Lions and Apps and Airs, Oh My.

Here we are in October and its time for yet another Apple announcement were Uncle Jobs get’s to tell us how to spend our holiday dollars.

This years Mac announcement contained 3 major talking points:
– A remodel to the current MacBook Air
– Mac App Store
– A new version of iLife
– A sneak peak at some of OS X Lion’s new features

First thing I’ll cover will be the Air.  The old MacBook Air was a staggeringly under powered piece of hardware that never seemed to quite take hold in a world of already “pretty thin” MacBook Pros;  this new Air is seeking to change that.

Here is a quick overview:
– Comes in two sizes  11.6″ and 13.3″
– Main feature is “instant on” a version of hibernation with Apples functionality.
– Battery life: 11.6″ 5 Hours — 13.3″ 7 Hours (both models have 30 days of standby time)
– All flash storage 64 Gb to 128 Gb(the Air has approximately 15 sec cold boot times)
– Glossy screen
– Non-upgradable RAM (so buy it with the Ram you want because there’s no adding it later)
– 2x USB ports, Mini Display port, headphone jack, and SD card slot (SD only available on 13.3″)
– 1.4 GHz to 1.86 GHz Core2Duo depending on model
– Nividia 320M Graphics

If you want the nitty gritty specs you can visit Apple site here.

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Another key piece of cool is Apps for the Mac.  Like the apps that are already in the iOS app store Mac Apps will be free and paid (Steve quotes a 70/30 split) and run on you mac in full screen.  The Mac App Store will be available for Snow Leopard in 90 days or less.

The next big news was the newest update to the iLife software suite (Garage Band, iPhoto, iMovie).  Because there weren’t any unbelievable changes I won’t spend too much time on this one.  As with any update of Mac software, Apple tries to make thing easier and “better” than previous versions; iLife ’11 is no different.  Gizmodo.com has a great article in which they cover the best parts of iLife ’11 so for a quick run down you can click this link.

Last but deffinatly not least is a sneak peak at OS X Lion.  Set to release in Summer 2011, this interation of OS X will borrow some key features from iOS and meld them into OS X’s desktop and laptop experience.

– Mission Control — This is a feature coming to Lion that will consolidate Espose’, dashboard, spaces and the new Mac Apps that were announced today.
– Facetime for Mac
– New interface options that take design ques from the iPad.  In my opinion it seems like an iPad that appears over the OS X desktop.

I am really excited to see OS X Lion when it releases but I am even more anxious to get my hands on the Mac App Store.  I don’t really think that the Air platform has much more going for it than it’s previous version, however, the choice of two separate sizes will help it in the market place.

What do all of you think?  Is the Air worth it? Are Apps for Mac a good idea? Are you ready to hear the Lion’s roar?

About Jesse (The Pen of Doom)

A small time blogger with big time dreams and a love for everything geek.
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