Apple might well be about to refresh their line of desktop Macs in time to for the release of their new operating system OSX Lion according to reports from Brian Tong from Cnet - the products inline for an upgrade appear to be the Mac Minis and Mac Pro desktop range.
The new Macs will be upgraded and will be powered by Intel's Sandy Bridge processor architecture and will ship by the beginning of August, sources have said. The refreshers will come with Apple new Thunderbolt data ports, Intel's high-speed connector, and of coure Mac OSX Lion.
It is thought that the refresh will be for the internal parts and will not cover any form of cosmetic changes.
The update would be in keeping with what Apple has done for its iMac range in May, when they added Intel's second-generation quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs (former code-named Sandy Bridge) as well as Thunderbolt data ports. They also match updates Apple made to the MacBook Pro line earlier this year.
Thunderbolt debuted with the updated MacBook Pros and offers a new, bidirectional data port designed to simplify external device connections to laptop and desktop computers. The standard supports both data and video throughput simultaneously with the appropriate connectors.
Both the Mac Pro and the Mac mini are around a year old now, and given Apple's past form a refresh seems timely. Other reports recently have suggested that the MacBook Air will also be fitted out with the Sandy Bridge/Thunderbolt combo and that all new products launches are on hold until after the Mac OS X Lion launch.
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is due in July and is more than a simple operating system upgrade. It hooks users into iCloud, Apple’s new storage service, which offers benefits including seamlessly storing music and personal files online. iCloud represents a major new direction for Apple, which sees it as a way of tying together its various desktop and mobile platforms, as well as providing an additional method for delivering media to users.