Wednesday was a busy day for Apple in terms of announcements. During the Back to the Mac event held in Cupertino, California, Apple CEO Steve Jobs presented several new tidbits regarding the company's Mac line. For Mac fans, the event was likely refreshing and long awaited, considering Apple has somewhat neglected the product to focus on some hotter, more portable items such as the iPhone 4, the iPad, and even Apple TV.

Prior to making announcements on the new features and products, Jobs began by disclosing some positive numbers revolving around the Mac. Jobs noted that Apple claimed 20 percent of the retail market in the United States. He also noted that during 2010's fiscal year, Macintosh sales numbered 13.7 million units. In terms of the company's revenue, the Macintosh was able to claim 33 percent of the Apple pie.

After the statistics were announced, Jobs moved on to detail the release of iLife '11 software for the Mac, which combines the iPhoto, iMovie, and iGarageBand features into one. Those who purchase the new Macs, to be discussed in a minute, will receive iLife '11 for free. Users who recently purchased a Mac can upgrade to the '11 version for $6.99 when it becomes available. Each of the three principal programs that make up iLife '11 are promised to come with plenty of upgrades that surpass previous versions.

Mac fans looking forward to FaceTime will also be happy to know that the free beta version of the video conferencing program is now available for download from Apple's website. To download FaceTime beta, users will need to be running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and they must also have an Apple ID.

Speaking of Mac operating systems, Jobs gave a preview of the upcoming Mac OS X Lion, scheduled to ship in Summer of 2011. Jobs referred to Lion as a combination of the Mac OS with the iPad, although he stated that a touch-screen Mac would not be in the works. Among the iPad features promised to be integrated into Lion are full-screen access and support for multi-touch gestures.

Mission Control was another Lion feature that was previewed, with its ability to neatly group open windows so that users can find and select what they want to view. The Launchpad feature was also discussed, which allows users to see their applications in an organized manner, similar to the iPad and iPhone. In a bit of unrelated news, it was also announced that Apple is in the process of creating an App Store for the Mac, which should become available for Snow Leopard users sometime in January.

Last, but certainly not least, was the introduction of the new MacBook Air, which is now available in two different sized models that are smaller and better than ever.  The 11.6-inch Air comes with a 1.4 GHz processor and either 64 GB or 128 GB of storage for $999 and $1,199, respectively. Meanwhile, the 13.3-inch Air comes with a 1.86 GHz processor and either 128 GB or 256 GB of storage for $1,299 and $1,599, respectively. All of the models come with a Nvidia GeForce 320m graphics card and 2 GB of memory.

For more on this topic, visit the PC World story.

DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware.

More Hardware News Articles
More By wubayou

blog comments powered by Disqus