Back to the Mac

At this morning's Apple event, Steve Jobs told us that if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up, we'd get the new MacBook Air. But they've been busy — there are two! Introduced today, the 13.3-inch and 11.6-inch MacBook Airs come in at less than three pounds and are wedge-shaped — 0.68 inches at its thickest and 0.11 inches at the thinnest for the 13.3-inch — and come with an all-aluminum unibody. With HD backlit LED displays (with more pixels than the new MacBooks), core 2 duo processor, and FaceTime cameras, the new MacBook Airs are meant to be taken on the road.

There's no optical drive and no hard drive, but the new MBAs have flash storage (which comes in the iPhone and iPad), making them more reliable and super quiet. Both Airs come with up to 30 days of standby time, while the 13.3-inch Air has seven hours of battery life and the smaller 11.6-inch model boasts five hours.

Get the lowdown on prices after the break.

Over 19 million devices have been shipped with FaceTime, and now that feature will also come to the Mac — as predicted. Just like iChat, you launch the FaceTime app and select a user to chat with — whether it be on an iPhone 4, a new iPod Touch, a laptop, or iMacs — and talk away, face to face.

Head to Apple.com and get a beta release of FaceTime for Mac starting today.

Steve Jobs introduced Mac OS X Lion this morning, which will be bringing iOS features to the Mac.

Key features include:

• Multitouch gestures — Used with new Magic mouse, trackpad, and tablets, not by touchscreens on computers.
• App Store — Seven billion apps have been downloaded from the App store, so now Apple will bring a store to the Mac. One-click downloads, free and paid apps, auto installs to your computer, auto app updates, licensed for use on all personal macs, and developers get 70 percent of the profits for their apps.
• App home screens — Called the launch pad (which looks a lot like the widgets launcher), this icon allows you to get to all of your apps with a click. Just like iOS, you can create folders and organize your launch pad for easy access.
• Full-screen apps — All of your apps can be opened up to full screen, and switching between apps, home screens, and documents can be done by "flicking" your trackpad.

Learn about Apple's new Mission Control feature, when you can expect Lion, and a few more screenshots, when you read more.

The first new product to be introduced at the Back to the Mac event is iLife. Coming with a bunch of new features, iLife is better than ever. Check out what's new in each application below.

iPhoto
New features include new full screen modes, Facebook enhancements, new slideshows, and new ways to email photos and print cards, including new custom letterpress cards (!) and postcards. Cool new maps let you see geo-tagged pics, and enhancements to the Faces feature recognizes faces even better. Additionally, you can customize books even further, add text, and move pics around with ease, then see all of your custom books in a bookshelf (just like in the iBookstore).

Hear about the rest of the iLife '11 features, including iMovie, Garageband, availability, and pricing after the jump.

Steve Jobs and Tim Cook opened up the Back to the Mac event by going over the company's successes. Apple has grown 18 percent every quarter and now has over 20 percent of the market share. To put that into perspective, one in every five personal computers bought is a Mac.

Additionally, the ACSI has scored Apple number one in customer satisfaction for the seventh year in a row, and number one in customer support, according to Consumer Reports.