MacRumors

Apple has posted a tech note which reveals that some MacBook Pros may be affected by the manufacturing defect reported in July.

At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected.

Apple states that the company will repair affected MacBook Pros within two years of the date of purchase free of charge, even if the MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

Symptoms of affected units include:

- Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen
- No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on

Affected systems were manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008 and could 15" and 17" MacBook Pros with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors. Apple specifically lists the following models:

- MacBook Pro (17-Inch, 2.4GHz)
- MacBook Pro (15-Inch, 2.4/2.2GHz)
- MacBook Pro (Early 2008)

Repair and contact information is listed in the technote.

Apple has invited media to a special "notebook" event on Tuesday, October 14th. BoingBoing analyzed the laptop pictured on the invitation and concluded that it was likely a picture of the rumored 13" Aluminum MacBook.

It's hard to tell from the gloomy marketing shot, but the Apple logo is about 1.5 inches wide on my MacBook Pro. From that, this machine would appear to be under 13 inches wide, which would suggest a 13.3" diagonal. The edges, however don't look at all like the MacBook Air.

The existing MacBooks also come in 13" screen sizes but are housed in a plastic enclosure. This assumes, of course, that the laptop on the invitation is an actual photograph and has not been otherwise altered. This finding is also consistent with circulating rumors and leaked photos that suggest the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines will be consolidated under a similar design.

Meanwhile, Planetamac.es appears to have taken the leaked images and composited them into a mockup of what the new MacBook may look like.

Engadget and Gizmodo have posted the invite for the Apple media event which will take place on October 14th at Apple's campus in Cupertino at 10AM PST. The invite simply reads:

The spotlight turns to notebooks.

Apple has been rumored to be delivering new MacBooks and new MacBook Pros this month. A number of leaked photos have been circulating -- some of which are believed to be real.

Apple appears to be trying to make it easy for developers to learn about iPhone programming. Apple has launched a set of free iPhone developer tech talks across the world.

Don't miss this unique opportunity. The event is free, but space is limited.

Apple technology evangelists and engineers will soon be traveling the globe bringing iPhone development expertise to a city near you. Learn about the tools and technologies you'll use to create great iPhone applications, then work with the experts to optimize your code, refine your user interface, and apply the knowledge you gain from the sessions to enhance the capabilities of your iPhone application.

The 12-hour traveling sessions offer lectures on Objective C, iPhone User Interface Design, Game Development and much more.

The first scheduled talk is on October 22nd in San Francisco, with additional U.S. sessions scheduled for Los Angeles, Austin, Chicago, New York and Seattle. International locations include cities in Europe, India and Asia Pacific.

The Inquisitr claims that some Apple retailers have already been given price lists for Apple's upcoming laptops and that there are 12 price points ranging from $800 to $3100. Current laptops are said to have only have 8 retail price points: 3 Macbooks (starting at $1099), 3 Macbook Pros and 2 Macbook Airs.

There has been speculation that Apple could be dropping prices of their MacBooks ahead of an economic downturn, though analysts predicted the drop would only go as far as $999 (from $1099). An $800 MacBook would represent a $300 drop from the current low-end.

While The Inquisitr has no prior track record with Apple rumors, the owner of the site and author of the report is a relatively established blogger. One potential cause for doubt is that their source claims that "retail outlets usually get the price lists 10 days before products hit the market" which is not true. Historically, price lists have appeared as early as a few days ahead of launch. The longest lead time in recent memory was about four days prior to a Monday iMac launch.

As a result, it might be feasible that (assuming this is true) these rumored product lists could foretell of announcements as early as next week. If so, then we'll likely hear further confirmation from other retail sources shortly.

An Apple.Pro blog has posted three small images of what appear to be a new MacBook case. The casing resembles the MacBook Pro case image leaked earlier today, but clearly represents a smaller screened laptop. Absent are the speaker grills of the earlier image.

From above, the keyboard view is nearly identical to the current MacBook Air case design, but the side shots reveal that it is not simply a MacBook Air case. The new laptop appears to have the larger trackpad found on the MacBook Air. The left side of the case (when facing the computer) houses all the ports as depicted in the earlier photo. Meanwhile, the right side carries a slot for the optical drive.

Apple.pro has been responsible for a couple of other case photos (MacBook Pro, MacBook) in the past few months, and the MacBook Pro one is believed to be real. Today's post however, appears to be from a different blogging account than the previous images.

Engadget publishes what appears to be a MacBook Pro casing possibly consistent with rumors that the new Apple laptops would use a new manufacturing process.

Update: The image was first posted to our forums and originated at a Chinese forum.

With the October 14th date quickly approaching, some are speculating that it may be too late to expect an Apple event to be held on that date. That's not to say that Apple can't release new laptops without a media event.

Most of Apple's laptop refreshes have been simple press-release updates that have not triggered full media events. Though, if the recent rumors of radical new case designs are to be believed, one would think that Apple will want to showcase the new laptops to the media.

A rumor posted earlier this month from tw.apple.pro, however, claimed that there would be no October 14th event and the earliest we should expect updates is November.

We're still not sure what to make of Apple.pro. The Taiwanese blog previously posted photos claiming to be of the new MacBook Pro and new MacBook. While the site has not yet established a reliable track record, Appleinsider claimed their leaked MacBook Pro image was authentic.

Businessweek spoke to some experts about the feasibility of the rumors that Apple will be introducing a new manufacturing process and bringing notebook manufacturing in-house.

iSuppli analyst Kevin Keller believes that while short term costs would rise, there could be a savings over time:

"If you're working with one single unit of metal, you're reducing a lot of the materials costs and also a lot of labor time on assembly"

If true, the results could "be unlike anything else on the market in appearance and design" with elimination of screws and seams. Still, it's unclear if Apple could overcome the fact that such a process is quite time-intensive, and scale it enough for laptop production.

As well, the possibility of Apple investing in its own factories to assemble notebooks is seen as a very expensive and risky move and there appears to be no current evidence that Apple has embarked on such a project.

"I'd be shocked if they started doing any of their own assembly," says Andy Hargreaves of Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Ore. "That's the kind of drastic step that would hurt profits. I'm just not sure what the advantages would be."

Meanwhile, CNet's Adam Richardson, an industrial designer, dismisses some of the rumors claiming that Apple has been using both laser and waterjet methods for quite sometime. He reports that the process described by 9to5mac as applied to a notebook-sized device would be much more expensive than traditional manufacturing and feels it's "unlikely that it will literally be a hollowed out block of aluminum".

Nick Ciarelli describes a recent shift in Apple's strategy to not suppress product leaks in an article at The Daily Beast.

But lately, there are signs that Applelong the most secretive company in the tech worldhas thrown in the towel on fighting leaks. This year, advance details about a number of Apple products spilled onto the web, including photos of the iPhone 3G and the latest lineup of iPod nanos.

Recent product photo leaks including the 4th Generation iPod Nano and iPhone 3G have been left unchallenged by Apple's legal team, whereas, historically, Apple would have issued cease and desist letters to websites hosting such images.

Ciarelli speculates that this change reflects that the fact that Apple rumors are now regularly published by mainstream sites which may not as easily cave to Apple's demands. Apple's previous legal attempts have also legitimized the Apple rumor community and have failed to produce the identities of the leakers.

Ciarelli, himself, is intimately familiar with the topic as he was the owner and editor of ThinkSecret.com, an Apple rumor site that was sued by Apple for the identity of his sources. Apple and ThinkSecret settled in December 2007 in which Ciarelli agreed to shut down the site, but did not reveal any of his sources.

Seeking Alpha summarizes findings by MacObserver forum members who have been compiling iPhone IMEI numbers into a public spreadsheet.

According to those numbers, it appears that Apple may have already reached 10 million iPhone sales for 2008. According to the sequential Type Allocation Codes (TAC), Apple has reached 9.2 million iPhone 3Gs manufactured. When combined with the sales figures 2.4 million 1st generation iPhones sold earlier this year, it brings them well above the 10 million mark even if over a million 3G iPhones remain in the sales channel.

SeekingAlpha notes there are a few assumptions that may introduce some error into these estimates:

The actual number of handsets sold versus manufactured depends on a variety of factors including the amount of inventory Apple carries in its retail chain, defects that were destroyed, defects that were sold and then exchanged, display models etc.

A goal of 10 million iPhone sales in 2008 has been Apple's stated goal when first announced the iPhone in January 2007.

It seems that Apple is taking further care in hiding new iPhone features in their beta releases. The most recent firmware beta seeded to developers listed "compatibility testing" in its release notes as the only change.

We've since heard of a couple of new features buried within the iPhone 2.2 beta. Apple has apparently made underlying changes to the iPhone's frameworks that are not yet exposed to the end user. These findings include:

- Support for Japanese emoji icons (screenshot) -- a popular feature for Japanese phones. The lack of emoji support has been blamed as part of the reason for slow iPhone adoption in Japan.
- Support for Google Street View for the Google Maps application. Street View allows users to view panoramic street level photographs in select cities within the Google Maps application. The feature was recently demoed on Google's Android phone.

Finally, Apple has also addressed one common request within the iPhone's Keyboard settings, allowing users to disable the iPhone's auto-correction.

Apple has not yet announced when the iPhone 2.2 firmware will be available.