New Apple Stuff!

Today, Steve Jobs took the stage and announced Apple’s latest batch of products. What products? Well, there’s some new MacBook Airs, iLife 11, OS X Lion, an App Store for the Mac, something called Mission Control, new multitouch features for Macs, and FaceTime for the Mac. You heard me right. FaceTime for the Mac. Okay. Let’s get started.

New MacBook Airs

After about 2 years of not knowing if we’d see another MacBook Air, we’re finally getting our answer. It’s a yes in case you were wondering. These new MBAs come in two sizes: 13.3 inches and 11.6 inches. They are both unibody and they weigh only 2.3 and 2.9 pounds, respectively. Now for something really cool. The smaller MBA won’t have an HDD or an SSD. How is this possible? Well, it’s got an SSD card that’s similar to a stick of RAM. This means the boot time is microscopic. Other specifications include an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics card, an SD card reader, 2 USB ports, full stereo speakers, a FaceTime camera. The 11-inch MBA has a 1366 x768 display while the 13-inch rocks a 1440×900 display. Apple is making a big deal out of the new Airs’ battery life as well. The 13-inch will last for 7 hours with active use and a whole month on Standby! The smaller 11.6-inch MBA does the same but with only 5 hours of active use. Both are available today at http://www.apple.com/macbookair/ and start at $1,000 and $1,300 respectively.

iLife 11

Another thing Apple announced today is a new iLife suite. It includes updated versions of all the classic applications such as iMovie, iPhoto, and GarageBand. Ok, let’s start with iMovie. What’s new? Well, Apple has really focused on simplifying the iMovie experience this time. Along with an improved interface, iMovie 11 lets you edit audio more in-depth, add special effects with the click of a button, and automatically create a mini-trailer for your movie. Pretty cool. Next up is iPhoto which features mainly interface enhancements. Besides that, Apple has included some slideshow improvements, and a more intuitive way to email photos. Finally, there’s GarageBand. GarageBand 11 has two cool new features called Groove Matching and Flex-Time which improve your song’s timing. iLife 11 is also available today here: http://www.apple.com/ilife/.

OS X Lion

A new cat operating system!? Oh boy! OS X Lion is here and it’s pretty cool. Things like a new full-screen viewing mode, a Mac App Store, and something called Mission Control can all be found in Lion. Okay, the full-screen viewing thing is boring so let’s skip to the App Store. That’s pretty cool. Apps are simply downloaded through the App Store program and are then automatically placed into your dock. This feature is available for Lion and will work on Snow Leopard as well in 90 days. Okay. Now, what’s this Mission Control thingy? It’s being called a fancier Exposé that combines with Spaces and the Dashboard to create what is now known as the Mission Control. There are also a whole bunch of cool new multi-touch features that you can read more about here in this Gizmodo post:http://gizmodo.com/5668924/how-apple-will-do-multitouch-on-macs. Okay. So that’s OS X Lion. It arrives in Summer of 2011.

FaceTime on the Mac, OMG

Whoa! This is exciting! FaceTime for Mac will allow you to video chat with all of your iPhone 4 and iPod Touch buddies right from your Mac. Guess what? There’s already a beta version! It’s right here: http://www.apple.com/mac/facetime/. Not much more to it. Hurray! This is cool! Now I just need to get a Mac…