At its Worldwide Developers Conference today, Apple Inc. executives -- filling in for ailing CEO Steve Jobs -- announced that Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" will go on sale in September for $29.
That is the price users of the company's current operating system, Mac OS X 10.5, or Leopard, will pay for the new OS.
Apple also unveiled an updated 15-in. MacBook Pro. The new laptop, which starts at $1,699 and can be configured up to a 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, has an integrated battery that Apple said will last seven hours.
The $1,699 model has a 2.53GHz chip; the pricier one, at $2,299, uses a 2.8GHz processor. Both models are $200 less than their predecessors.
And in something of a surprise, Apple also made numerous changes to its other laptops, moving the unibody aluminum MacBooks into the MacBook Pro line, leaving just the white Polycarbonate MacBook to soldier on under the old moniker.
The new 13.3-in. MacBook Pros start at $1,199 and also get an integrated battery that can last up to seven hours, a new display and an SD card slot. (The latest 15-in. MacBook Pro sports the same new slot.)
The now-renamed 13-in. MacBook Pro also gets a backlit keyboard across both models and Firewire 800. The entry-level model sports a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo.
Apple also dropped the prices on its ultra-thin MacBook Air, reducing the price of the 1.8Ghz model to $1,499 and offering it with a solid-state drive for $1,799, $700 less than before.
Officials were expected to wrap up today's keynote with information about iPhone OS 3.0 and new iPhone hardware.
Developing story. More to come
Reprinted with permission from Computerworld. Story copyright 2009 Computerworld Inc. All rights reserved.
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