MacRumors

The processors, which appeared Sunday on Intel's updated processor price list, are faster than current power-efficient Sandy Bridge chips used in skinny laptops such as the Samsung Series 9.

Apple is expected to use this type of Intel chip in its upcoming MacBook Air refresh. The Air, to date, has used older-generation Intel Core 2 Duo chips.

We previously covered the rumors about these new processors which could be used in Apple's upcoming MacBook Air. The specs for the new chips are listed here:

• Core i7-2677M: 2 cores, 1.8GHz (turbos to 2.9GHz), 4MB cache, 17 watts, $317
• Core i7-2637M: 2 cores, 1.7GHz (turbos to 2.8GHz), 4MB cache, 17 watts, $289
• Core i5-2557M: 2 cores, 1.7GHz (turbos to 2.7GHz), 3MB cache, 17 watts, $250

The new MacBook Air is rumored to launch in June or July, but Apple may be holding its release for OS X Lion to ship.

Over the weekend, we heard rumors that Apple will be delivering new Mac minis and Mac Pros in the late July/early August timeframe. Now, MICGadget claims to have new information about these upcoming desktop refreshes and Time Capsule/Airport devices. Much of the information we've seen before, but they do offer some interesting additional notes of interest.

As expected, the new Mac mini will be receiving Thunderbolt and Sandy Bridge processors. As a side effect of this upgrade, the new Mac minis will end up using Intel's HD integrated graphics rather than an NVIDIA solution. This should be no surprise as Apple has made this same compromise in their low-end MacBook Pros using the recent Sandy Bridge processors.

Current Mac Pro design

Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt are coming to the new Mac Pro, and at the same time, an unique CPU will be developed for Mac. This unique CPU is not seen in PC.

Early MacRumors commenters in the Mac Pro/Mac mini rumor discussion pointed out that Mac Pro-suitable Sandy Bridge processors aren't known to be available in time for the late July/early August timeframe. The use of a custom CPU would explain away this discrepancy. Apple and Intel have a close relationship and are Intel has been known to supply Apple with custom CPU parts in the past. The original MacBook Air also used a custom part that was available only to Apple for a period of time.

As for the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme, MICGadget claims that the devices are newly designed with better heat dissipation than previous models. They claim that the new TimeCapsule has a lower TDP and low power consumption hard drive using Apple firmware, while the AirPort Extreme has improved signal strength with six antennas built in. Finally, they echo previous claims that the Time Capsule will serve as a caching system for software updates in Lion and iOS 5.

MICGadget has not previously published many original rumors, so their reliability is unknown. The custom Mac Pro CPU, however, rumor fits in nicely with the previous Mac Pro and Mac Mini release timeframe.

The main downward force on Apple's stock price is a lack of clarity around Steve Jobs' successor and questions about how long he will remain at his current post, according to a pair of articles today examining the performance of Apple's stock over the past few months. AAPL is down more than 2% year-to-date, and is down more than 8% since WWDC began.

Henry Blodget at Business Insider:

In a way, the situation Apple finds itself in is akin to an impending CEO retirement--without a successor having been named. In such "lame duck" periods, companies can become paralyzed, as managers focus more on their own future and political stature and uncertainty and less on the business.

And, in Apple's case, unfortunately, the situation is even worse: No one knows whether Steve will return, or when, or even when the question of his return will finally be put to rest. So the company is in a sort of perpetual purgatory.

Rougemont, a contributor at investor haven Seeking Alpha, agrees, noting "this concern is already discounted in the stock."

There may be another, less Steve-related explanation. Last week, there was some extraordinary downward movement on Thursday, on a day without significant bad news. Philip Elmer-Dewitt at Apple 2.0 took a look at weekly options set to expire on Friday as a possible explanation for the sudden plunge.

Among the dwindling numbers of retail Apple investors, there were the usual cries of market manipulation and calls for reform of the weekly options markets, which some believe have become the tail that wags the underlying stock.

Regardless of the reason behind the drop, some view the price dip as a buying opportunity.

Both Horace Dediu at Asymco and Andy Zaky at Bullish Cross believe this drop is a buying opportunity, with Zaky assigning a "buy" recommendation for any price between $300 and $320, with a $500 price target:

Because of the market's short-term blindness to this obvious reality, we find it prudent to put a strong-buy rating on the stock if it so happens to trade under $300 during a potential brutal summer correction.

Apple just closed at $315, down a point percent and a half on the day.

All Things Digital reports that in the latest update to its Hulu Plus application, television streaming company Hulu has brought itself into compliance with Apple's new In-App Subscription rules, taking advantage of a recent shift in Apple's stance to simply remove an external link to sign up for the paid service rather than offering subscriptions inside the application under a system in which Apple would take 30% of the revenue.

All Hulu had to do was strip out the link that sent potential subscribers to its Web site, because Apple's new rule will ban "apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app."

As initially deployed back in mid-February, Apple's In-App Subscription mechanism allowed publishers to set prices, but also required them to offer the same offers inside their applications as found through external mechanisms. Under the program, Apple would retain 30% of the revenue on subscriptions generated within the applications as a fee for bringing the subscriber to the service. The new terms were set to go into effect on June 30th for existing subscription-based applications, leading many to wonder how services such as Hulu and Netflix would deal with the requirements.

Consequently, apps like Hulu Plus can meet the requirements by simply having their subscription links removed from within the app. Hulu loses the benefit of direct link-outs for new subscribers, but does not have to offer In-App Subscriptions that would undoubtedly result in significant amounts of revenue being diverted to Apple. Users interested in subscribing to Hulu will simply have to visit Hulu's site on their own, manually entering the address or finding it through a search engine, in order to sign up.

All Things Digital notes that the solution adopted by Hulu is likely to make its way to a number of other prominent services such as Netflix and Rhapsody, although it is unclear how others such as Amazon's Kindle Store will be able to satisfactorily comply with the new rules going into effect next week without removing a significant convenience factor of being able to purchase individual e-books via link-outs from the app itself.

Adobe today announced the release of Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5, new versions of the company's rich application development tools that now support cross-platform mobile app development for iOS, BlackBerry, and Android.

Developers now have a single platform for building highly expressive mobile applications that can be distributed via the Android Market, Apple App Store and BlackBerry App World. Offered standalone or as part of Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium and Master Collection, Flash Builder 4.5 enables the creation of applications that work seamlessly across leading mobile device platforms.

"The reaction from developers to the new mobile capabilities in Flash Builder 4.5 and the Flex 4.5 framework has been absolutely fantastic," said Ed Rowe, vice president of developer tooling, Adobe. "They are amazed by how easy it is to create great mobile apps for Android devices, BlackBerry PlayBook, iPhone and iPad. Companies can now effectively reach their customers no matter what type of device they have."

Adobe has also issued a blog post discussing the update and highlighting some of the applications recently built with the new tools.

CNet's Brian Tong has revealed on Twitter that "all new" next generation Mac Pros and Mac minis will arrive in late July or early August.

EXCLUSIVE: My sources tell me ALL NEW Next-Gen Mac Pros and Mac Minis will launch either end of July first week of August.

Tong previously accurately predicted the arrival of new iMacs in the "end of April or 1st week of May". The iMacs did arrive in the 1st week of May as predicted. Tong indicates his source for the Mac Pro and Mac Mini updates are the same as for the iMac updates.

No details are provided on the specs of the machines besides the expected incorporation of Thunderbolt and Sandy Bridge CPUs.

Readers who are disappointed with Apple's new Back to School promotion may be interested to hear that electronics retailer Best Buy is offering to match Apple's promotion with their own.

Apple recently launched their 2011 Back to School promotion. Instead of the typical iPod giveaway, Apple is now offering a $100 iTunes/App Store gift card instead. We've been told that Best Buy will be matching this promotion with a $100 Best Buy gift card for the same qualifying customers. This is an unadvertised promotion, so customers will have to ask for it specifically.

Apple's Back to School promotion is open to college students, students accepted to college, parents buying for college students or faculty/staff at any grade level. Qualifying computers include the MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, and Mac Pro.

Now, we can watch a newspaper; listen to a magazine; curl up with a movie; and see a phone call.

Now, we can take a classroom anywhere; hold an entire bookstore; and touch the stars.

Because now, there's this.

Thanks Geoff!

MobileMe's sync conflict resolver. Via BusySync

In iCloud, I believe you will never be presented with [a sync conflict] dialog, no matter how much has changed in one of the instances while it was "offline". The server-side iCloud, when there seemingly is a conflict, will make a decision and it will decide which one is the best (in Apple's terms the "truth"). That is what Steve Jobs means when he says "The Truth is in the Cloud." iTunes will decide which one is right and that's it. iCloud will push that right one to any device that has this account that has a different version.

But, here's the trick – what happens if it's not the right one? On the server side, it will remember all of the other ones, almost like versioning. There will be some sort of interface like "go and look at your contacts." There will be some sort of way to say "show me previous versions and let me pick the one that is right". You pick it and push it back up into the cloud and tell it "that's the truth" and Apple will push it out.

Currently, MobileMe pops up a dialog box (shown above) forcing users to resolve conflicts, before a sync can continue.

Apple hasn't officially revealed many details about exactly how its new services are going to work, iTunes Match nor the other various bits of iCloud. Gruber claims this isn't just a theory, that he knows is sure this is how iCloud will work. We'll know more when iCloud launches this fall.

Apple today released a PDF documenting (PDF link) how large business and educational customers with many Macs will upgrade to Lion via the Mac App Store. It appears that even for those customers, Apple will not be offering Lion via physical media. Like the consumer release, OS X Lion will be available via online delivery only.

Apple will offer business customers volume license contracts for $29.99 per license, with a minimum of 20 licenses. Education customers can purchase the Apple Software Collection (Mac OS, iLife and iWork) starting at $39 per license, with a minimum of 25 licenses.

For customers wanting OS X Lion Server, it will be available as an add-on for $49.99, in addition to the $29.99 upgrade for standard Lion. Snow Leopard Server is not required to purchase Lion Server, but existing Snow Leopard Server installations can only be upgraded to Lion Server. Both Lion and Lion Server need to be purchased for Snow Leopard Server-equipped machines.

To actually download Lion, volume license customers will receive one redemption code for each contract. The redemption code can be used to download Lion from the Mac App Store. When the redemption code is entered, the Lion installer will download to the Applications folder, but will not install immediately. This Lion installer is used to install Lion on other systems. Download once, install many times.

IT departments will be able to use the same mass installation techniques they use today. To install Lion on multiple systems, they'll copy the Install Mac OS X Lion application from the Mac App Store to each target system. Once copied, the installer will be launched and Lion will install in place. There is no need to boot from an external disk. Administrators will also be able to use System Image Utility in OS X Lion Server to create NetInstall or NetRestore Images.

Apple previously announced that it will be releasing OS X Lion in July.

Engadget has a hands on with Firemint's Real Racing 2 HD with support for Apple's AirPlay mirroring feature coming in iOS 5. While you can mirror anything on the iPad's screen to your Apple TV, some game developers have been building in support to provide a different interface on the device itself vs. the screen. This is similar feature to what Nintendo's new Wii U console offers.

For this game (and we imagine many more to come), you use the iPad as the controller -- both while navigating through menus and in race mode -- while the game appears only on your TV (though the tablet does display some vitals, and a map of the track). There's noticeable lag between the iPad and Apple TV when using AirPlay, which may be an issue for games where timing is important, such as Rock Band, but didn't seem to set us back while playing Firemint's racing game.

This ability to display different images on the device and the video out isn't actually new with iOS 5. Several other iOS games such as Max Adventure and Chopper 2 also offer a similar experience under iOS 4. But without AirPlay mirroring feature, users have needed a $29 VGA adapter to take advantage of this feature. In iOS 5, AirPlay mirroring also offers this ability to those with Apple TVs.