Today Apple made a variety of introductions at an event at the California Theater in San Jose, Calif.
- The MacBook Pro 13″ with Retina Display
- Mac Mini updates; and
- A new iMac family.
Here are the key points on each introduction:
MacBook Pro 13″ with Retina Display
- The new model is about a pound lighter than the previous 13-inch MacBook Pro, and is 0.75 inches thick.
- The 13″ MacBook Pro’s Retina display has more than 4 times as many pixels than its predecessor.
- It has a FaceTime HD camera, dual microphones, stereo speakers, a backlit keyboard, and glass multi-touch trackpad.
- Intel Core i5 or i7 “Ivy Bridge” processors
- Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics.
- 7 hours of battery life
- 8 gigabytes of RAM.
The entry-level 2.5-gigahertz model with 8 gigabytes of RAM is $1699. See the Apple site for details. 
Mac Mini The Mac Mini received an update that offers performance improvements:
- A 2.5-gigahertz dual-core i5 model with 4 gigabytes of RAM and a 500 gigabyte hard drive starts at $599.
- 2.3-gigahertz quad-core i7 server model with 4 gigabytes of RAM and two 1-terabyte hard drives is $999.
- The new Mac mini can be custom configured with up to 16 gigabytes of RAM with build-to-order options.
- A new ‘Fusion Drive’ option combines Flash drive and hard drive performance.
The new iMac family:
- The iMac desktop is 5 millimeters thick;
- 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor + 8 GB RAM + 1 TB drive baseline configuration;
- The new iMac eliminates the optical drive;
- The new iMac is available in 21.5-inch and 27-inch models;
- FaceTime HD camera;
- Dual microphones and a stereo sound system.
- The new design is about 8 pounds lighter than the previous generation.
The 21.5-inch iMac is available with a 2.7 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.2 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M for a suggested retail price of $1,299 (US); and with a 2.9 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.6 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US).
no native FW port on the new iMac, and it looks like you can’t upgrade the RAM anymore on your own – that will make it really expensive to get more than 8 gigs in there :-/
I made the mistake of not ordering enough RAM with a previous Mac. ALWAYS specify what you want and get all you can. With RAM, more is always better.
As for Firewire… Thunderbolt is the new high-speed darling, along with a Gigabit Ethernet port. USB works pretty well for me, but big jobs can call for a hardier format. It leaves a lot of FW users on the downside of things, but that’s the madcap world of consumer electronics. You aren’t a “real man” until you have most of your data scattered across at least 40 safeties and three formats:P.
Thunderbolt to FireWire adapters are $30.
The Mini is looking good. 16 GB Ram is $80 at Crucial, which seems crazy cheap to me.
I’ve been waiting for the iMac refresh for what seems like forever, and I can finally pull the trigger for a new machine in December! I am a very happy camper. You can upgrade the RAM in the iMac, and there are reasonably cheap Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapters ($30 or so)? I will not miss the optical drive one bit.
Ah, good, there’s a FW-to-T-bolt adapter. Those little dickens have saved me repeatedly over many years, occasional noisy impedance mismatches aside. I WILL miss the optical drive, as I make safety copies of many things to disc as well as flash drives. I can see where the formats are going, but I may buy an outboard burner just to keep that option open. Capability is #1 with a computer, but trusting in the level of F**K you can undergo without recent backups is a #2 so close, it breathes down your neck. Besides, optical storage may still work after the nuclear pulse that turns magnetic data into giblets. I’ll need that data to help my maker print me a gun I can use to fight off the zombies.
the Mac mini seems finally very promising for audio production and still has a fiwi port for my audio interface. Only downside is that the HD it comes with is 5400RPM, which i believe is not ideal for audio. Does anybody know wether you can easily exchange the build in HD with a non apple solid state disk?