Apple launches MacBook Air - the world’s thinnest notebook

International
Apple launches MacBook Air - the world’s thinnest notebook
By Finfacts Team
Jan 16, 2008, 05:55

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Apple on Tuesday introduced what it terms the world’s thinnest notebook: MacBook Air.

It measures an "unprecedented" 0.16 inches at its thinnest point while its maximum height of 0.76 inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks. In addition to a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, MacBook Air offers a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing, and a "spacious" trackpad with multi-touch gesture support, letting users pinch, rotate and swipe.

The new notebook is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache, and it includes as standard features 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, and the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and Bluetooth 2.1. Starting at "just" $1,799, MacBook Air begins shipping in two weeks.

Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs introduced the new Mac at the annual Macworld event in San Francisco.

“We’ve built the world’s thinnest notebook—without sacrificing a full-size keyboard or a full-size 13-inch display,” said Steve Jobs. “When you first see MacBook Air, it’s hard to believe it’s a high-performance notebook with a full-size keyboard and display. But it is.”

iPhone Software Update 1.1.3, a free software update available from Tuesday, via iTunes 7.5 or later, brings significant new features to iPhone. After installing the update, iPhone customers will be able to automatically find their location using the redesigned Maps application; text message multiple people in one message; create Web Clips for their favorite websites; customize their home screen; and watch movies rented from the new iTunes Movie Rentals right on their iPhone.

Apple also announced that from Tuesday, with the free download of iTunes 7.6, iTunes Movie Rentals allows customers to rent movies for as little as $2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and Apple TV.

Featuring movies from all the major movie studios—20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema—iTunes Movie Rentals is expected to offer more than 1,000 movie titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles featuring stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. Movies can be rented directly from a widescreen TV using Apple TV.

From Macworld, The Wall Street Journal's Personal Technology columnist Walter S. Mossberg discusses his early impressions of the ultra-thin Macbook Air. Stacey Delo reports.

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