Apple unveiled a number of firmware upgrades aimed at addressing several hardware problems experienced by owners of newly-introduced MacBooks, including the MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

The firmware updates were designed to improve stability of the new laptops introduced in October, Apple explained in a note.

“This update improves the stability of MacBook computers and addresses issues with sleep-wake, USB and device compatibility.”

Kena Kai, the lifestyle gear designers, offer this $80 luxurious leather notebook sleeve, cut and embossed to recall the “INTER-DEPARTMENTAL MAIL” envelopes found once upon a time in every office.

The case features durable full-grain white Italian leather in two sizes, the larger of which, with an interior compartment size of 12.8″ x 9″ x 1.2″ is designed for the new MacBook and the MacBook Air. The smaller sleeve, for $10 less, fits smaller machines that Apple doesn’t make…so who cares.

Via MacMerc

In spite of the general economic downturn, ‘Black Friday’ sales of Apple computers were “better than expected,” analysts told investors Monday.

Like past Black Friday sales, Apple offered discounts on seven products with an 8 percent discount.

However, Mac sales we more than six times what they were in November, according to Piper Jaffray. Analyst Gene Munster said an average of 13 Macs per hour were sold Friday compared to two computers per hour in November. Munster based his numbers on 10 hours of monitoring five Apple retail stores.

Apple’s latest lstandalone Cinema Displays, the 24″ widescreen with LED backlight technology announced in August, have shipped and began arriving Wednesday for customers also fortunate enough to own Apple machines with mini-Display port connectors.

The new 21lb bright, shiny things work only with the new MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks and the Macbook Air, a limitation puzzled over by many in the wake of the August announcement, but now that they are here, object lust would seem to be kicking in predictably for many.

Ars Technica blogger Clint Ecker did an unboxing first impressions post on Wednesday, a few shots from which can be seen in the gallery below. Of note is the high-gloss reflectivity of the display glass and the fact that Mac OS X elegantly defers to the display’s iSight instead of the notebook’s. It also uses the USB audio on the display, disabling the output on the notebook until you plug into the notebook’s headphone jack. Ecker says the Cinema Display appears “slightly brighter” than the display on a similarly sized iMac.

Via Ars Technica

Apple could release an $800 netbook in 2009, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster told investors Tuesday. Munster is just the latest advising the Cupertino, Calif. computer maker to offer an inexpensive laptop.

Although CEO Steve Jobs has poo-poohed talk of a netbook, dismissing the growing trend as just a “nascent market,” Munster believes Apple has the perfect platform: the MacBook Air.

In a note to clients, the Apple watcher said Apple could release an 11-inch version of its MacBook Air notebook and sell the unit for between $800 to $1,000.

MacBook fans are in an uproar after discovering the new laptops contain hardware-based copyright protection that prevents the viewing of iTunes movies on some external displays, such as a second monitor or a projector.

“This movie cannot be played because a display that is not authorized to play protected movies is connected,” is the warning MacBook users receive when using an external display that doesn’t support the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) protocol.

The HDCP technology is part of Apple’s Mini DisplayPort Content Protection built into MacBooks. Hollywood studios looking to protect their movies appreciate the 128-bit copy protection measures included in DisplayPort, according to reports.

I walked into the Apple Store in San Francisco tonight fully expecting to walk out with a brand-new MacBook Pro — the 2.53 GHz model, if at all possible. After 30 minutes playing with all of Apple’s latest laptops, I was stunned to find myself instead walking out the door with a 2.4 GHz MacBook and a smile on my face.

The Top Line: The Aluminum MacBook is the perfect heir to the 12″ PowerBook G4. It’s light, rugged, and meant to be used as a true laptop — it actually runs cooler than my 12″ PowerBook from 2003. Apple hit it out of the park with this thing, and I couldn’t be more delighted. To learn why, click through.

Now we’ve seen them, now we know. The new MacBooks and MacBook Pros are quite nice in some respects, and quite frustrating in others.

What amuses me about the whole thing, though, is how astoundingly far-out some of the pre-event speculation was. It’s always part of the fun, exploring the gamut of people’s expectations and imaginations as they dream up the kind of product they’d like Apple to create for them.

My favorite this year was the iMac-as-docking-station concept, which showed an iMac-like monitor with a huge hole in one side, into which a folded MacBook could be slotted. A nice fantasy indeed, but still a fantasy. And Apple’s not in the business of fulfilling every fanboy’s fantasy.

No, Apple’s in business to make profit, like every other computer manufacturer. As such, it’s product development decisions are, and will be, driven by the profit they can be reasonably expected to generate.

I swung by the San Francisco Apple Store this afternoon, and employees told me that, while old-skool MacBooks were out on the floor, they had the new stuff in the back room and it was all ready for purchase. Resisting the urge to buy one sight unseen, I vowed to come and play with the new collection tomorrow, once the demo units are out.

Joe Russell, on the other hand, went for the early purchase and made it first to unboxing:

First thing I noticed on the trackpad, the entire surface is in fact not a clickable button… but rather the lower two-thirds. And as far as it being glass, it feels more like the original textured surface of the trackpad on the MacBook Pro.

Be sure to check out the full gallery. The spongy tab to pull the machine out is ingenious.

I’ll be back this weekend with a report on unboxing the MacBook Pro, if all goes according to plan…

Flickr via TUAW

Apple promised that it would finally pull its attention off the cash cow iPhone and iPod product lines to spotlight notebooks at an event this morning, and they weren’t kidding. New MacBook, new Air, new Pro, and a new matching Cinema Display for good measure. The design team absolutely hit it out of the park on these machines, which are all glass, shiny black accents, and subtly tapered corners. Like the iMac whose design they refine and make significantly more appealing, these machines look like they were just made to sync with an iPhone or iPod touch (and, if anything, they make the continued use of white plastic docks for those devices look increasingly incongruous). This is Apple’s best design work, and it’s for a Mac — something we haven’t seen since the 12″ PowerBook G4 that I’m typing on was introduced. Read on for the Pros and the Cons…