There’s little doubt that the Mac community definitely has ants in their pants awaiting OS X Lion, as well as new MacBook Airs, which have most frequently been rumored to arrive alongside OS X Lion. There’s good news, too, as two new reports indicate that BOTH with arrive on July 19th!
While we already know for sure that OS X Lion will arrive in July (Apple said so at the WWDC 2011 keynote), the MacBook Air is less of a certainty, although there’s a lot of logical reasons to think it won’t arrive before Lion, and may arrive at the same time. This report strengthens previous speculation claiming Apple will build 400,000 MacBook Airs to prepare for a July launch.
The rumors so far haven’t indicated that we’ll see any design changes (though I wouldn’t be surprised). The new MacBook Airs are expected to gain a Thunderbolt port (in place of the Mini DisplayPort), as well as their current USB port, and are expected to be equipped with Intel’s new Ultra-Low Voltage Sandy Bridge processors. It’s likely that we’ll see the following processor options:
Core i7-2677M: 2 cores, 1.8GHz (turbos to 2.9GHz), 4MB cache, 17 watts, $317
Core i7-2637M: 2 cores, 1.7GHz (turbos to 2.8GHz), 4MB cache, 17 watts, $289
Core i5-2557M: 2 cores, 1.7GHz (turbos to 2.7GHz), 3MB cache, 17 watts, $250
In case you didn’t think this rumor was exciting enough, it’s also rumored that OS X Lion will be pre-loaded on the new Airs, and will become available for purchase in the Mac App Store on July 19th as well. It’s also worth noting that Apple will be holding their Q2 financial results conference call on that same day. Additionally, July 19 just happens to fall on a Tuesday, which is Apple’s traditional release day for new products.
Additionally, there’s some possibility that new Mac Minis and even new 16-core Mac Pros could surface at the same time, but I’m not holding my breath for a triple-whammy release.