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New MacBook Air Due This Wednesday?

3g

drayon said:
Sources close to Apple point out two new models with 3G and Backlit keyboards.
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Personally I could not care less about 3G. Two years ago I did care. Now (that my phone has mobile hotspot) I do not. Apple is too late to the game on this if they release it now. Though I suspect it would be an appealing feature for many and it is a natural extension of their current relationships. Lets hope they don't make us all pay for it :)

I welcome all positive news concerning the backlighting of the keyboard. This does not really tell us if it is stock or an upgrade (and if it will be available on the cheaper 11"/13"). Not that I trust such a rumor dropped over here, but... :)
 
DaGreat01 said:
I don't think it's true. If anything, they would release them after lion is released so they are shipped with the latest OS X version.
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I don't think so. It'll be a free download via the App Store and so would automatically introduce another couple of hundred thousand people to the App Store.

Also, if the Air is ready, why wait and risk delays with OS X Lion also delaying a load of hardware that'll slowly be going "out of date"?

I think (hope) the Air is coming out sooner rather than later. Apple want to push forward thunderbolt and so need to get thunderbolt-ready harware out into the real world.
 
Any chance this will have better than Intel 3000 graphics? I want to game but its an extra $1,300 for a 15" MBP with 256gb SSD where I am at.
 
I highly doubt 4gb RAM standard... why would Apple cannibalize their huge profit margins from making you BTO an extra 2gb for 100 dollars?

Maybe they'll have an "Ultimate" config with 4gb RAM built in as one of the standard options. But I wouldn't put even a single dollar on 4gb RAM being on the 64gb SSD base model for 999.
 
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Trauma1 said:
Tilpots said:
Any chance these MBAs might include a touchscreen? And while I'm dreaming, dual boot OSX and iOS?
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Can you list any practical advantages of such a dual boot on a laptop?

Apple has done extensive research and has publicly spoken out against touchscreen on vertical surfaces. A laptop is too unwieldily to hold horizontally, not to mention there's something called an iPad.

I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a joke because those are both pretty ridiculous ideas, but you made another response. So I'm curious to see what actual advantages there are, if any.

Tilpots said:
It's brought so many changes to Apple, Lion will take major cues from it. To be able to dualboot would make a MBA a truly revolutionary device instead of an evolutionary one. Doubt we'll see something like that this week, but it's time is coming.
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Yes, the whole point of the "Back to the Mac" theme was so that the full OS would incorporate successful (and practical) elements from an iOS. As there is more incorporation, the full OS and iOS would become more and more similar, thus closing in the gap between the two. So having a dual boot would be contradictory.

There's always Launchpad in OS X Lion if one really wants to feigning an iOS.
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Apple could make a laptop whose screen turns around and lays flat. Then you could have a laptop and an iPad in one machine.

When they updated the Air last Fall, they said it was a laptop/iPad hybrid, which was mostly a load of crap; They tried to sell the trackpad as the 'touch' part of the iPad.

However, I think a true hybrid, as above, is quite doable. I wouldn't mind seeing it in the future.
 
nebulos said:
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Apple could make a laptop whose screens turns around and lays flat. Then you could have a laptop and an iPad in one machine.

However, I think a true hybrid, as above, is quite doable. I wouldn't mind seeing it in the future.
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Tablet PC laptops never took off and they're on their way out.
 
nebulos said:
Apple could make a laptop whose screen turns around and lays flat. Then you could have a laptop and an iPad in one machine.

When they updated the Air last Fall, they said it was a laptop/iPad hybrid, which was mostly a load of crap; They tried to sell the trackpad as the 'touch' part of the iPad.

However, I think a true hybrid, as above, is quite doable. I wouldn't mind seeing it in the future.
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I doubt Apple would make a swivelling laptop, it's not their style. As I see it, the don't really like moving parts, and when they do, the less movements per part the better, as it results in a far sturdier design
 
nebulos said:
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Apple could make a laptop whose screen turns around and lays flat. Then you could have a laptop and an iPad in one machine.

When they updated the Air last Fall, they said it was a laptop/iPad hybrid, which was mostly a load of crap; They tried to sell the trackpad as the 'touch' part of the iPad.

However, I think a true hybrid, as above, is quite doable. I wouldn't mind seeing it in the future.
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Apple never said the latest iteration of the Macbook Air was a laptop/iPad hybrid. That connotes a true merging of two inherently different type of products. Apple did say that they were moving some hardware features from the iPad into their notebook line where it makes sense to, most notably the elimination of an HDD or SSD enclosure and building flash memory directly onto the board. The Macbook Air has had multitouch since its origin.

I can't help but assume that the conventional wisdom in 2010-2011 on such a product is that it would result in a compromised tablet and a compromised notebook, which would ultimately result in a less optimal user experience.

Such a product would be heavier and have less battery life than an iPad and having a larger capacitive display would result in a much more expensive notebook.
 
Last edited:
jb1280 said:
Apple never said the latest iteration of the Macbook Air was a laptop/iPad hybrid.
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I wasn't too sure about that one, either. I was about to pull up the keynote presentation to see if anyone actually referred to the MBA as a "laptop/iPad hybrid" because I certainly do not remember it.
 
TSE said:
Realistic expectations:

11" MacBook Air
Core i5 ULV processor
4 GBs of RAM
64 GB SSD
7 Hour Battery Life
Thunderbolt Port
$999

11" MacBook air
Slightly faster Core i5 ULV processor
4 GBs of RAM
128 GB SSD
7 Hour Battery Life
Thunderbolt Port
$1199

13" MacBook Air
Core i7 ULV Processor
4 GBs of RAM
128 GB SSD
9 Hour Battery Life
Thunderbolt Port
$1299

13" MacBook Air
Slightly faster Core i7 ULV Processor
4 GBs of RAM
256GB SSD
9 Hour Battery Life
Thunderbolt Port
$1599

Besides that, everything else stays the same.
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I thought the current graphics card doesn't work well with sandy bridge processors, hence why they took it out of the 13" MBP and put in intel HD graphics?
 
davie18 said:
I thought the current graphics card doesn't work well with sandy bridge processors, hence why they took it out of the 13" MBP and put in intel HD graphics?
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I think that was implied in the cited post (despite the everything else stays the same comment). No NVidia in the upgrade, that is for sure. But the video performance of Sandy Bridge is quite comparable. It only lagged on a few games.
 
Marx55 said:
Hopefully with a lighter and smaller MacBook Air model.
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What? 11inch isnt small enough for you? and how could they possibly make it thinner without removing ports, and why would anyone want that?
 
Not light enough???

AQUADock said:
What? 11inch isnt small enough for you? and how could they possibly make it thinner without removing ports, and why would anyone want that?
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Actually. Can anyone point me to a lighter 11 inch netbook/laptop? (How about one with aluminium casing?) I don't think they exist. If the former does, I get you it is crap construction. (Though Apple never really got the hinges on the Air right. The old one - well, I killed three. The new is flimsy.)
 
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Trauma1 said:
fattire357 said:
Who is chronic wire?
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I've read every post in this thread and followed subsequent links and I still would like to know "Who is ChronicWire?" and why he has merit.
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@chronicwire has only 8 tweets, at what tweet did he earn the "reliable source" status?
I think this is a hoax.
 
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Dude, you really think they would write that if they didn't know him? Come on. Look at his personal twitter account, @chronic
 
To add some brazen and unsubstantiated speculation, perhaps we'll see an A5 based MBA - imagine the battery life.. Steve would certainly approve.
 
shurcooL said:
It'd also be nice if they could put a Retina display in the next MacBook Airs along with Lion (aka HiDPI), but that definitely won't happen if Lion is coming later. I guess they might do it with the next MBP refreshes. ;/
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Why do you want a retina display in a Mac? How close are you holding it in front of your eyes? Same as your phone? :) :p
 
tbobmccoy said:
I also think Apple will up to 4GB of RAM as the standard as well. While they do get a sizeable profit from the upgrade to 4GB from the old standard of 2GB, I think that people see the Air as weaker than it is with the 2GB only. Perception will force their hand, IMHO.
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2GB is a bit lame, frankly. Check out the sub $500 notebooks on Amazon.

Also wonder why keyboard backlight is such a problem when Samsung can manage it on their slimmer 9 series?

Just saying . . . .
 
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