The recent rumors you’ve been hearing, the ones about new MacBook Airs, may not be true. Recent intelligence shows another possibility. You remember those leaked part numbers from Apple, don’t you? At first, we thought those were for some new MacBook Airs that were supposed to be refreshed on July 14. After that never happened, those leaked part numbers made no sense. The new rumor is that those part numbers are for Apple Cinema displays. These displays are to be updated with Thunderbolt support. This way, you can ditch standard display connections and use the new Thunderbolt technology to connect your Mac to a display.
This rumor wasn’t just dreamed up like the past MacBook Air rumor. Apple actually leaked this information theirselves. They posted an image on their website showing a cinema display connected to a MacBook Pro via Thunderbolt. What caught our eye on the image is that the displays show the Lion background instead of the Snow Leopard background that is being used on all other images on the website. Furthermore, the letters in the URL that the image was located at corresponded to the previously mentioned leaked part numbers. To add fuel to the fire, the cinema display portion of Apple’s site would not allow purchases for a while. The “Buy Now” link was broken, but this was later fixed. Whatever the case, a near-future refresh to the cinema displays seems very promising. We might also see Lion released with the new displays, since the leaked images show the Lion background instead of Snow Leopard. Lion is, in fact, due to be released sometime in July, per a promise by Apple.