Apple set to launch Sandy Bridge Mac Pro and Mac mini this fall

It wouldn't be a weekend without a brand-new Apple rumor to feast upon. And today's no exception: According to Cnet's Brian Tong, unidentified sources have told him that Apple's going to launch an upgraded Mac Pro and Mac mini this fall.

Details on the configurations are scant, save for the two obvious upgrades that Apple would want to put in a refreshed system line: Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs and Thunderbolt connections. The timeline for the systems is a little nebulous as well—the systems could appear in late July or early August, though Tong claims that an August launch is the more likely scenario. Expect the refreshed systems to feature Mac's latest operating system iteration, OS X Lion.

Tong's source is allegedly the same individual that correctly predicted an early May refresh of Apple's iMac line—lo and behold, new iMacs sporting Intel's quad-core Sandy Bridge processors and Thunderbolt support hit stores on May 3.

But this isn't the only Apple refresh rumor making its way around the Web as of late. Analysts are predicting that Apple's also going to debut a revamped Macbook Air come July—and you can allegedly thank OS X Lion for the delay. According to Apple Insider, sources say that Apple's had the hardware for the new Macbook Air ready to go for some time now. However, Apple has allegedly held the unit back from release in order to ship it with OS X Lion.

Lion, as revealed by CEO Steve Jobs in an early June keynote, packs 250 brand-new features under its hood. These include support for Apple's official push toward seamless sharing of data across its devices—otherwise known as iCloud–which would allow users to store music, apps, books, and other data on Apple's storage platform. Users get five free gigabytes of space in the iCloud, but the storage limit only affects a subset of files like one's email, documents, and settings, to name a few.

Other features built into OS X Lion include AirDrop, which allows users to toss files back and forth across each other's devices by way of a peer-to-peer, Wi-Fi protocol. A new Mission Control interface combines the best of Expose, Spaces, and Dashboard to give users one-button access to multiple running desktops, documents open in all active apps, and dashboard widgets. Resume, one of Lion's more widely touted features, restores the exact state of a user's apps and documents after a system restart or an app exit and relaunch.

Apple will only offer OS X Lion as a $29.99 digital download. It's expected to hit the Mac App Store in July.

This article, written by David Murphy, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc.