Was Apple investigating the idea of Mac OS X iPads, or MacBook Airs running on ARM chipsets?

In 2010, Apple’s Platform Technologies Group (a subdivision of the CoreOS department) spent some time working on a project to port the Mac OS X Darwin kernel to the ARMv5 chipset architecture — the same family of chipsets that currently powers iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Here’s a snippet from the project, titled Porting Darwin to the MV88F6281, subtitled ARMing the Snow Leopard:

The goal of this project is to get Darwin into a workable state on the MV88F6281 processor so that other teams can continue their work on this platform. The project has three major milestones:

1. Getting the buildsystem into shape, so that it can build the kernel and kexts.
2. Building and booting the kernel into single user mode.
3. Booting the system into multi-user mode.

The project was only made public several months ago. While iOS also uses the Darwin kernel, this project involved Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and was left for the CoreOS teams to continue. Since Mac OX X 10.7 Lion has since shipped, as have newer generations of iPad and MacBook Air, without any sign of MAC OS X on ARM, it’s unknown if this project is still ongoing or has since been put on the shelf. However, the author of the paper is now a full-time employee at Apple, working as a CoreOS Engineer.

While some might find the idea of a Mac OS X iPad intriguing, Tablet PC, which put full Microsoft Windows on a tablet, never gained any traction in the market. It, like Mac OS X, was simply not designed for a multitouch user interface.

Microsoft, to their credit, is currently working on Windows 8, which will have both a Windows Phone-like Metro user interface optimized for tablets, and a more traditional Windows 7-like interface for desktops and laptops.

Instead of making MacBook Airs with ARM processors, Apple decided to take iOS software “Back to the Mac” instead with OS X 10.7 Lion.

Given Apple’s preference for simplicity, and the huge sales they’ve achieved with iPad, it seems unlikely they’d deviate from their current strategy. Indeed, there has been more speculation of late that Apple would continue to move iOS towards the Mac, as opposed to moving the Mac to ARM.

However, Mac OS X once ran on Power PC chips, yet Apple had it secretly running on Intel chips at the same time. It only makes sense for a company as forward thinking as Apple to have ARM-compatible builds of OS X in the development labs.

SO while neither an OS X tablet nor an ARM MacBook Air seem likely, it’s interesting to see further evidence of Apple keeping the Mac platform nimble.

UPDATE: For those curious about the group, kernel, and chipset referenced above, here are the descriptions from the project introduction:

About the Platform Technologies Group

As it was described by a manager: “We do the plumbing, if we do our jobs right, you never see it.”. The Platform Technologies Group, a subdivision of the Core OS department, works on the embedded platforms that Apple maintains. Here, platforms are brought up and the embedded kernel and lower level support for the platforms is maintained.

What is Darwin?

Darwin is the lower half of the Mac OSX operating system. It includes the XNU kernel which is based on the Mach microkernel, and the userland.

What is the MV88F6281?

The MV88F6281 is an ARMv5te compatible processor from Marvell. It is based on their custom Sheeva core, which is designed to be like the ARM926EJ-S core from ARM. It has all the features youʼd expect from a modern CPU, including several high speed SERDES lanes, a Harvard L1 cache, and 128kb of unified L2 cache.

Source: Delfte University of Technology

iPad 3 is likely up next, and the big rumor is Retina display on the order of 2048×1536. Less certain but still desirable are quad-core chips and LTE networking. Much the same rumors apply to the iPhone 5, just replace the already-present Retina display with an oft-requested 4-inch screen. You could throw a 7-inch iPad in there for good measure to.

Is it something subtler you’re waiting for, like NFC support, or something more dramatic like 3D?

Apple TV hasn’t been updated in over a year, so are you really craving some 1080p or are you all about the Apple iTV televion rumors now?

Maybe it’s the Mac you want — more specifically a 15-inch MacBook Air? A redesigned Mac Pro? If you could get just one big hardware gift from Apple this year, what would it be?

Give us your vote up top and then give us the details in the comments below!

Randomly accurate rumor site Digitimes has pair of stories up saying that Apple may be looking to re-design the iPad, iPhone, MacBook Air, and imac next year. This according to “upstream supply chain” sources.

Apple has asked makers in the supply chain to develop flat panel modules and LED light bars for two iPad prototypes, codenamed J1 and J2, the sources revealed.

Stranger still:

Apple’s new generation iPad will enter mass production soon with the launch set for March 2012, according to sources from the upstream supply chain; however, the sources revealed that internally Apple does not view the new iPad product as iPad 3, but rather an upgraded iPad 2 and the real iPad 3 will not be launched until the third quarter of 2012 at the earliest.

iPad 3 likely will ship when Apple can make Retina display panels cheaply enough, at high enough yield rates, to make sense.

Source: Digitimes, x2

One of the most heart warming reactions to the ultra high tech aluminum, stainless steel, and glass aesthetic of Apple’s devices is the opposing trend in the case industry of traditional materials, forms, and binding techniques. Swathing something so precisely machined as an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook in something so handcrafted as a Pad&Quill Little Black Book, Contega, or Cartella just feels so right, so human.

When the best of old world craft meets the greatest in modern tech, however, how practical are the results? Follow on after the break to find out!

[Pad&Quill Little Black Book, Pad&Quill Contega, Pad&Quill Cartella]

Pad&Quill Little Black Book for iPhone 4

If you’re an iPhone owner tired of iPad users getting all the moleskin hipster fun, you’re in luck. Pad&Quill have brought both to iPhone with the Little Black Book. From the beautiful binding to the snap of the elastic close to the smell and texture of the materials, it’s just perfectly realized.

You’ve got the high quality bookbinding cloth inside and Italian bonded leather outside, framed by durable Baltic Birch. There are some modern concessions — the ports are all cut out for easy access, as is the camera so you don’t have to extricate your iPhone to snap a picture. You can flip it around and set it up in a tiny, typing position, or crack it open slightly to sit it up portrait style. Both features work better for iPad than iPhone, but it’s nice to have them none the less.

One thing that’s important to remember, however, is that the Little Black Book is made in the moleskin model, not the wallet model. There’s no place for ID or credit cards.

If you’re not into the hipster look, however, these types of cases add a lot bulk and the Little Black Book is no exception. While proportionately the iPad version feels less voluminous, the Little Black Books adds sufficient size that it’s impossible to notice. You have to want a case like this.

If old fashioned style is more important that the extra substance — the Little Black Book is gorgeous.

Pad&Quill Contega for iPad 2

Contega is Pad&Quill’s second bite at the moleskin-style iPad case apple and it’s an improvement in every way. You’ve got the same great materials — lacquered Baltic Birch, finely bonded Italian leather, and high quality book binding holding it all together.

It’s got an extra hinge that allows it to be set up at two different angles so you can get just the perfect movie watching experience, and the speaker cutout is caved to send the sound right where it needs to be.

Again, all the right cutouts for controls and for the camera are in place. There’s even a hidden pocket for any must-have-handy documents you want to keep with you. And to top it all off — it’s got magnets just like Apple’s SmartCover so your iPad turns on when you open it and off when you close it.

Nice.

Pad&Quill Cartella for MacBook Air

If the 11-inch MacBook Air is the “iPad Pro” then Pad&Quill’s Cartella is the pro-level case. Yes, you needn’t feel jealous of all those magnificently mole-skinned iPads you see on the streets and in the coffee shops. You can dress up your MacBook Air every bit as much.

Because a MacBook Air is fundamentally different from iPhone and iPad — it’s intermediated by a keyboard and trackpad, the Cartella didn’t seem as usable as the Little Black Book or Contega, but it felt every bit as carry-able.

With iPhone or iPad, you can just flip them open like a book and start using the multitouch screen. With MacBook Air you need to put it down and open the machine up, not just the case.

If you want the look, that won’t bother you one bit. Otherwise it’s an extra step and shows the advantage of the multitouch screen post-PC format when it comes to getting your hipster on.

As usual, I tried all three for a week (with the exception of the Cartella — Georgia tried that one since she has the 11-inch MacBook Air). All three, Little Black Book, Contega, and Cartella are wonderfully crafted, fantastically good looking, fabulously old world cases for Apple’s latest, greatest, most modern devices.

They’re a tradeoff — the bulk is enough that you have to want the look to put up with it. But chances are you’ve already made your mind up about that. If you’re all in on the moleskin, definitely give Pad&Quill a look.

The US Patent and Trademark office just published fourteen new patents recently awarded to Apple. Among them are design patents for the MacBook Air, iPhone 3G, Apple remote, their battery charger design, and many more.

Considering Apple recently sued Samsung for copying the iPhone and iOS look and feel, these patents could end up with many other manufacturers in court. Lots of notebooks have recently mimicked the design of the MacBook Air or other variations of the MacBook line. None of the patents seem too design specific. If Apple has the ability to sue based on the overall appearance and design, I definitely think we’ll see more lawsuits springing up sooner rather than later.

Patently Apple

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Rene, Seth, and Georgia discuss Apple’s 20 million iPhone quarter, Android vs. iOS activations, Steve Jobs vs. BlackBerry’s Mike Lazaridis, and Lion, and MacBooks and Thunderbolts, oh my! This is iPhone Live!

• Show notes

Hosts

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPhone accessory store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

Last year it was hard enough to decide between the starting-at-$499 original iPad on iOS 3.2 and the starting-at-$999 new MacBook Air on OS X Snow Leopard, but now we have iPad 2 on iOS 4.3 (soon to be iOS 5! and the just-released MacBook Air 2 on OS X Lion… decisions, decisions! (Never mind a possible Retina Display iPad 2 Pro/iPad 3 on the horizon!)

Have you been waiting and debating between the two? If so, which are you getting and why? Vote in the poll above and give us the details in the comments below!

To coincide with the release of Mac OS X Lion, Apple has also released a new generation of MacBook Airs, Mac Minis, and LED displays (now dubbed Thunderbolt displays). The most interesting to us, of course, is the MacBook Air, particularly the 11-inch version which is a real — if more expensive — rival to the iPad.

Now with more processing power, courtesy of Intel’s Core i5 or Core i7 (Sandybridge) processor, a high speed Thunderbolt I/O port, and a backlit keyboard(?!), it makes an already compelling alternative even more so. (If rumors of an early iPad 2 Pro or iPad 3 turn out to be true, it could make the decision even harder.)

“Portable, affordable and powerful, MacBook Air is the ultimate everyday notebook,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “MacBook Air features our most advanced technology and is an ideal match for Lion, especially with its new Multi-Touch gestures, full-screen apps, Mission Control and Mac App Store.”

Mac Mini with the new chips and port make a good if expensive home theater PC even more powerful and (eventually) flexible, while the new LED displays can be chained together to turn your desktop into a NASA-style control center.

“Mac mini delivers the speed and expandability that makes it perfect for the desktop, living room or office,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With faster processors, more powerful graphics and Thunderbolt in an incredibly compact, aluminum design, the new Mac mini is more versatile than ever.”

“The Apple Thunderbolt Display is the ultimate docking station for your Mac notebook,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With just one cable, users can dock with their new display and connect to high performance peripherals, network connections and audio devices.”

Anyone going to pick up a new Air?

[Apple PR (Air), Apple PR (Mini), Apple PR (Display)]

On the very first episode of TiPb TV we joked about the 11 inch MacBook Air being more like an iPad pro, but deep inside Apple’s secret labs they might be working on making it exactly that according to Japanese blog Macotakara

Few weeks ago, DigiTimes told that Apple to launch MacBook Air with Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt in June-July. And additionally, an anonymous source told more information, Apple already made test equipment of Thunderbolt MacBook Air driven by A5 processor.

According to this source who saw live A5 MacBook Air actually, this test machine performed better than expected.

While Apple has been big on taking iPad ideas “back to the Mac” this year, if true it would have to be a proof of concept. Because, as much as I love my iPad 2 for things like Infinity Blade, I quickly run back to my 11 inch MacBook Air to run Photoshop and other intensive apps. Having all that power in a tiny portable is still too good to give up, even if an Apple A5 MacBook Air would have 48 hours of battery life and other benefits.

That’s assuming it would be running Mac OS X Lion, which they no doubt have experimented with on A5 (just as they experimented with earlier versions of Mac OS X on Intel back in the PowerPC days). If it’s running iOS 5, then I have to wonder if it would have a touch screen, which is something Apple said they don’t think works on a laptop.

What do you think? Do you want to add MacBooks to the A5 family? To the iOS family? Would it be the best of both worlds or the worst?

[Macotakara]

Should you get an iPad or MacBook Air, or more properly, who should get an iPad and who would do better with a MacBook Air? That’s the topic for the very first episode of TiPb TV, our new, more conversational, video show.

Rene and I go back and forth on the pros and cons of the smaller, less expensive, iOS powered iPad and how it compares to the only slightly bigger, double the price, Mac OS X sporting MacBook Air. This is the first time Apple really has two very different products in overlapping categories and there’s really no best answer, just a breakdown of which might be best for you, for your kids, for your parents, or just for your inner geek.

Keyboard vs multitouch, storage, speed, battery life, portability, and which is better for things like reading, watching, and browsing vs. production and productivity are all huge factors in the decision (as is cost of course!)

So if you’ve been trying to decide between an iPad and a MacBook Air this holiday season check out our very first TiPb TV and we’ll try to help you make the best choice possible.

Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.

To see what we picked this week, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Alli’s pick: BiteSMS (Jailbreak)

Deserving of a truly in-depth app review, I’m going with Cydia’s BiteSMS since I consistently list it as one of my three reasons for jailbreaking. BiteSMS replaces the messaging app, with tons of options (which is why it deserves more attention) including individual contact sms tones.

As you can see from the screenie, it gives you contact pics with the message list as well as on incoming message. Of course, the option I like best about BiteSMS is that it pops up on top of whatever you’re doing, so that you don’t have to exit a game or an email to respond to a text. And if you go back to your game or email (or whatever else you happen to be doing) and remember something you need to text, you can invoke BiteSMS without exiting the app.

You can trial BiteSMS for about 10 days. When the trial is up you’ll be bombarded with adverts, or you can shell out $8.99 and buy it from Cydia. Well worth the cost if you are a textaholic!

Ally’s pick: Display Recorder (Jailbreak)

Display Recorder is a wonderful jailbreak utility that allows you to record what is currently being displayed on your iPhone. It’s great for bloggers or techies who want to post up tutorials or reviews. It can also be used to show someone how to do something. Another neat feature is connecting it to a web server. There is actually a live mode that will show on a computer screen what you are doing on your phone in real time. This is excellent for demonstration purposes as well.

The only downside to the app is that it doesn’t currently have an option to record audio. I’ve been using the voice memos tool as a convenient way around this for now. It would be nice to see it in an update.

Display Recorder is available via Cydia for $4.99. You can also find out more about it on the Display Recorder website

Andrew’s pick: NotifyMe 2

NotifyMe 2 is a great ToDo notification app that utilizes both cloud notifications as well as iOS 4 local notifications. You can input any type of notification you want, categorize (custom categories included) the notification and set a time & date. The customization level of each notification is very well thought out, and includes 9 different notification tones to choose from.

The great thing about this app is that it comes with a desktop web-based client as well (free), which allows you to set up or review any cloud notification on-the-fly if you’re at a Mac or PC. NotifyMeCloud will sync any notifications made on the desktop to your iPhone or iPad app.

Speaking of the iPad, NotifyMe2 Control Center for iPad extends the functionality of the iPhone app even more! Or, you can use it as a standalone ToDo app with local and cloud notifications included.

NotifyMe 2 for iPhone is available in the App Store for $5.99, with its iPad counterpart selling for $9.99. Although these prices may seem a little high, the payoff is well worth it given the polish and functionality of this great app. Go grab it now!

[$5.99, iPhone - iTunes link]

[$9.99, iPad - iTunes link]

Brian’s pick: Boxcar

Boxcar is the perfect app if you want push notifications for apps such as FaceBook, Twitter and E-Mails. As soon as you get a notification in FaceBook you will be made aware of it via a push notification from Boxcar. If you are a Twitter user, anytime someone mentions you or sends you a DM you will get a push notification informing you of the new message waiting for you. If you are using e-mail that doesn’t have push you can use Boxcar to alert you right away of any new messages awaiting in your inbox. This is the perfect app to keep you informed instantly of whats happening in your online life. Best of all the app is free and they have pushed over 100,000,000 push notifications.

[Free - iTunes Link]

Farbod’s pick: iFile

iFile is a file manager running under user root. It is available on Cydia ($4.99) for Jailbroken devices such as iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad.

It allows fast navigation through the iPhone file system. You can directly view and run files of various types, e.g. various movie files, sound, text, HTML, Microsoft Office files (doc, xml, etc.), PDFs, and various compressed formats. Files can be sent as email attachments. Text files and property lists can be edited. Folders and files can be bookmarked. ZIP packing and compressed file unpacking are also supported. In addition, files can be uploaded and downloaded from iFile’s built-in web server.

George’s pick: iTorch 4

iTorch 4 turns your iPhone 4’s LED-flash into a standard flash light. When you launch the app, the light turns on and to turn it off there is a single on-screen button. Thats it! Its an extremely simple, yet incredibly useful app. There is an option to shake your iPhone 4 to activate/deactivate as well. The best part about this app is: its FREE! (Warning: constant use of the flash will drain your battery).

[Free - iTunes link]

Georgia’s pick: Bomberman

Ever since the Nintendo 64 I have loved Bomberman. Though I have to agree with most people that the controls are not extremely easy to use, it is still quite a fun game.

You are able to run around and bomb the ground in search of more power ups. If you have played and loved the Nintendo 64 version than this game is for you.

It is also enabled with Openfeint.

[$0.99 - iTunes Link]

Leanna’s pick: Social for the iPad

Now that it has been confirmed that Facebook will not be making a Facebook app, you may be interested in a 3rd part option. One of my favorites is Social for the iPad. It has the same traditional Facebook look (without the ads) as well as the ability to chat and upload photos. The only thing I’ve found that Social doesn’t allow, is tagging friends in a status update. But if you desire to send private messages, create groups, events, and pages, or check-in at Starbucks, you can do it all with Social. If Facebook on Safari leaves you desiring more, check out Social.

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s pick: 2010 MacBook Air

It’s got to be the new 11-inch Macbook Air. We received one here at TiPb HQ just this week and we’ll be putting it through it’s paces and seeing just how well it stacks up against our hometown champ, the 9.7-inch iPad. At $999 the MacBook Air is twice the price (baseline models) for half the battery life and it’s multitouch trackpad is just not the same as a full multitouch screen, but it has a full hardware keyboard and can run Mac OS X software.

Unlike the original Air it also has a high-density, higher resolution screen and 2 USB ports (and the 13-inch model even has an SD card reader). I used a second generation Air for most of 2009 and was extremely happy with it — except the battery life and lack of ports. It’s still the anti-netbook, with an okay CPU, good GPU, and amazing build quality, but that’s just exactly what some people want in their ultra-portable.

Standard configurations come with slower CPU and 2GB of RAM but you can build-to-order with speed bumps and 4GB. And since there’s no HD or SSD, only NAND Flash right on the board, it flies. The performance is much better than you’d expect and you often forget just how “small” a computer you’re using.

If you want a Mac instead of an iPad and you’re not going to be doing pro-level video or similar work, check out the 13-inch MacBook Air. If you don’t mind sacrificing size for portability, check out the 11-inch. They’re the sexist laptops in the world today and very likely a precursor of where Apple’s entire laptop line is headed.

Your pick?

You’re part of the team as well, so jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Will Apple’s just-announced 11-inch MacBook Air cut into sales of iPad? Many people own a Windows or Mac PC and a smartphone (iPhone if you’re on TiPb, right?) and it was a tough job for Apple to convince anyone but frequent flyer execs to plunk down the cash needed for a secondary computer like the original MacBook Air. Arguably, they failed and it remained a niche if premium product. Apple tried again with iPad. Instead of trimming down the Mac they went IMAX on the iPhone. While it remains to be seen how successful they’ll be in the long term, inarguably they’ve achieved a good level of success with it so far.

With the new MacBook Air, however, especially with the 11-inch model, Apple is putting their Mac OS X line into fairly close competition with their iOS line and iPad. Where before the gap between a $500 iPad and a $1500 MacBook Air came down mostly to cost vs. keyboard, iOS vs. Mac OS X, now for twice the starting price of the iPad you can get a Mac that’s almost as portable and a lot more functional.

iPad still has the edge in ease of use (though Mac OS X 10.7 Lion starts to change that) and battery life, the new MacBook Air matches its instant on. Now some thought iPad could never compete in a netbook world and it’s doing very well. But iPad is a fantastic value, with incredible build quality and premium materials that really does a few things well. By contrast most netbooks are cramped, underpowered, cheaply constructed, and aren’t really optimized for anything. MacBook Air is a Core 2 Duo with unibody aluminum chassis, a full sized keyboard, and an almost full sized, multi-touch trackpad. And it can run Adobe CS5. Well.

(Also, Apple aficionados wouldn’t have gone near a netbook but they’ll jump all over the newer, cheaper MacBook Air.)

Apple now has two contenders between smartphone and main machine, one more like the iPhone, the other a Mac. Price is still a factor as is priorities, but it feels like now there’s a choice for that spot in the lineup where before it was iPad’s alone.

Anyone think iPad should be worried?

As part of the Back to the Mac event, Steve Jobs wondered what would happen if a a MacBook and iPad hooked up and the answer is the new MacBook Air. It’s full unibody, full keyboard, full trackpad. Instant on. Great battery life. Great standby time. There will be both 13.3 inch and 11.6 inch models.

• 1440×900 display or 1366x 768
• Core 2 Duo
• NVidia graphics
• FaceTime camera
• Flash storage
• 7 hours Wi-Fi use (under better battery tests) or 5 hours for 11.6 inch
• 30 days standbye
• 802.11n Wi-Fi

Pricing starts at $999 for 11.6, 64GB, 1.4Ghz. All models are 2GB of memory standard. [Update: but you can upgrade to 4GB! W00t!]

Available today.

Rumors strongly suggest Apple’s Back to the Mac October event will feature the introduction of an all-new, perhaps all-different MacBook air, the first in a post-iPad world. And that has got me thinking — how does Apple still keep it relevant?

Apple originally introduced the MacBook Air as the ultimate ultra-light, bereft of optical drive, reduced to a single USB port, yet still boasting a full-sized 13-inch screen and keyboard. Light and impossibly thin but powerful and a fully capable Mac. It was the anti-netbook.

Throughout 2008 I used a second-generation MacBook Air as my main blogging computer. I took it everywhere from my room to the coffee shop to Macworld 2009. The second generation model, with Nvidia graphics, ran Photoshop like a champ and was perhaps the best text and photo blogging machine on the market at the time.

Now we have the iPad. Also no optical drive, but without a single USB port (camera adapter notwithstanding) or hardware keyboard whatsoever. It most certainly can’t run full-on Photoshop, or drag and drop between multiple windows, or maintain persistent SFTP and other connections, or do any of the million things Mac OS X excels at. But those things the iPad does do, like movies, web, email, games, books, etc. it does very well, at a much lower cost, with far more intimacy and immediacy, and with 10 hours of battery life.

Apple’s ultra-portable category suddenly had two very different contenders, and that’s a problem because if there’s one thing Apple likes more than stunning design its simple product lines.

Upon his return to Apple it’s said Steve Jobs drew a grid with only 4 boxes, portables and desktops, consumers and pro — what’s now known as MacBook and MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Pro. It’s more complicated these days, but compared to any and every other company it’s still ridiculously simple and intentionally so. When you go to Apple to buy something, they don’t want you confused over what you should buy. They just want you to buy it. Need portable, get portable, Need pro, get pro.

Even today while iPad has cut deeply into netbook and cheap laptop sales it doesn’t seem to have hurt MacBook’s much if at all. That’s because iPad is a viable option compared to a $500-ish netbook or laptop. It’s not a viable option compared to a $1000-plus MacBook, much less a $1500+ MacBook Air.

So what happens if Apple re-invents the Air? If it gets smaller and lighter, like the iPad, if it goes NAND Flash, like the iPad, if the price drops — though nowhere near the iPad’s — enough to make it compelling?

Is a 11-inch MacBook air with a hardware keyboard at $1000 a viable option compared to a 7-inch iPad with multitouch? A $800-plus fully tricked out iPad 3G 64GB?

And what if Apple removed the multitouch differentiator from iPad? What if the MacBook Air got multitouch as well?

It may not this year, not if it runs OS X. OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard simply isn’t built for multitouch and even if OS X 10.7 Lion is sneak previewed next week with multitouch support it probably won’t reach GM status until WWDC in June, 2011, and consumers sometime thereafter. The new MacBook Air will likely ship this year in time for the holidays.

Could it be a hybrid, however? Could it run OS X but have a multitouch iOS layer on top of it? Could it have iOS come up instantly when it boots if all you want to do is surf the web, check email, watch a movie? Could it have iOS slide up, fade in, or carousel around instantly in place of the almost abandonware layers that are now Dashboard and Front Row? It sure would increase responsiveness, never mind battery life.

Think about it: iOS is what Apple has spent so much time on as of late. It was what all but bumped OS X from its traditional place at the last WWDC and it’s what has been driving more and more of Apple’s profits. It’s even replaced OS X 10.4 Tiger on the Apple TV. Eventually, it has to move onto the Mac.

It would post some challenges — how would a device with a fixed keyboard handle rotation to portrait mode, for example? — but it would have definite advantages as well. Maybe not right now, but maybe by the time iOS 10.7 Lion ships later next year?

iOS comes from OS X, could it return back to that source and become the next leap forward in Apple’s OS evolution? How the new MacBook Air could be relevant in a post iPad world is by being the first step in that next leap — the first Mac to bridge the gap between iPad and MacBook.

We grabbed a quick look at the ultrathin MacBook Air, just released during Steve Jobs’ 2008 Macworld Keynote. The MacBook Air is a pretty sweet little guy – it’s ridiculously thin yet full-powered. Our only regret is that it has only 1(!) USB port. Oh, and the little fact that you can’t replace the battery. Isn’t that kind of a must for a laptop? We smell an accessory opportunity.

Otherwise – the hotness, even at $1799. A quick video of the gigantic crowd fondling the device above.

But you’ll also want to check out our full (as in REALLY big!) high-res gallery of the MacBook Air. Go Go!

The MacBook Air is “the world’s thinnest notebook.” It’s ridiculously thin – .76 inches on the back and .16 inches at the front. It fits inside a manilla envelope – Jobs has one in an envelope now! It is INSANELY thin. UNNATURALLY thin. It has a full sized keyboard and display.

it has a 13.3, LED-backlit display. There is, of course, a built-in iSight camera. There is also a full-sized keyboard, “perhaps the best notebook keyboard we’ve ever shipped.” And yes, it’s also backlit.

The “very generous trackpad” now supports multitouch. There are even short videos explaining how the multitouch trackpad works on the MacBook Air.

It does indeed sport a hard disk – a 1.8″ hard drive, same as in the iPod. It has an 80gig as standard, you can also get a 64gb Solid State drive. The electronics, “a complete mac on a board” are tiny. The processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo, 1.6GHz is standard, you can go 1.8 GHz as well. The chip is 60% smaller than a standard 1.6GHz chip, and so Jobs has invited Intel CEO Paul Otellini to thank him for that incredible chip.

New feature: Remote Disk — allows you to use another computer’s optical drive to install software over the network. It’s an incredibly neat idea. Otherwise you can buy a USB superdrive for $99.

Apple claims that under medium to heavy usage you can get five hours of battery life.

• 3 pounts
• .16 – 0.76 inches
• 13.3 LED display
• full sized, backlit keyboard
• Multi-touch trackpad
• iSight
• 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo standard
• 2 Gigs memory standard
• 80 Gig Hard Drive
• Bluetooth 2.1 EDR

…..$1799, available in 2 weeks.

..That’s it folks, Randy Newman is coming on stage to perform for us now!