Apple Notebook Event: Jobs on Touchscreen Notebooks
by John Paczkowski
Posted on October 14, 2008 at 11:11 AM PT
In a short video, senior Apple designer Jon Ives and other members of Apple’s industrial design team explain the new unibody enclosure. Machining enables a level of precision unheard of in the industry, says Ives. In many ways, these notebooks are more beautiful on the inside than they are on the outside.
There’s a lot of emphasis at this unveiling on environmental concerns, reducing the footprint for manufacturing the new notebooks.
Says Ives: “We’ve refined every detail in service of the user.”
Steve Jobs announces that it’s time for Q&A, but with a caveat. No questions about the economy, he says, or Apple’s financial performance because there will be an earnings report next week. And no questions about “my health,” he adds, as a new slide appears on the big screen above him showing his blood pressure.
As the audience laughs, Jobs welcomes Apple COO Tim Cook and Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, to the stage to take questions from the audience.
Apple (AAPL) does not have an exclusive on the new Nvidia chip, but it will be first to market. “And we’re buying a lot of chips.”
Why no Blu-ray? “Blu-ray is just a bag of hurts,” says Jobs. Apple is waiting things out before “passing that cost burden on to consumers.”
Jobs expects the redesigns to trigger a refresh cycle in both the MacBook and MacBook Pro.
Someone asks why there are no matte screens. Answer: “The vast majority of our customers prefer a glossy finish.”
The 17-inch MacBook Pro is still available, but it has not been refreshed like the other models.
Final question: “Do touchscreens make sense on laptops?” Jobs’s reply: “We’ve experimented with them, but they don’t make a lot of sense to us.”
So no tablet.
And with that, the event is over.
