Jul 20, 2011 13:34 GMT  ·  By

As if it hasn’t been all too obvious that something was going on with the MacBook Air line, we're happy to inform Softpedia readers that Apple today confirmed the much-rumored Intel upgrades for its hot selling ultra-thin notebooks, as well as backlit keyboards and doubled storage and RAM.

The 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs Apple is introducing today have been pimped out with next-generation Intel ‘Sandy Bridge’ processors, high-speed Thunderbolt I/O technology, and backlit keyboard.

As expected, the systems are shipping with Mac OS X Lion, “the world’s most advanced operating system.” Order one now, and you can expect it to land at your door in less than 24 hours, Apple says.

Retail stores will have them ready for pick-up tomorrow.

“With up to twice the performance of the previous generation, flash storage for instant-on responsiveness and a compact design so portable you can take it everywhere, the MacBook Air starts at $999 (US) and is available for order today and in stores tomorrow,” reads the Mac maker’s official announcement.

“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,” Schiller added.

Equipped with the latest Intel Core i5 and Core i7 dual-core processors, the new notebooks are said to be twice as fast as the previous generation.

Benchmark tests will soon confirm whether or not that’s the case.

Depending on the configuration they choose, customers can get up to 4 gigs of memory, up to 256GB flash storage, and 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor (as build-to-order option).

Battery life remains at 5 hours of “wireless productivity” for the 11-inch model, and 7 hours for the 13-incher.