Apple Announces Updated Mac Pro, Multi-Touch Trackpad, More

While the recent iPad and iPhone 4 devices have certainly hogged the spotlight when it comes to Apple product launches, the Cupertino company recently announced some much-needed updates to their Mac Pro and iMac lines that are sure to please power-users everywhere. First up? The Mac Pro gets a makeover.

Early 2009 was the last overhaul of the Mac Pro line we’ve seen from Apple, however starting next month (August 2010), the Mac Pro line will get a power bump. Drool over these specs: up to 12-cores in your system at up to 2.93GHz, an ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory standard (or, you can upgrade to an ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory) running on a PCI Express 2.0 16-lane bus.

New solid-state drive options are available with the option to add up to four 512GB solid-state drives — or any combination of solid-state and hard drives. These new Mac Pro’s will start at $2,499 and will be easily expandable and quite customizable indeed.

Apple’s newest iMac computers will have a starting price of $1,199 and include some upgrades as well including a 21.5-inch monitor (a 27-inch model is also available), 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 processor, 500GB hard drive, and ATI Radeon HD graphics processor.

Hit the jump for all of the details on Apple’s ‘Magic Trackpad,’ new 27-inch LED Cinema Display and a rechargeable battery system. Did you read that last one right? Yes, yes you did. ‘Magic Trackpad.’ Say it with me.

The product that really has people buzzing, is the new Apple Magic Trackpad is the first Multi-Touch trackpad designed to work with your Mac desktop computer. It uses the same Multi-Touch tech you love on the MacBook Pro and it supports a full set of gestures, giving you a whole new way to control and interact with what’s on your screen. Swiping through pages online feels similar to flipping through pages in a book or magazine. And the trackpad’s inertial scrolling makes moving up and down a page more natural. Magic Trackpad will connect to your Mac via Bluetooth so use it in place of a mouse or in conjunction with one on any Mac computer — even a notebook. $69 retail.

Feast your eyes on Apple’s new 27″ LED Cinema Display. I can only imagine how gorgeous it is in person. You get a huge 27-inch glossy widescreen display with a cinematic 16:9 aspect ratio and an astonishing 2560-by-1440 resolution.

With 60 percent more pixels than the 24-inch LED Cinema Display, the 27-inch LED Cinema Display gives you even more room for apps to run side-by-side. Highlights include: LED backlighting, IPS for great viewing angles, built-in 49-watt speaker system including an integrated subwoofer, Apple’s iSight video camera, a microphone, a powered USB 2.0 hub. Priced at $999.

And finally, Apple announced some new green technology and something us gadget-crazy fiends definitely weren’t expecting: a $29 charger for AA NiMH batteries, which fit Apple’s wiress mouse and keyboard. The charger comes with six batteries that Apple says will hold a charge for up to 10 years. 10 years! Finally, you can dump those toxic, single-use alkaline batteries and help save the environment.

As always, for more details and to buy products, head over to Apple’s official site.