WWDC 2011 Starts On June 6th, Showing Off iOS and Mac OS X; Next iPhone Too?

Apple looks like they're going to be starting WWDC 2011 this year on June 6th which is a Monday. Usually, this is where the company unveils the next iPhone but recent rumours suggest that this might not be the case this time around. It says that we'll be joining them "for a preview of the future of iOS and Mac OS X" so we should get another look at Lion as well as iOS 5 - hopefully, release dates on both. We're still crossing our fingers for the next-generation iPhone to be announced.

[Engadget]

Apple Refreshes MacBook Pro Line-Up With Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs, AMD GPUs, and Thunderbolt -- OS X Lion Dev Preview Now Available

As expected, Apple has refreshed a bunch of their products today and it's right on Steve Jobs' birthday! The refresh includes the whole MacBook Pro Series. The base model is the 13-inch model and it's just like the leak said. It's sporting a 13.3-inch LED display with a 1,280 x 800 resolution, a dual-core Intel Core i5 2.3GHz CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 320GB HDD, Intel HD 3000 graphics, an HD webcam, WiFi 802.11n / Bluetooth 2.1 support, a backlit keyboard, an SDXC card slot, FireWire 800, two USB 2.0 ports, and Light Peak aka Thunderbolt. The Thunderbolt tech inside of these new notebooks will offer your 10Gbps trasfer rates which is awesome but we'll see if it wins the battle versus USB 3.0 which is slowly rolling out. Sadly, the smallest model which is this 13-inch model only has options for integrated graphics so it's actually a bit of a downgrade. By the way, the battery life for these MacBook Pro has dropped to 7 hours which is likely real-time usage.

This model will be starting at $1,199, the 15-inch model will start at $1,799, and the 17-inch model actually starts at $2,499 and that's because you'll get a quad-core 2.2GHz CPU and a 750GB HDD as a standard. Only the larger two models (the 15 and 17-inch notebooks) come with AMD discrete graphics and, yes, Apple has ditched Nvidia for AMD. Of course, all models come with new Intel Core 2011 CPU options so they're pretty darn fast. Check it out on Apple.

Update: Engadget has mentioned that the Mac OS X Lion developer preview is now up on the Mac App Store.

[Crunch Gear]

Apple Set To Refresh the MacBook Pro and iMac Line In H1 2011

Here's an interesting one coming from DigiTimes. They have just mentioned that Apple plans to upgrade the MacBook Pro and the iMac line-up sometime in the first half of 2011. Apparently, there'll be four different sizes for the MacBook Pro. Currently, there's 13, 15, and 17-inch models so what will the new one be? It's unknown right now but I'm thinking an 11 or even a 14-inch model could get squeezed in there, but those are just my guesses (of course, a 12-inch model is also possible). The website also mentions that there'll be a new size for the iMac. That size is also unknown so we'll have to wait for that; Crunch Gear is guessing that it'll be a 24-incher.

All of these models are going to have a touchscreen display because they'll all come pre-installed with the new Mac OS X Lion which is the start to bring together the desktop Mac OS X with iOS so it'll have some touch capabilities if that's your thing.

[Crunch Gear]

Apple Intros Two New MacBook Air Models, Peek At Mac OS X Lion, iLife 11, and App Store / FaceTime For Mac

At Apple's "Back to the Mac" event today, they introduced something that we knew was coming. Yes, the MacBook Air is now official and there are two models! The first model will be just 0.68-inches thick and 2.9 pounds so it's definitely portable. It's sporting the good ol' unibody construction so it'll be quite durable. The first model they introduced features a 13.3-inch LED-backlit display (1,440 x 900 resolution), a 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, Nvidia GeForce 320m GPU, a full-sized keyboard, a multitouch trackpad, a built-in webcam (for FaceTime / iChat), 2GB of RAM, WiFi 802.11n support, and, of course, doesn't have an optical drive. It has instant-on connectivity along with 7 hours of real-time battery life and 30 days of standby.

Apple also went on to introduce the 11.6-inch MacBook Air and this one's just 2.3 pounds. It has a smaller footprint with the same unibody design so this one's even more portable. The specs are just about the exact same for this notebook except the LED-backlit display sports a smaller 1,366 x 768 resolution, the C2D CPU inside is clocked at just 1.4GHz, and the battery will last just 5 hours in the real world (still 30 days of standby time though). They're both available right now! Prices are below, those are flash storage options by the way. No hard drives inside of these.

They've also given us a sneak peek at their next version of Max OS X and it'll be called Lion. "Mac OS X meets the iPad" they say. This new version will have multitouch capabilities (on screen), the App Store, a Launchpad (gives you a grid of all of your apps - like the iPad), and things that you'd naturally find in iOS. It really brings the best of both worlds (including Expose and Spaces), so this is actually looking pretty good right now. Look out for touchscreen MacBook's and iMac's next year. Mac OS X Lion will be available in the Summer of next year. And in 90 days the App Store for Mac will be available, yes, on Snow Leopard!

At the event Apple also introduced iLife 11, but you can always read about that somewhere else because it wasn't all that exciting to be honest. iLife 11 is available right now and comes free with every new Mac; you'll also be able to upgrade for $49 if you're interested. Furthermore, they've also introduced FaceTime for the Mac, so that's a pretty big step. FaceTime should be integrated with iChat which would make a bit more sense, but it's not. It's available right now in beta form.

[Engadget]