MacBook Air gets a fast refresh

Apple has announced an update to the MacBook Air with faster processors, up to 12 hours of battery life and a quicker flash storage hard drive, but only in 128 or 256GB capacities.

Apple today announced that it has updated the MacBook Air with faster processors, fast flash storage, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, up to 12 hours of battery life and Apple’s iLife and iWork apps.

However, maximum flash storage remains at only 256GB.

Power-efficient fourth generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors work in conjunction with OS X Mavericks to give the 13-inch MacBook Air up to 12 hours of battery life and the 11-inch MacBook Air up to 9 hours of battery life. iTunes movie playback times increase to 12 hours on the 13-inch notebook and 9 hours on the 11-inch notebook, adding up to two hours of playback time to the updated MacBook Air.

iLife and iWork come free with every new Mac. iLife lets you edit videos with iMovie, create new music or learn to play piano or guitar with GarageBand, and organise, edit and share shots with iPhoto. iWork productivity apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote, make it easy to create, edit and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations. iWork for iCloud beta lets you create a document on iPhone or iPad, edit it on your Mac and collaborate with friends, even if they are on a PC.

Every Mac comes with OS X, which is designed for ease of use.

The latest version, OS X Mavericks, introduces more than 200 new features, including core technologies designed specifically for notebooks to boost performance and improve battery life. Mavericks introduces apps like iBooks, which gives you instant access to your iBooks library, more than two million titles in the iBooks Store, and works seamlessly across Apple devices. The new Maps app allows you to look up directions on your Mac and send them to your iPhone or iPad, and with iCloud, whatever you do in apps like Mail, Contacts and Calendar also appears on your other devices.

Availability

MacBook Air is available today through Apple Authorised Resellers. The 11-inch MacBook Air comes with a 1.4 GHz processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.7 GHz, 4GB of memory and is available with 128GB or 256GB of flash storage. The 13-inch MacBook Air comes with a 1.4 GHz processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.7 GHz, 4GB of memory and is available with 128GB and 256GB of flash storage. Configure-to-order options include a 1.7 GHz Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3 GHz, up to 8GB of memory and up to 512GB flash storage. Additional technical specifications are available online at www.apple.com/za/macbook-air.

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