MacBook

Apple's online store is back up with new MacBook Pros for sale

[UPDATE: The new MacBook Pros, with Thunderbolt, have arrived. See here.]

The yellow Post-It sign was up early Thursday at Apple.com, a sure harbinger that something new is coming

By the time you read this, Apple (AAPL) may have already announced its new line of MacBook Pros.

For blurry photos and speculation aplenty, check out the dozens of posts linked to MacRumors' Wednesday report.

Also on Fortune.com:

A birthday card for Steve Jobs
The speech of MORE

Today in Tech: MacBook Pros refresh coming, Alibaba CEO resigns over fraud

A curated selection of the long weekend's most newsworthy tech stories from all over the Web. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning.

Mac zigs while the PC market zags

Our survey of analysts suggests that Apple is set to report its first 4 million Mac quarter

In the Gartner report issued this week, U.S. sales of Apple's (AAPL) Macintosh computers grew 23% year over year last quarter while overall PC sales (even including the Mac) fell 6.6%.

That's been the story for much of 2010: PC sales weak, Macintosh sales strong.

But the Mac has been on its own trajectory for some MORE

ChromeOS CR-48 Preview

Initial thoughts after the first few hours with Google's ChromeOS reference design laptop.

FedEx dropped off my Google (GOOG) ChromeOS laptop demo unit this morning.  The box has the now famous exploded hamster jet cover art and very few parts inside. I also ironically got a Steve Jobs figurine in the mail today too.  They didn't seem too happy to be in each other's company:

Read on to see the CR-48 in action..

Why ChromeOS still matters

The web-based OS can still be a winner for Google if it can execute.

The word on the street today (and last week)  is that Google's ChromeOS is delayed, or rather that devices running the new web-based OS aren't due until 2011.  Google went on record in May saying there would be "devices" later this "fall".

"We are working on bringing the device later this fall," said Google vice-president of product management Sundar Pichai at MORE

Did Apple sell 4 million Macs?

Back-to-school sales and a refreshed desktop line may have pushed it over the edge

The iPad's been getting a lot more buzz lately, but Apple's (AAPL) computer line is still the company's No. 2 source of revenue (after the iPhone) -- a point likely to be driven home again when Apple reports its fiscal fourth quarter earnings next Monday.

How's the Mac doing? Unit sales, which stalled in Q2 as customers waited MORE

Big Macs on campus

In five years, Apple has switched places with Dell as the student laptop of choice

Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) dropped nearly 2.5% in the opening hour of trading Wednesday thanks in part to a downgrade by Global Equities Research's Trip Chowdhry that included this bulletpoint:

70% of incoming University freshman students are coming with Macs, which is up ~10% - 15% y-y. Microsoft is failing to connect with the new generation of MORE

With iPad, Apple is No. 3 in portables

If you count tablets as notebook PCs, Apple just passed Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell

Apple is usually considered an also-ran in the global PC market.

But the chart at right, taken from a note to clients issued Friday by Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore, tells a very different story.

Whitmore believes that investors will increasing include tablet computers when assessing market share trends, and this diagram illustrates what that might look like.

Starting with MORE

Barack Obama's MacBook Pro

The President may carry a BlackBerry on his belt, but he does his demos on a Mac

Here's a nifty piece of product placement for Apple (AAPL): Barack Obama doing a demonstration of healthcare.gov on a MacBook Pro with the Presidential Seal where the glowing Apple logo used to be.

The video, released Wednesday at WebMD, is pasted below the fold.

There were reports when Obama first took office that his campaign staff, MORE

The white MacBook gets a bit zippier

The machine unboxed Saturday in a Vietnamese YouTube video hits the Apple store

In an unusually anticlimactic product update, Apple (AAPL) quietly refreshed its $999 MacBook early Tuesday with a faster processor, better video chip and longer-lasting battery.

There was no hoopla. No press release. No "We'll Be Right Back" sign at Apple.com -- at least none that anybody with a Twitter account seems to have spotted. Just some new specs MORE