Aperture 2.0 for tomorrow?

Sources have confirmed our suspicions that a major release of Apple's pro photography software Aperture is coming during tomorrow's pre-Photokina Apple special event.

This version, which should be labelled 2.0, will bring huge performance improvements and some major features that sources did not reveal.

Apple itself has hinted at the release of a new version of Aperture through the invitation it sent to the press, which reminds one of Aperture's retail box.

MacBook Pro updates too?

Last week, a few hours after the news that Apple invited the press to a pre-Photokina special event, MacScoop revealed that Apple was planning to introduce a new line-up of MacBook Pros based on Intel's Core 2 Duo chip, also code-named Merom.

Although we still do not have any confirmation from other sources, many readers reported to us last week that their MacBook Pro orders were set to ship on or after September 25th. Additionally, some U.S. retailers noticed that MacBook Pro stocks were sufficiently low to suspect an imminent update of Apple's top-of the line laptops. It is not the case outside the U.S. though.

Meanwhile, Apple's online store has consistently been showing very good availability for all the MacBook Pro models tagged "Ships: Within 24 hours".

Anyway, in the case there's no MacBook Pro update tomorrow, we can expect the new line-up to be released in a matter of weeks.

MacBook Pro 12 inch follow-up:

As for the ultra-thin 12 inch MacBook Pro that we are firmly expecting to be released in a report we posted in March, we don't believe that it will be coming along with the Merom MacBook Pro update. Sources have actually told us that Apple will not make any major hardware announcement until early 2007.

Now if we look at the facts, we may notice that Intel has recently announced it will be shipping an ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) Core 2 Duo chip for early next year. We don't know if this chip will be used in favour of the Merom chip, but considering the fact it is expected to be an ultra-thin and probably ultra-light laptop, we wouldn't be surprised to see such a chip in it as it would allow Apple to reduce the size and the weight of the battery as well as the overall heat generated by the system.

What you should maybe keep in mind is that we do know there is a 12 inch high-end ultra-thin laptop project at Apple, whatever has been written by other rumour sites, and we feel confident that we'll get confirmation and more details on it soon.