Cupertino, Calf. – Apple paired its strong fiscal third-quarter
financial
with three product announcements.
Apple introduced its first display utilizing Thunderbolt I/O
interface, updated its Mac Mini line and made OS X Lion available.
The 27W-inch Thunderbolt display is designed to work
specifically with Thunderbolt-equipped Mac products. Thunderbolt delivers 10GBps
bi-directional data transfers. In addition, the new I/O allows the laptop to
access the camera, speakers and ports on the display via just the single cable.
The display has a 2.1-channel speaker system, three USB 2.0
ports, a FireWire 800 port and a 1GB Ethernet port.
The Thunderbolt Display will ship within the next 60 days
with a $999 suggested retail.
Thunderbolt was also added to the Mac Mini line, along with
the next-generation Intel processors and OS X Lion.
The new Mac Mini models are available immediately online at
the Apple Store and will ship to Apple retail stores and authorized dealers by
July 21.
The Mini retains its 7.7-inch by 1.4-inch dimension and is
available in three configurations starting at $599.
The 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 version comes standard
with 4GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive. These can be expanded to 8GB of
memory and a 750GB hard drive.
The midrange device has a 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
with standard 4GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive for $799. This model can be
upgraded to include a 2.7GHz dual-core i7 processor with 8GB of memory and a
750GB hard drive. There is an additional option to replace the hard drive or add
a 256GB solid-state drive.
At $999 is the 2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with Lion Server
capability. It has the same starting memory and hard drive as the others, but
has options for 8GB of memory and two 750GB hard drives or two 256GB solid-state
drives.
Mac OS X Lion is available today from the Mac App Store for
$29.95. It is the eighth major release for the OS and features 250 additions.
Some of the new features include:
-
Resume, which brings your apps back exactly how they were
left when the computer is restarted;
-
Auto Save, which continuously saves documents;
-
Versions, which records the history of documents as they
are created and allows the user to find earlier versions; and
-
AirDrop, which finds other Macs and automatically sets up
a peer-to-peer wireless connection.
