Product rumors have been fairly quiet on the Apple front recently, but the tech community has begun exchanging whispers about new Macs due in stores soon.

While the world waits for Apple to deliver its highly anticipated touchscreen tablet in early 2010, the nearer future most likely holds upgraded iMacs, Mac Minis, MacBooks and perhaps a new multitouch mouse.

Thinner, groovier iMacs
On average, Apple refreshes its iMacs every seven months, and the last batch of iMacs were released in March. History suggests that new iMacs should arrive any day now.

What’s new about them? Financial publication Barron’s cites research firm Wedge Partners, who claims the new iMacs will sport a “thinner, organic design, likely with smoothed or rounded edges.” That’s reasonable to believe: The current aluminum form factor hasn’t been changed for about two years. The previous white iMac lasted two years before receiving the aluminum makeover. So a new design for the next iMac would make sense. Also, a thinner, rounder design upgrade would be consistent with the look of the new aluminum MacBook Pros.

Corroborating the claim of thinner iMacs, a purported foreign Apple advertisement for a new iMac emerged on Google.nl, stating “iMac: Ultra Thin 20 & 24 inch models. From only €1099. Apple Store.”

Multitouch mouse
The iMac is rumored to be shipping with an extra bonus: a new multitouch mouse, which will presumably sport a touch-sensitive housing to do away with the roller ball on the current Mighty Mouse. Sources told AppleInsider that the new mouse would apply the multipoint touch detection technology seen in the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

A new iMac is the perfect opportunity for Apple to roll out a new mouse. Wired.com believes a multitouch mouse should function similarly to the unibody MacBook trackpads, which detect multitouch gestures. On new MacBooks, tapping the trackpad with two fingers triggers a right-click function, for example; this rumored multitouch mouse might copy this behavior. Also, for a mouse, we would expect a multitouch gesture to replace scrolling in different directions, and perhaps there will be special gestures that trigger Exposé commands as well.

New White MacBooks

Remember the MacBook? You know, that lone white notebook in the Mac family. Rumors say the MacBook will soon receive a design overhaul and be joined by additional models. Not much is known, other than that the new MacBooks will reportedly be thinner and lighter, and the internal architecture will be reworked. Financial blog Barron’s cites research firm Wedge Partners, who claims the MacBook redesign “is likely to be limited.” That’s vague, but we think many of us would consider thinner and lighter to be a “limited” redesign (i.e., not mindblowingly exciting).

Mac Mini
Last and definitely least, there have been scarce rumors about a new Mac Mini also launching with the iMac and MacBook. Apple’s treatment toward the Mac Mini has been inconsistent with its other products: The company waited 600 days before releasing the current Mac Mini, and the upgrade was only minor; it introduced no changes to form factor. Mac Mini customer feedback suggests the device is being used for niche applications including cheap server setups, digital music servers for audiophiles and replacements for Windows PCs.

From WIRED.com

http://go.tagjag.com/ssd – Don’t worry, the video isn’t messed up. I was just messing with you. Things can be so much faster when you have the right hardware. There’s always a slow component… and that’s usually your hard drive… unless you have an SSD!

Today Apple released two new firmware updates for the “Late 2008″ Macbooks, including the Macbook Pros and Macbook Airs. I am very pleased to say that the updated fixed a sleep-wake issue I was experiencing with my Macbook Pro. Often times when I would put it to sleep by closing the lid, it would not come awak when I open the lid. To fix the issue, I had to shutdown the computer then turn it back on. Fortunatly, this latest update fixes that issue, as well as other stability issues. Apple also released a firmware update to make the battery indicators more accurate.

The sleep-wake issue was the only problem I had with this Macbook Pro. No complaints about it at all.

See Also:

• About SMC Firmware Update (Apple)
• About EFI Firmware Update (Apple)

Hoje chegou cá a casa o novo MacBook Pro da Apple e depois de fazer umas instalações, actualizações e afins… decidi fazer um pequeno benchmark para testar o quão mais rápido ele é em relação ao meu actual Macbook.

Como a mim não me interessam performances gráficas e afins limitei-me a olhar para desempenho puro e duro. Fiz 3 testes muito simples em Python e coloquei o teste a correr nas duas máquinas sem mais nenhum software a correr:

MacBook: 13.3″ – CD – 2.0GHz – 2GB – 60GB
Tiger 10.4.11

T1 (sum up to 10000000): 4.1987991333
T2 (write 4000000 lines to test.txt): 6.36051106453
Primes up to 10240000   679461
Primes up to  5120000   356244
Primes up to  2560000   187134
T3 (Sieve Test): 8.25397205353
Total: 18.8134880066

MacBook Pro: 15″ – C2D – 2.4GHz – 2GB – 200GB
Leopard 10.5.2

T1 (sum up to 10000000): 3.23496198654
T2 (write 4000000 lines to test.txt): 5.20681214333
Primes up to 10240000   679461
Primes up to  5120000   356244
Primes up to  2560000   187134
T3 (Sieve Test): 6.45210886002
Total: 14.8940739632

O tempo total levado pelo Macbook Pro foi cerca de 20% mais rápido que o MacBook (se considerarmos o Macbook como referência) o que é natural mas honestamente pensei que conseguisse ser um pouco mais. Afinal o meu Macbook tem já 2 anos.

Já agora se quiserem correr este script no vosso Mac para comparar com estas duas máquinas podem fazer download do script de benchmark e corrê-lo com:

python test1.py

Depois deixem aqui nos comentários os vossos resultados para comparação. Se tiverem sugestões de outros testes que gostariam ver feitos podem também sugerir nos comentários.