Q:

Homepage animation intro ala apple.com

How can I mimic Apple.com's intro animation first used with the updated MacBook Air & Currently with the iPad 2? 

A:

I would do the following:

Create the website with everything shown as normal
Add display: hidden; (CSS) to every visible element on the page
Use jQuerys' fadeIn() to fade in the elements
Use setTimeout() to time these fadeIn()'s to get the desired effect

Something like this: http://jsfiddle.net/wcqzd/ - it needs some work but it should give you a good base.