Being the Mac fanatic that I am I write this post with much excitement and fervor. A few hours ago I had posted to my blog about Kevin Rose's predictions and how I thought he would be right on the money. Well Steve Job's keynote rolled to a close a few minutes ago, and for the second time since the announcement of the iPod nano, Mr. Rose has been correct!

Steve Jobs always saves the best for last with his, "one more thing" announcement. Tonight as it was at MacWorld 2003, the announcement was a new portable computer (Apple MacBook Pro). But, unlike 2003, it won't be a new PowerBook, ever.

Yep, tonight Apple released its first Intel-based portable computer the MacBook Pro. Steve says, "it's a new name because we're kinda done with power, and we want the name the Mac name in our products."

Just like the new line of laptops we saw at CES2006 the Apple MacBook Pro will run on Intel Core Duo. This 15.4-inch widescreen laptop is available either as a 1.67 GHz or 1.83Ghz model both with 667MHz frontside bus. The former comes with an 80GB SATA HDD, 512MB DDR2 RAM and 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor while the latter comes with a 100GB SATA HDD, 1GB of DDR2 RAM and a 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 Card. Apple promises that they will be 4x faster than the old Powerbooks (my Powerbook is old, boohoo) and just like the new iPods, they are also thinner.

New features include built-in iSight (webcam), support for the included Apple remote, and a new power adapter with MagSafe technology - if someone trips over your wire you precious baby will not drop along with it.

The Apple MacBook Pro also borrows some cool old technologies from the now obsolete Powerbook including a 1440x900 resolution, Wifi, Bluetooth, a SuperDrive (DVD Burner), DVI support, Backlit keyboard with ambient light sensor, and Trackpad with two finger scrolling. It comes with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and the newly announced iLife 2006.

The Apple MacBook Pro starts shipping in February for $1,999 and $2,499 for the 1.67Ghz and 1.83Ghz models respectively. You can pre-order them online now. That's about a month for me save my pennies. If only my boss at MobileWhack will give me a raise (hint).

More info at Apple.com.