Many of you will have seen images of the original Modbook – it’s a customized tablet style MacBook, with a host of hardware additions and a touch sensitive screen. The makers of the Modbook, Axiotron, have announced the addition of the Modbook Pro to their lineup. The 15.4 inch device is heralded as “the ultimate tablet computer,” combining speed and power with new cutting-edge hardware and software features.

The Modbook Pro uses the components of Apple’s 15-inch 2.8GHz MacBook Pro in a custom designed tablet case. Weighing 6.6 pounds, the Modbook Pro has all the ports and drives found in the MacBook Pro, as well as a GPS device and an assistive technology dual switch port for connecting input devices for people with disabilities.

Hardware

With a thickness of only 0.93 inches, the Modbook Pro is actually thinner than its Apple MacBook base system (difficult to believe, I agree). The outer casing doesn’t suffer from alterations, being constructed from precision machined aluminum. There are no exterior sheet metal or plastic parts, providing unprecedented structural strength in the same way as the default MacBook Pro.

The base system’s battery remains easily accessible on the bottom of the device, although the system differs in offering a black luster finish as supposed to the brushed aluminum of a regular MacBook laptop.

Connectivity wise, the Modbook Pro includes Ethernet, FireWire 800, USB 2.0 (x2), Mini DisplayPort, digital audio, ExpressCard/34 slot and Bluetooth –- plus a three-button keybar for on/off, Mod Key and battery indicator. The upper part of the device houses the Superdrive and a magnetic catch for storing a touch screen pen.

Touch Screen Technology

While admittedly part of the system hardware, the touch screen operation is truly the defining feature of the device. The Modbook Pro employs “revolutionary new Synergy Touch technology” developed by Axiotron. This system allows the addition of pen based input simultaneously to regular touch input (a first for a touchscreen computer).

This allows you to draw or write using the digitizer pen and type text or keyboard shortcut commands all at the same time. An on screen software pad allows you to zoom in and out in a similar fashion to viewing images on the iPhone (or a laptop with the new glass trackpads). The touch screen also has an additional software interface layer (Quicktouch), which can overlay translucent buttons, pads and alphanumeric keys.

Pricing and Availability

Such revolutionary technology certainly doesn’t come cheap, with the Modbook Pro priced at a cool $4,998. There is a current $400 discount available for the Macworld conference, though you’ll need to act fast (before January 19) to receive it. If you already own a MacBook Pro, you can have the transformational surgery to convert it into a ModBook for just over $3000.

Pre-ordering now preserves your place in line when the Modbook Pro ships in May/June 2009, so there’s still somewhat of a wait before you can stake claim to arguably the most technologically advanced Mac available.

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Wednesday at Macworld Expo marked a distinct change from the hectic activity around the keynote and the open of the show floor. The big news today was the announcement of the Best of Show awards from Macworld. The products recognized this year are…

Best of Macworld 2009

• iPhoto ’09
• Cisco WebEx Meeting Center
• Things
• Ecamm Network BT-1 Bluetooth Web Cam
• Filemaker Pro 10
• HP MediaSmart Server
• Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
• Daylite Touch
• Sling Media SlingPlayer for iPhone

Our Impressions

iPhoto ’09 is a great upgrade and worthy of the attention, despite the appearance of Google’s Picassa for Mac as a possible competitor. We love Things around here, and quite a few of us actually use it to try and stay on top of, well, things. We introduced you to the Ecamm Bluetooth Web Cam on Monday. Filemaker Pro 10 is a nice update. I talked to a few developers today that are looking forward to the new scripting features, but the UI overhaul is just something that’s long overdue. Daylite Touch really redefines what an iPhone app is capable of doing. We had a chance to talk with Marketcircle yesterday and will share our impressions of using the app soon. One thing I can let slip now, this is definitely not going to be a $.99 app store purchase. Daylite Touch is a full-featured app that rivals what you can do with a desktop app and you should expect it to be priced accordingly.

The Rest of the Best

The HP MediaSmart Server is a really interesting solution for home users that want to store and share media. SlingPlayer is very cool and something to keep an eye on as soon as it gets released to the app store this quarter. We’ll bring you more info on that announcement soon, along with some details on the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen, and Cisco WebEx Meeting Center.

Other Announcements

If you’ve been wondering what happened to the Xserve RAID team after that product was discontinued, several of them have resurfaced at startup Active Storage. I had a chance to talk with Alex Grossman on Wednesday and I am very impressed with the attention to detail, and the particular attention to the needs of Mac users, that Active Storage has put into their products. If you are looking for high-density storage solutions that you can easily manage from the Mac, you may not need to look any further than Active Storage.

Intelliscanner has a new update to their SoHo and Mini scanners. If one of your New Year’s resolutions was to get organized and catalog stuff around your house, you’ll love this little scanners and the accompanying software.

Axiotron recruited Steve Wozniak to demo their new Modbook Pro this week. The Modbook Pro, as the name suggest, is based on the MacBook Pro system just as the Modbook is based on the Apple MacBook.

Ambrosia, one of my favorite developers, is announcing iToner 2 and WireTap Studio 1.0.7 this week. iToner 2 adds three new features: ClearTone to help get the audio levels right so your ringtones always sound great on the iPhone, cropping tools to edit snippets right in iToner, and 40+ professionally mastered ringtones that you can use right out of the box. WireTap Studio has been updated to improve performance and add some new control schemes .

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It’s likely you’ve heard mention of the Axiotron Modbook, the third party (and only) Apple tablet computing solution, but I like talking about it anyway. Axiotron, a small company operating out of El Segundo, California, won high acclaim for their Modbook, taking best in show at 2007′s Macworld convention.

The Modbook is a converted Macbook, equipped with a Wacom-penabled touchscreen display. It’s a drool-worthy piece of tech, especially for graphic designers who do a lot of field work. And now you can drool even more, because the Modbook now comes complete with Sketchbook Express 2009, an exclusive version of Autodesk’s graphics software.

If you work with Wacom tablets in any kind of graphic design/illustration capacity, then you’ve probably also heard of Sketchbook Pro, formerly of Alias, until it was acquired by Autodesk. Sketchbook Pro 2009 was released earlier this year, finally bringing Intel compatibility to the versatile graphics editing software. I’d previously been a huge fan of Sketchbook Pro, but switched to Corel Painter when the program wouldn’t work on my black MacBook. Getting Sketchbook Pro 2009 was like hooking up with an old friend after a lengthy absence. The Express edition that bundles with the Modbook features much of the functionality of the full version, but users are limited to three layers, whereas the full version supports unlimited stacking.

Currently, Axiotron only offers their service for pre-aluminum MacBooks (no MacBook Pros, either), but they’ve recently committed to supporting new models in the new year. You can get a Modbook either by ordering one directly from Axiotron, or by buying Modservice, which uses your existing MacBook for the conversion. Existing Modbook owners can pick up SketchBook Express free by clicking the download link on the application overview page.

Modbooks start at $2,199, while Modservice using your existing notebook starts at $1,299. Not a bad idea if you have oodles of cash lying around and you’ve just upgraded to a new MacBook and haven’t found a use for your last gen model.

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