We’re about 6 hours from the Apple ‘Back to the Mac’ event (02:00AM – Tokyo (October 21st)). For the past 12-18 months, Apple has put much emphasis on iOS and the iPhone – even WWDC was a mostly iPhone affair. So here we are. Apple’s reminding us that the Mac as we know it is still very much alive and well, and that they’re excited to share with us (and make us part with more money) their new slew of Mac products.
[ad#Google Adsense]
Apart from a sneak peak at Mac OS X 10.7 codenamed ‘Lion’ (not confirmed), iLife ’11 is expected to be revealed/announced. One that has been actively rumoured is the MacBook Air. And thanks to overzealousness of Apple mods in the Apple support forums, we know for a fact that there will be a new MBA. The “world’s thinnest notebook” when it first launched in 2008 at the Macworld Conference, was never for everyone but for some it was the ultimate ultraportable. If anything, it took a ton of weight of your shoulder! Weighing just 1.4 kilos, the venerable skinnybook was sexy and made heards turn and every geek envious, but was never quite the performer. I had always wanted one because of its weight and thinness, however never committed as I needed far more firepower than was available. Other gripes included lack of ports and optical drive.
Circumstances have changed for me however. I find I do less and less graphics intensive work on the run these days, leaving it to my team back in the office. The trusty 15″ 2.2GHz MacBook Pro which has been with me for 2 years has been my mobile graphic design studio, video editor, code cruncher, development tool, browser, plaything. Have been seriously contemplating replacing it with an iPad as my requirements have changed. The iPad, thanks to its one touch instant-on feature, great battery life and the available of apps that have really extended its content creation abilities, is a very, very viable option. Been toying with the idea for months. Or a 13in MacBook Pro. Whatever works.
Enter the rumoured 11.6in MacBook Air. Now this is where it gets interesting. Apparently it has an instant-on feature. Superior 10-hour battery life. SSD drive. 2.13/2.33Ghz processor. At least 2GB of RAM, upgradeable to 4GB. Dual USB ports. SD Card reader. MiniDisplay port. No optical drive which isn’t a deal breaker for me as I hardly burn any optical discs anymore, thanks to the wonders of cloud-based services like DropBox, Google Apps, etc.
So in less than 6-hours, we should know and then some. This is gonna be game-changing, at least for me.
Catch Engadget’s Liveblog of the event.
Are you staying up?
[ad#HTML]
