Mac os x lion

No one is able to tell you for certain when new models are coming out until Apple actually announces a date. However, there are some sites that try to guess based on previous hardware refreshes.

A great one is the Macrumors Buying Guide:
Mac Buyer's Guide: Know When to Buy Your Mac, iPod or iPhone

The best rule of thumb is if you need a new computer and the current models meet your needs go for it. If you're not in a rush and choose to wait for the next refresh, you can do that. Either choice is ultimately up to you.

There will always be the next new version, so waiting indefinitely is often not worth it.

I hope that OS X Lon won't be expensive...

jason-avak said:

I hope that OS X Lon won't be expensive...

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Prepare for around $120.
Hope for less.

chas_m said:

Actually, that is a picture of the current shipping iMac. But yes, at some point Apple is going to add Thunderbolt to the iMac, sooner rather than later I would guess.

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I think it's the cinema display, actually. The picture is (I think) trying to demonstrate the ability to daisychain accessories.

chas_m said:

That said, the "next" iMac will likely have VERY LITTLE different from the current model apart from Thunderbolt. Just a refresh rather than a major update would be my guess (though I could of course be wrong).

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Not exactly true.

Thunderbolt is tied to Intel's latest gen Processors and chipsets (Sandy Bridge) which have shown significant speed improvements over the previous Nehalem CPU cores. The New MBPs are benchmarking around double the CPU perf of last years equivilent models. I would expect similar boosts from an iMac refresh.

Most likely, that more than Lion itself is the thing to hold out for if you are intent on having the best Lion experience when it is released (Although I expect it will run well on any x64 compatable Mac considering their previous record with Power PC performance improvements over the life of OSX through 10.5).

-MikeM

Newbie question..roughly do these upgrades go as smooth as I have experienced over the last two weeks? Since I am used to these Windows debacles, I am assuming these won't be as bad.

Is this also available on the App site by any chance?

BTW This has been a very smooth transition so far, I am just waiting for something to go wrong (slowly getting rid of the Windows attitude )

desism said:

Newbie question..roughly do these upgrades go as smooth as I have experienced over the last two weeks? Since I am used to these Windows debacles, I am assuming these won't be as bad.

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Depends.

Generally, yes they go quite smoothly (with a little common sense applied, like making a backup before doing any major system updates, maybe repairing permissions, etc).

But though Apple is in my experience very smooth generally, that's not to be confused with a flawless track record. There have occasionally been issues.

Is this also available on the App site by any chance?

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I think Lion will be too large for an App Store issue -- you'll need to buy the DVD. Of course that could all change in the future -- Apple is VERY keen on all-download distribution as we've seen.

MikeM said:

Not exactly true.

Thunderbolt is tied to Intel's latest gen Processors and chipsets (Sandy Bridge) which have shown significant speed improvements over the previous Nehalem CPU cores. The New MBPs are benchmarking around double the CPU perf of last years equivilent models. I would expect similar boosts from an iMac refresh.

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You're very correct, most likely. Good catch. I was thinking more exterior appearances but as you say, a much faster processor (and subsystem upgrades that tend to go with that) will make a significant difference.

(Although I expect it will run well on any x64 compatable Mac considering their previous record with Power PC performance improvements over the life of OSX through 10.5).

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All I know is (and this is public knowledge) the beta only excludes Core Solo and Core Duo (not to be confused with Core 2 Duo) Intel machines, BUT the excluded models could conceivably be folded back in later in the beta process (its rare but it has happened before).