Apple Unleashes Lion, Revamped MacBook Airs with Backlit Keyboards

From DailyTech: Apple yesterday announced another blowout quarter, raking in $28.57B in revenue and $7.31B in profit. The company also sold over 20 million iPhones, over 9 million iPads, and just shy of 4 million Macs. While Apple has spent the bulk of its resources grooming its iOS-based products and accompanying software, Apple is turning its attention to the Mac side of things today with the official release of OS X 10.7 Lion and new Mac computers.

Apple first gave us a glimpse of OS X Lion at its "Back to the Mac" event in October 2010, but today is the big day when customers can finally download the operating system. Apple's goal when revamping the OS was to take some of the lessons and design principals from the iPhone/iPad touch and iPad and bring the to the larger screens of Mac Pros, Mac Minis, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs.

Other new features include Air Drop which quickly allows OS X Lion users to share files over Wi-Fi, improved Time Machine functionality (local snapshots of files, encrypted backups via USB 2.0/Firewire), Screen Sharing, and a revamped Mail app. Apple claims that there are over 250 new features in OS X Lion. For a full rundown on what you'll find in OS X Lion, you can check out our article here.

Apple last did a full revamp of its MacBook Air in October. The MacBook Airs (available in 11" and 13" varieties) went to an all-SSD configuration, shaved off some weight/bulk, and the ultraportable went from a sales zero to sales hero.

Apple is addressing a few, but not all of these issues with its 2011-spec MacBook Airs. The $999 11" MacBook Air still only comes with 2GB of memory and a 64GB SSD. However, the processor has now been bumped up to a 1.6GHz Core i5 processor instead of the decrepit Core 2 Duo process in the previous model. Also, NVIDIA graphics have been tossed aside for an Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU. Coughing up an extra $200 will get you 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD.

In addition, the new 13" MacBook Air gains a 1.7GHz Core i5 processor in its standard configuration ($1299). Base storage remains at 128GB, but 4GB of RAM is now standard. Stepping up to 256GB of storage space will cost you an extra $300 (head scratcher). Customers can order a 1.8GHz Core i7 processor ($100 extra) with configure-to-order options.

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