’ll confess I thought it was bogus. Multi-touch for larger numbers of gestures, glass for better movement, and the entire trackpad is the button. They’ve added four-button functionality to it as well; similar to the iPhone, you get pinches, slides, etc, but now four fingers up and down and to the side for additional functions.

Now for the first announcement…a new Macbook Pro with the glass trackpad, new chipset, and a Macbook Air frame. This one frame, instead of multi-part frame, apparently saves a lot for parts. But we got one step better for the graphics chipset, because you can choose the Nvidia GeForce 9400M, or the new 9600M GT, which will lower the battery life to 4 hours, but more than double the power of the graphics chip.

The width of the new machine is .95 inches…the thinnest machine yet. But the price won’t be so thin…for those thinking that this announcement might have been a sub 800 Mac, dream on. The first Macbook Pro is going for $1999. This includes a 15.4-inch LED-backlit display, 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 3MB L2, 2GB 1066 MGhz DDR 3 memory, 250GB hard drive, slot-loading SuperDrive, and a choice between either Nvidia cards.

The second Macbook Pro is going for $2499. This includes a 15.4-inch LED-backlit display, 2.53GHz processor, 6MB L2, 4GB of memory, 512MB on the 9600M GT, and 320GB hard drive. You can upgrade with 2.8GHz and 4GB of extra memory.

Jobs says they are also updating the Macbook Air. They are putting the GeForce 9400M inside the MacBook air for 4x faster graphics. Now everyone with an Air can actually play games (Gasp!!). The new Air will include 120GB hard drive in, and 128GB SSD option on, the Air as well. They’re also adding a mini display port, so folks can hook the Air up to the new Apple displays. Cost is $1799, and includes the GeForce 9400M, 1.6GHz processor, 2GB of 1066MHz RAM, and 120GB drive. The second model will cost $2499 and also include the GeForce 9400M, 1.86GHz, 128GB SSD. They will both be available in early November.

You saw me mention something about a new display. Yup, they’re releasing a new LED display too. It’s a thin, 24-inch LED Cinema Display. One cable for AC, another cable has MacSafe so you can power your notebook, and includes USB, and a Mini Display Port. 19200×1200 pixel resolution, built-in iSight camera,  mic, built-in stereo speakers, plus the connectors, and a three-port USB 2.0 hub. Available in November.

And what would any Apple event be without “One more thing”? Jobs announced that Apple is reducing the price of the current Macbook line to $999. Also they are introducing better graphics and a metal frame to a new generation of Macbook. A precision aluminum unibody enclosure, LED display, next-gen graphics, multi-touch glass trackpad, and a Mini Display Port connector. Jobs is claiming it will have 5x the graphics performance of previous Macbooks.

The first new aluminum model will cost $1299 and include a 13.3″ display, 2GHz Core 2 Duo / 3MB L2 cache, 2GB 1066MHz DDR 3 memory, GeForce 9400M, 160GB hard drive, and a slot-loading SuperDrive. The second model will be $1599 and include a 2.4GHz processor, 250GB hard drive, and a backlit keyboard. Upgrades will include more memory, 320GB drive, 128GB SSD, and video adapters, including dual DVI.

When journalists asked questions, one asked if Apple had first dibs on the Nvidia chip. Steve’s response was, “We helped them, and we’re first to take it to market, and maybe the only, but that’s up to them.”

Frankly, this looks very exciting for gamers who want a laptop that is a gaming machine. The price is certainly not that incredibly high for a gaming laptop, and it was great to hear Steve Jobs talk about the speed with which the Macbook Pro would play CoD, WoW, etc. Certainly, having a much better graphics chipset in the Macbook Pro, the Macbook, and even the Macbook Air will improve the chances that more switchers will be interested in purchasing a Mac, and shows that Jobs might be finally hearing the voices of those of us who have been saying all along that gamers are one of those key demographics that Apple has to court to get more users.

But the real question is whether this will actually help with the graphics problems that porting companies such as Aspyr Media have had to deal with when porting games from PC to the Mac. Will it cause more gamers to buy Mac games, thus causing a larger number of original Mac game development to occur? One just can’t tell these things until one waits and watches.