MacBook Air vs UltraBook, with a possible little brother ipad

On May 2nd, we enjoyed a great presentation by Elena-Beth Kaye on the topic of buying stuff on the Internet. Even us guys were caught up in the pursuit of a better deal on Little Black Bag.com

Our next presentation on June 6th will cover the new iPad. The presenter will be me, your Editor and Media Manager.

I will show off AirPlay, which allows you to display your iPad on your Apple TV or your Mac or even your PC (if you don’t mind beta ware). Several applications are available to do this on a Mac. I will show off Air Server. I will show off doing a presentation from my iPad using Keynote for iOS. I will show off games, such as Angry Birds Space. And I will show off Paper, the great drawing program.

Now on to rumors and aspersions. Appleinsider reports that Apple will bring out a $799 MacBook Air to compete against the slew of Ultrabooks (will Ultraman use an Ultrabook?) coming this year.

Intel, the main instigator behind the Ultrabooks, hopes to see 30 million Ultrabooks this year. The company designed the Ultrabook specification after Apple found great success with its new MacBook Air, which features only solid-state storage, instant-on capabilities, and super-thin design thanks to the lack of an optical drive.

Not to get too geeky, but I’m waiting to see tony max os x 86’s blog on Hackintoshs. Could you save a few bucks by buying a cheap Ultrabook and installing OS X 10.7.4 on it? Or 10.8? We’ll have to wait and see, but could be fun.

This may be a more reliable rumor. An 7 inch iPad mini may be on the way. Cnet reports on the rumor, but disputes its validity. Still, an iPad in the $250-300 range could bring in more customers.

Finally, if you’ve wanted to transfer old cassette tapes (I’ve got boxes and boxes myself) to your Mac, here’s a videoand slideshow display on how to do it. It uses the Audacity audio editing program and walks you through the options to pick.

Til Tomorrow,

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley Users Group.