Apple Rolls Out Lion, along with new MacBook Air and Mac Mini

Apple today released Mac OS X Lion their most advanced operating system.  It's now available on the Mac AppStore and I am currently downloading this.  It says that my download will be finished in 8 hours! Ugh... thanks to my DSL connection.

And it's not only Lion that Apple rolled out today but also a refresh of MacBook Air and Mac Mini.  Both machines come pre-loaded with Lion and now sport the latest Thunderbolt technology which promises connections speed of up to 20 times faster than that of USB 2.0. With this new technology, you can connect up to six devices to your Mac. 

The new Mac Mini and the MacBook Air now sport the dual Intel Core i5 processors.  This makes this new generation 2 times faster than the last.  It will prove very helpful when using processor intensive applications.

With release of the new generation MacBook Air, Apple chose to "kill" the white plastic MacBook.  They also decided to make the entry-level 11 inch MacBook Air more affordable, at USD999 on the US Online Store or PhP49, 999 from the Apple Philippines Online Store.

from apple.com

I am looking closer at the MacMini though, priced at PhP30,990 on the Apple Philippines online store (with 3-day free shipping).  In this new machine, storage will not be a problem since they decided to bump up the hard drive to a hefty 500GB.  So we can stock our pictures, videos and music in the Mini.  Should this be not enough for your needs, you can further upgrade your hard drive to 750GB without affecting the speed of your machine.

Oh, and just like in the previous generation, upgrading your RAM is a cinch with the removable bottom panel.  You can upgrade your memory to up to 8GB! 

Apple decided to remove the superdrive from the MacMini.  Yup, just like with the MacBook Air, the optical drive is now an option with this new generation.   I wonder if they will also do this with the other desktops like the iMac or the MacPro.  Perhaps the decision was reached because  you can now download from the AppStore the applications you want to install on your Mac. You can back up your files in the iCloud or in an external drive that has either USB or Thunderbolt connection.  Movies and music are also available and downloadable from iTunes.  In other words, Apple does not see the need for an optical drive anymore so they dispensed with it in the new MacMini.