Get the picture?

But for now, not many MacBook Pro owners fall into that category. No doubt if you're working with a lot of video, especially high-def video, and you want to be able to edit that video in real time on the go, Thunderbolt should be a boon. For the rest of us, it's a little early to tell how much it will figure into day-to-day use. In fact, it's not easy even finding peripherals that use Thunderbolt so you can take advantage of its speed. LaCie, for, instance, has a variety of -- but they won't be out till this summer.

Apple's move to incorporate the technology -- and essentially skip the bandwagon toward USB 3.0 -- is a bit of a gamble. It's betting that its customers in the years to come will be doing more with things like high-definition video and looking to move as much of their data around in as short a time as possible. If they're right, Apple's ahead of the competition in a serious way. If not, this could wind up being a serious, but seriously nichey, technology for only a small number of users.

What does offer a lot of promise for many users is the new webcam built into the MacBook Pro. Apple has had built-in webcams in its laptops for years, and boosting the resolution of the cameras now is a smart move. A built-in hardware encoder that's part of the integrated graphics chip is what makes the HD video possible.