Odds and Ends: new wireless keyboard, in-plane switching screen/monitors, dual hard drive Mini, more

We’re not sure we can remember any Apple non-event (and few events) with so much new hardware announced.  As we look through the announcements, we’re finding interesting little updates and new technologies.

One such update is the Apple Wireless Keyboard.  Striving for continuous improvement, Apple’s Wireless Keyboard now only needs to use two AA Batteries instead of three.  This makes it slightly lighter than the previous version.  The design is otherwise unchanged.

Apple’s new 27" iMacs can be used as monitors for other machines using the Displayport-in slot.  While it is hard to imagine needing something like this for computers (the iMacs are pretty fast), these would make a nice gaming monitor or even a nice small-medium sized HDTV display – if That also use DisplayPort.  Also FYI, the 27" iMac with its 2560×1440 display costs $100 less(!!!) than Apple’s 2560×1600 30" display alone.  We’re not so sure this 30" Cinema Display will be around much longer.

Another new technology that Apple is touting is in-plane switching (IPS) on the new iMacs.  This technology allows LCDs to have viewing agles similar to old fashioned CRT displays.

The 1TB Mac Minis don’t use the new 1TB Western Digital drives that we had originally thought.  They use two 500GB drives.  As far as we can tell, they didn’t make the case any bigger.  So how’d they do it?  Update – they took out the DVD drive and it now it is just block of aluminum.  We’ll know more when the first of the tear aparts are done (iFixit?  TechRestore?)

The MacBook has a new (plastic) Unibody design but is the same thickness as the previous version.  It is significantly lighter however, and has a full sized touchpad just like the MacBook Pros.  It also get an internal battery ending Apple’s use of replaceable batteries in Laptops

Apple has chosen to go with 16:9 screens in the iMacs.  While this is a controversial decision, it would allow iMacs to play 1080P, the BluRay dimensions, without letter-boxing…except that Apple didn’t include a BluRay option.  Also, iMacs are often the first in Apple’s lineup to get new technologies so it wouldn’t urprise us to see  16:9 going down the line of products in the future.