Apple has updated its MacBook Pro line to include 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch models featuring a longer lasting battery, and also unveiled the new, more powerful Mac OS X Snow Leopard, building on the success of Leopard.

Each MacBook Pro includes an LED-backlit display with greater color intensity, the innovative glass multi-touch trackpad, an illuminated keyboard, an SD card or ExpressCard slot, a FireWire 800 port and state of the art Nvidia graphics.

The MacBook Pro line is more affordable than ever, with some models at lower prices than the previous generation, and feature a built-in battery for up to 40 per cent longer battery life. The industry’s greenest notebook lineup, every Mac notebook achieves EPEAT Gold status and meets Energy Star 5.0 requirements, setting a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design.

“Across the line, all of our new MacBook Pro models now include Apple’s innovative built-in battery for up to seven hours of battery life, while staying just as thin and light as before,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.

“The aluminium unibody MacBook Pro is more affordable than ever and sets a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design,” he added.

All MacBook Pro systems feature Apple’s revolutionary aluminum unibody design and for the first time can be upgraded with up to 8GB of RAM, and up to a 500GB hard drive or up to a 256GB solid state drive. The 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models can also be upgraded to a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

All MacBook Pro systems include a next generation, industry-standard mini DisplayPort to connect with the 24-inch Apple LED cinema display.

Apple has also updated the incredibly thin and light MacBook Air, making it more powerful and more affordable. Measuring just 0.16 to 0.76-inches thin and weighing just three pounds, the MacBook Air is available in two models, a 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 120GB hard drive and Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics, and a 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with a 128GB solid state drive and Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics.

Each unibody enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass.

All MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models contain no brominated flame retardants and use internal cables and components that are PVC-free. The built-in battery design results in less waste and depleted batteries can be replaced, including installation and disposal of your old battery in an environmentally responsible manner.

Every MacBook Pro comes with Apple’s innovative iLife ’09 featuring iPhoto for managing photos, iMovie for making movies and GarageBand for creating and learning to play music. Every Mac also runs Leopard, the world’s most advanced operating system, featuring Time Machine, an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac; Spaces, an intuitive feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; Mail with easy setup and elegant, personalized stationery; and iChat, the most advanced video chat.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Apple has also unveiled Mac OS X Snow Leopard, an even more powerful and refined version of the world’s most advanced operating system and the foundation for future Mac innovation.

Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies, out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange and new accessibility features. Snow Leopard will ship as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard users in September. Snow Leopard requires a minimum of 1GB of RAM and is designed to run on any Mac computer with an Intel processor.

“We’ve built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shut