There's already an abundance of rumours prior to Apple's "spotlight turns to notebooks" event taking place in Cupertino, California at 6pm today, but there's always room for more...
Pictured below is what blog-site Engadget claims to be an image of Apple's new MacBook Pro. The unfortunately-blurry capture comes from JR - a source who previously leaked images of Apple's fourth-generation iPod nano.
The image shows what's believed to be a 15in MacBook pro with a glass screen surrounded by a black bezel - similar in style to the current line of iMac systems. Eagle-eyed viewers will note that the system's trackpad is missing a particularly key feature - buttons. Though unconfirmed, it is believed that the system's trackpad adopts multi-touch functionality and consequently does away with the need for physical buttons.
Perhaps more interesting, is further development on the budding friendship between Apple and NVIDIA. Apple's new family of MacBook systems are already rumoured to be dropping the traditional Intel chipset in favour of NVIDIA's MCP79, and today's widespread reports claim that the new MacBook Pro will feature NVIDIA's Hybrid SLI.
The Hybrid SLI setup is believed to take the form of an IGP as well as a GPU, with the system switching between the two as and when required. The result could be improved graphics performance and extended battery life, too.
Also on the rumour mill this morning are suggestions that Apple may be dropping FireWire connectivity from its notebooks, it may be adding DisplayPort to the mix, as well as Blu-ray, and there could be a new range of LED-backlit displays announced, too.
There's no shortage of hype, but will Apple's announcements once again fail to live up to expectations? We'll find out later today, so expect the Apple store to shut down prior to the event and re-open with a handful of new products.
Official product page: Apple.com
