MacBook, iPad Offspring: The New MacBook Air

CUPERTINO, Calif., Oct 20 (Reuters) – Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the thinnest, lightest Mac laptop yet, fusing features from its popular iPhone and iPad with its traditional line of personal computers.

Apple, whose computers have taken market share from PCs based on Microsoft Corp’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows, will bring a version of its mobile applications store to the Mac, aiming to replicate its success and spur development of new programs.

Loading up Macs with iPad features may help Apple stave off investors’ fears that sales will begin bleeding over to the tablet, which has stirred up astonishing demand.

The new MacBook Air — introduced on Wednesday with Jobs’ signature "one last thing" set-up — is designed to reproduce the versatility of popular devices such as the iPhone and iPad, and will incorporate FaceTime video chats, which Apple is bringing to all its Macs.

Utilizing flash storage like the iPad rather than hard drives like conventional computers, it can power up almost instantly from standby mode and store data twice as quickly as a standard hard drive. But it sacrifices processing power compared with Apple’s other laptops.

"We asked ourselves what would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up? Well, this is the result," Jobs said at a media event in Cupertino, California, calling the Air the "future of notebooks."

It starts at $999 for an 11.6-inch model, weighs as little as 2.3 pounds (1 kg), and measures 0.11 inches (0.3 cm) at its thinnest to 0.68 inches (1.7 cm) at the rear.

"They’re basically merging the product lines; they’re simplifying it," said Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu. "They’re taking the strengths out of what they’ve learned on the iPhone and iPad and bringing that technology over to the Mac side. It makes a lot of sense."