Intel Promotion Appears to Reveal Forthcoming Core i5-Based MacBook Pro

Spanish site faq-mac.com reports [Google translation] that chipmaker Intel has sent an e-mail to members of its Intel Retail Edge program touting a chance for participants to win one of two MacBook Pro notebooks based on Intel's new Core i5 processors during the month of January. Apple's MacBook Pro line currently utilizes Intel Core 2 Duo processors.

093818 intel retail edge i5 mbp

Other sources have confirmed that similar promotional e-mails have gone out to program participants in the United States and United Kingdom. Intel's Retail Edge Program is targeted at employees of retail stores that offer Intel-based products for sale, and offers them training opportunities to increase their knowledge of Intel products as well as contests and special discounts.

Early benchmarks have shown the Core i5 processors to hold significant performance advantages over the Core 2 Duo line, with similar battery life for systems based on the two lines. As noted by our Buyer's Guide, the MacBook Pro is nearing the end of its typical lifecycle, having last been updated in June 2009.

Apple is reportedly scheduled to be holding a media event in San Francisco at the end of this month, where it is widely expected that the company will introduce its long-anticipated tablet device. It is unknown whether Apple would also take that opportunity to introduce revised notebook offerings or if it would do so at a separate time.

Related Forum: MacBook Pro

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPad And Calculator App Feature 1

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...