MacBook Pro officially ships. Faster than announced.

The new MacBook Pro was introduced last January on Macworld San Francisco 2006. Steve Jobs presented a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Intel Core Duo processors, the 1.67 GHz model selling at $1999 and the 1.83 GHz model at $2499. Jobs then announced that the new Mac portables will begin shipping on February 7. However, February 7 came and went but no MacBook Pros were in sight. The rumor mill spewed out that the MacBook Pro's availability is pushed to March.

However, Apple pulled another surprised after the release of the 1GB iPod nano. MacBook Pro portables will start shipping today and not only that, the two models were each given a speed bump without any added costs. So, those who were expecting a 15-inch 1.67 GHz MacBook Pro will instead get 1.83 GHz, and those expecting 1.83 GHz will get 2.0 GHz. Potential buyers can also upgrade to 2.16 GHz for $300. The rest of the features and configurations remain the same. Shipping is back to 3-4 weeks. I earlier saw 1-3 days. Apple is really having a fun time keeping people off-balanced. TUAW reports that MacBook Pros are already shipping. Some readers have confirmed it, with one that is set to arrive at Shanghai on Feruary 18.) Someone has put up photos of the MacBook Pro and its packaging on Flickr.


One question still remains to be answered: How's the battery life? Scrolling down to the bottom of the page of the "What's Inside" page, it states "Battery life depends on configuration and use." I guess I will have to wait for real world testing from those who will be getting the MacBook Pro within the week.

I think Apple will be releasing new stuff every two weeks or at the very least, every month. What's next? MacBooks? I don't think there will be any iTablet soon since Apple is still looking for an engineer who will be responsible for advancing gesture and handwriting recognition in Mac OS X.

With the speed bump and official release of the MacBook Pro, analysts see a potential increase in the PC market share for Apple. However, the Expresscard/34 slot may deter 3G or UMTS subscribers from buying the MacBook Pro.