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With the rumor mill spreading that Apple will release the brand new Aluminum MacBooks on the 14th of October, I’m wondering whether it is too late for them to announce a Special Event in time? Apple have typically held an iPod themed event every year, in either September or October. Well we’ve had the iPod event for this year, so what next? I see the Aluminum MacBooks as far to big an announcement to be just quietly introduced on their website.

Could this be a sign that the 14th of October date circulating is false? Im sure they would love to have these laptops out in time for the holiday season. If indeed Apple does announce an event I suspect the MacBook Air will also receive an overhaul, and should sport the new slim 120GB hard drive found in the latest iPod Classic.

The word on the street is that Apple plan on introducing the new, all aluminum MacBook, on the 14th of this month. Indeed TUAW are running a rumour story that seems to have some plausibility.

Other rumors are also suggesting the new MacBooks will ditch the much maligned Intel ‘onboard’ GPU’s in favour of an NVIDIA MCP7A-U chipset. This is supposedly “the quickest mGPU ever made” and on par with the NVIDIA 9xxx series of graphics cards. Website exPreview provide full details on the spec of this mGPU.

Could Apple finally be seeing the MacBook as a viable gaming platform? Or are they thinking ahead to the release of Snow Leopard? Could be both, but well have to wait and see.

One of the more interesting rumors comes from 9to5Mac who claim the much talked about ‘Brick’ is indeed a term for the manufacturing process of the new MacBooks, and not a code name. It starts with a block (or brick) of aluminum which it then carved to shape using lasers and high pressure water jets. If this is the case it is another sign of Apple taking product design and quality to a whole new level.