Apple This

If you are a fan of Apple computers, then it will do you well to know that you can have an ultra-portable MacBook or one that is filled with all the most up-to-date technology. The only problem is that you can’t have both. But if internet rumors are anything to believe, you just may be able to have both pretty soon.

The latest rumors from parts suppliers in Asia indicate that Apple is all set to begin mass production of MacBook Airs equipped with Thunderbolt and Sandy Bridge late next month. These new MacBook Airs are also supposed to hit store shelves June.

This news comes from Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst from Concord Securities, who also gave his interpretation of the Air production to AppleInsider. Aside from being pretty consistent with the rumor mill, a new refresh of the Air in the summer makes sense. Being extremely lightweight and fairly inexpensive, it is highly regarded by students and June is the time when a lot of people do back-to-school shopping.

Kou did not, unfortunately, give any information on pricing, but it wouldn’t surprise anybody if this new MacBook Air shared a similar price to the current MacBook Air, which starts at $1,000 for the base 11-inch model and runs up to $1,600 for a fully loaded 13-inch version.

Other things, such as storage capacity and graphics, were also not volunteered but many are speculating slight bumps in both categories as SSD drive prices have been dropping. If Apple can manage to squeeze a 128GB SSD drive into the base 11-inch Air with an i5 processor and Thunderbolt, then other ultra-portable laptop creators are going to have some serious competition.

Source: CNET – Thunderbolt, Sandy Bridged MacBook Airs in June?

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Intel’s new line of Sandy Bridge processors is coming out soon, and when they hit, they will be available on Windows PCs first and, undoubtedly, Mac computers later. But “later” just wasn’t good enough for some people, because hackers have already installed Mac OS X on a Sandy Bridge Processor.

That’s right, before the formal unveiling of Intel’s next-generation of processors, hackers have managed to get Mac OS X up and running on a Sandy Bridge processor even though Intel said that this ability would be available in the future. People really seem to be getting impatient these days.

The official introduction of Intel’s new processors was at CES 2011. These new processors are the first to combine visual and 3D graphics technology along with microprocessors on the same chip. This new line of products, which earned the codename “Sandy Bridge”, houses newly designed Intel HD graphics on each 32nm die allowing for a serious performance boost.

And while we will see this technology on Mac devices in the future, hackers just could not wait. In a post from Engadget, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was installed on what they called a “Hackintosh” computer that was running the Intel Core i5-2500K CPU. Also noteworthy is that it had a clock speed of 3.30GHz.

This device also achieved a Geekbench Score of 8874 as well as an Xbench Score of 282.40. This is partly boosted by 6MB of L3 cache in the Sandy Bridge chip and hackers were able to achieve this by utilizing a patched kernel.

Intel, even though they are prepared for the official unveiling at CES, issued a press release earlier this week showing off some of the features of these second generation core processors. Intel noted that more than 500 desktop and laptop PCs from all of the major computer manufacturers are expected to house the chips in 2011.

According to Mooly Eden, Vice President and General Manager of the PC Client Group at Intel, “The new second Generation Intel Core processors represent the biggest advance in computing performance and capabilities over any other previous generation. The built-in visual capabilities enabled by these new processors are stunning. This, combined with improved adaptive performance, will revolutionize the PC experience in a way that is obvious for every user to see and appreciate – visibly smarter performance.”

A rumor that floated around last month stated that Apple would be producing new MacBooks in 2011 that would rely on Intel’s Sandy Bridge processor. This means that NVIDIA graphics solutions may not be included in some models 13 inches and smaller. Models 13 inches and under, as it has been suggested, would house Sandy Bridge-only graphics.

Expect big things to come from this second generation of processors, whether they be on a Mac device or not.

Source: Apple Insider

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