I'm not even in the market right now for a new notebook, so of course I am excited about the news but I am more curious how far ahead everything will be in a couple of years. That's just me anyway.
This might also be just me, but some of these comments are pretty crazy.
Some people seem to have some harsh feelings towards the name "MacBook" - but what in the heck is wrong with it? The answer is absolutely nothing - it's a note book that runs Mac: thus, a MacBook (Pro). "PowerBook" would not differentiate with the old model, and names change with big changes like this. A normal consumer, that is, one without emotional attachment to the names of computers, wouldn't care - it's still better than T13205 or "V Series" or whatever nonsense those other companies use.
Still others are interested in comparing with the Acer or other Windows machine. $500 cheaper and such garbage. Yes, $500 makes a big difference, but if you still aren't disillusioned from using Windows, maybe the next disappointment (Vista) will give you new cause to shut the Windows and open new doors. 2 ghz Windows is NOT as fast as 1.6 ghz Mac - think what you'll get done and how high the quality is. For games, right now you're still better with Windows, since toys are toys after all. But for great looking documents, pdf creation, innovative interface and features, and all the other crud at which that the Mac whoops butt, a $500 cheaper XP laptop is nothing more than an expensive joke. The MacBook is expensive, but at least you'll get a machine that gets more done and makes you less angry (hey, it could make you happy, if you're open to it).
Which brings me to my last rant - I probably sound like I think that the Mac OS is a cure-all that can do everything (except games) that Windows fails at. For me, that's pretty much true. For others that need specific software/hardware, obviously it's not that simple. Some people want dual boot and all that - it makes sense, since MS would still make money selling you a crappy OS that you can't escape from, though such a capability would make Apple Computers a viable choice for just about anybody and may in the long-term hurt Windows. The problems I have are (1) that seems a ways off, IF it were to happen, (2) I wonder if there's a gurantee against getting viruses, bugs etc on Windows and then finding new, unexplained problems in Mac or something like that, (3) to some degree it may not catch on very well since you'd still have to pay for an extra OS when that old PC or cheap-turd new one would suffice, (4) I just don't find it to be such a great solution - with the switch to Intel, more apps should work on Mac, and by the time something like dual boot happens, those software companies that haven't made stuff compatible with the Mac may have already made their stuff compatible; allowing a Windows solution may discourage software companies from making software compatible with the Mac itself, which I imagine is the best scenario in most cases. This last one could work out to be a filter that makes it so that those that recognize the potential of Mac make their software compatible and the nincompoops that don't will stay in the Windows solution - now, will you really need their software? I think: you need it now = it has some good to it = smart people are involved in making it = in or before a dual boot situation, it would be Mac compatible = no more need for dual boot (for non-developers anyway).
Maybe that's being too optimistic. Then again, even conservatively guessing, Apple should gain some degree of the market, quite possibly courting game developers and other software developers previously blind to everything other than Windows to make Mac-compatibility a reality. That would lead to greater market share. It's a problem of how easy they make it for the developers, and then, of how well the developers do, since a lot of Windows and Windows-Mac software, in my opinion, is inexcusably buggy and otherwise hard to use.
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So what's the problem with PCs that cause them to perform less-than-par and give insulting error messages? Well, it's not Intel, so....
