Apple unveils new Haswell-powered MacBook Air with ‘all day battery life’ at WWDC 2013

By Russ Boswell June 10, 2013

MacBook_Air_2013_wwdc — Image used with permission by copyright holder

This story is part of our complete Apple WWDC coverage

Apple started off this year’s WWDC with news about its new operating system, OS X Mavericks (bye bye, kitties!). Shortly after, we got a glimpse of one of the new devices that’ll be making use of the new OS, the MacBook Air. Apple’s Phil Schiller started by calling the MacBook Air the “ultimate everyday notebook,” and went right into talking about how the new line of MacBook Airs will feature a new Haswell ULT processor, and what he called “all day battery life.”

MacBook_Air_2013_wwdc_battery — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The new Haswell chip promises things like “standby for 30 days,” and “one second wake up” time. With this new processor, the battery life for the 15-inch MacBook Air will improve from five hours to nine hours, while the 13-inch gets boosted from seven hours to 12 hours. The Air will boast two times GPU and 40 percent faster graphics than its predecessor.

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We will also see upgrades to flash, which is promised to work at a 45 percent faster rate with the new MacBook Air, and the power saving capabilities will allow you to watch iTunes videos for up to 10 hours on the MacBook 13-inch without interruption – almost enough to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy, according to Schiller.

MacBook_Air_Prices — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Another upgraded feature is the introduction of 802.11ac Wi-Fi, which promises speeds up to three times faster than the MacBook Air’s current 802.11n standard. Apple stated that the New MacBook Air is available for purchase starting today. Stay tuned for more news on the updated Air.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Russ Boswell is an aspiring video game and technology journalist from Colorado. He's been an avid gamer since he was old…

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