Gary SteelApple has done it again. Its new MacBook Pro has an I/O called Thunderbolt, which the company is claiming is “the fastest, most versatile I/O ever in a notebook.”
In other words, any of the other unfortunate producers of notebooks are going to get besieged to come up with something similar.
Thunderbolt is designed to enable easy connection with high-performance peripherals, and boasts of a pipeline that is 12 times faster than FireWire 800 and up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0, while offering “unprecedented expansion capabilities.”
The Thunderbolt port will allow the user to daisy-chain as many as six devices, with support for video and eight-channel audio; and using the HDMI adaptor it’s easy to connect the TV and stereo.
As you would expect, the new MacBook Pro are faster, although you need to get either the 15 or 17-inch version to benefit from quad-core Intel Core i7 processors.
The coolest feature for a lot of non-geek users will be the FaceTime HD camera, which allows the video capture of more people on its wide screen, and mimics the feature on iPhone 4.
But while the new MacBook Pro is exciting for Mac users, what the crowds are really braying for is the second version of the revolutionary iPad.
Apparently, Apple are set to unveil the new iPad on March 2… but don’t take our word for it. The rumour-mill has it that the new iPad will contain a front-facing camera, allowing for Skype chatting. Inevitably, the new iPad will be thinner, but contain a better speaker. 
