14 DAY TRIAL // While for the vast majority of users, the excitement with Leopard comes from taking advantage of the 300 plus features advertised by Apple, for others, the excitement comes from poking around to find out those things that were never advertised at all.
Every once in a while, Apple gives us clues about their upcoming products through other products that have to support them. Such is the case with Leopard, which holds clues that hint at an upcoming update to MacBooks or the Mac mini.
Deep inside the System folders lie driver files for Intel's GMA X3100 integrated graphics chipset. This driver set is quite relevant as the hardware is only built into the chip maker's mainboards for notebooks based on the Santa Rosa platform. The MacBook Pros currently use the Santa Rosa platform, however, as these models are higher end systems, Apple only ships them with dedicated graphics chipsets from non-Intel providers like NVIDIA. This only leaves the MacBooks and the mini that currently use integrated graphics.
These driver files are easily accessible to anyone that knows in what folders to look, but they are the only clues found so far. What is of note is the fact that these drivers date from October 11th, during the last phases of Leopard development, meaning that the company finalized them mere days before the operating system had to be sent to manufacturing. Apple has a habit of not bundling drivers for unreleased hardware unless the hardware is preloaded with the software. Considering that any new Mac products will come with Leopard, this only lends weight to the speculation.
The MacBook is a logical choice, both because it is a very popular model that sells extremely well and also because Apple is constantly updating it, unlike the mini. However, this could also be intended for new products altogether. Both the MacBook nano, and Mac nano, spring to mind as both have been rumored for some time, and there is plenty of support for them in Apple's recent patents. Similarly, both would be very small and make use of dedicated graphics.