New MacBook Air to Launch at End of June?

What will update bring?

The next refresh will clearly just be a spec bump. Sandy Bridge + Thunderbolt is my best guess. But will they also bring back the backlit keyboard?

I know its not an essential item, but once you have had one, you always want one, and so many other posters here seem to agree.🙄

No refresh until Lion

Obi Wan Kenobi said:

I thought there was another rumour, that there will be no refreshes until Lion is ready. Once it is ready, they will launch the refresh.

🙁

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I was right. Here's the link.
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/1...ac-hardware-updates-until-os-x-lion-launches/

Lahmy88 said:

A Thunderbolt adapter with multiple USB connectors and other assorted connectors would be the ultimate setup, because you can come back to your home office and just plug that and ya magsafe power in and you're ready to go 😉

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OK, I could see using a "hub" dock thing, but it flies in the face of the complete-onto-itself angle that Apple puts into each device. They have a disdain of docks and hubs. Apple is about "stand alone" computing, and they will never provide what you're suggesting. Why does that matter? Because I'm buying Apple for the esthetic as much as the functionality, and no one else will be able to provide anything matching Apple's high level of design. Putting TWO more ports (SD and Ethernet) will prevent a ghetto of 3rd party hubs from littering my desktop and weighing down my bag, and make it MUCH easier when I work at other places OF WORK.

And actually this brings up a separate point, that Thunderbolt's daisy-chaining is problematic for system-critical components such as RAID and displays. That is, the old adage that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I would much rather see a Thunderbolt->Thunderbolt hub/switch for failure isolation and also for flexibility of reorganization.

justaregularjoe said:

HD = Hard Drive
HDD = Hard Disk Drive
SSD = Solid State Drive

"SSD HD" technically isn't incorrect; "solid state drive hard drive" is redundant and wordy, not wrong. Most people just believe that HD is a shortening of HDD. "SSD HDD" would be wrong.
[/nerd]

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It is my impression that a hard drive is another way of referring to the hard disk drive.
At least to my ears you could call the SSD for a Solid State Disk drive, just like you could call the hard disk drive a hard drive.
I may be wrong, but I see the Hard Drive as a general shortening of the Hard disk drive, rather than a category which both the HDD and the SSD belong to.

PraisiX-windows said:

It is my impression that a hard drive is another way of referring to the hard disk drive.
At least to my ears you could call the SSD for a Solid State Disk drive, just like you could call the hard disk drive a hard drive.
I may be wrong, but I see the Hard Drive as a general shortening of the Hard disk drive, rather than a category which both the HDD and the SSD belong to.

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Correct, for disk drives there is no distinction between HD and HDD. It could be either "hard drive" or "hard disk," but always refers to spinning platters. The "H" in "HD" refers to the "hardness" of platters, which is vs. FDD (floppy) and *TAPE* mediums of yore. FD and FDD have suffered the same mixup. Now, the "SS" in SSD shows again the change in medium against a "D)rive" concept. FD/D, HD/D, SS/D, and the extinct T/D. Now, the "D)rive" is archaic for the SS prefix, but it's convention.

Anyway, HD is Hi-Def, and HD for a disk drive is an accepted bastardization. Whoever wrote the original three-way distinction is incorrect.