Apple Notebook Event: The Unibody Enclosure

Steve Jobs invites Jon Ives, senior vice president for industrial design, to the stage to explain the evolution of Apple’s design and manufacturing process. Looks like the “brick” manufacturing process could be true. …

Ives describes how excess aluminum left over from the original piece used in manufacturing is recycled throughout the process. The precision aluminum unibody enclosure that Apple used in the MacBook Air, he notes, is now being extended to the rest of the Mac notebook lineup.

Jobs returns to the stage. He explains that chipmaker Nvidia approached Apple (AAPL) about a new graphics chip that could be used in desktops. Apple decided to adopt it for laptops, however. The chip, called GForce 9400M, delivers graphics up to five times faster than Apple’s current graphics chips.

New notebooks will boast a multi-touch glass trackpad. The entire trackpad is the button.

The trackpad supports multifinger gestures, including some new ones. Four-finger gestures can control AMD app-switching.

A full-glass instant-on LED displays all connectors on one side. The notebooks feature next-gen graphics, mini-display port connector and a magnetic latch.

And they’re environmentally responsible. The unibody design, for example, requires only half the number of parts of Apple’s previous notebooks.

Jobs passes a chassis around the audience, and it is, indeed, very slick. “A tour de force of engineering,” says Jobs. Holding one of these in your hands, it’s tough to disagree.

More coming …