14 DAY TRIAL // People with proven track records who are privy of Apple’s short-term plans have reportedly told a technology website that OS X Lion is dropping tomorrow, July 20th, in the Mac App Store.
Citing the usual unnamed sources who are allegedly in a position to know such matters, AppleInsider turns on the rumor faucet once again this week, signaling an imminent release of OS X Lion tomorrow.
Moreover, one of these allegedly knowledgeable people said Lion would be released on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
The Lion launch will be accompanied by refreshed MacBook Air computers, this source added.
Needless to point out, this report sounds like a last minute attempt to score a few more page hits before Apple really does set loose its biggest cat yet, but that doesn’t mean the report shouldn’t be taken seriously either.
After all, there is a fair possibility Apple will release Lion any day of the week and July is only half way through.
And since there have also been reports that said Lion GM builds were already shipping physically to Apple retail locations across the globe, we’d say a Wednesday launch suddenly doesn’t sound so far fetched.
As reported earlier today, several sources have pointed out that Apple retail stores were receiving what was referred to as “final copies of OS X Lion” on Monday, July 18.
By now, retail staffers are likely to have finished installing the new OS on display machines.
The other half of the rumor - the new MacBook Airs - is really just a matter of time.
Even with several Macintosh computers still waiting for the latest Intel treatment (Sandy Bridge CPUs, Thunderbolt I/O), the MacBook Air is first in line to get them.
Apple heavily markets Lion using the ultra-thin notebook, so we’d expect everything to materialize as described above. It now depends on what mood Apple is in this week.