Apple has been building up hype for their midyear product release since their January product release. Historically, the July event typically brings about refreshers to their laptops and desktop accessories. But today’s news is extra special because of the arrival of long-awaited Lion operating system, as well as providing a much needed boost to the outdated core of the MacBook Air. Below, a quick rundown of the high points.

OS X: Lion — The premier product that’s been anticipated for almost a year now has finally dropped today. The operating system supposedly unites all of their portable touchscreen devices and brings their best elements to the not-so-portable computer, but with one catch. Apple is no longer selling their OS via the conventional CD. You must buy it through their Mac App Store or it can be purchased on a USB drive next month, for an extra charge of course.

MacBook Air — Apple finally decided to upgrade the five-year-old Core 2 Duo processors to 2011’s Sandy Bridge i5 and i7 chips. The Thunderbolt I/O port has also been added, supporting up to 6 peripherals including displays, and hardrives (at the same time) at a whopping 10-gigabit per second data transfer. Additionally, in my opinion, the greatest cosmetic feature, the backlit keyboard has returned (I’m betting Apple took it away just to say they brought it back).

Mac Mini — The Mac Mini has always been Apple’s desktop for people who aren’t quite ready to shell out 1-2 stacks on a computer. It’s in their low-to-midline range of products and despite some little boosts in RAM, CPU, graphics, and now the much-coveted Thunderbolt I/O technology, the machine still lags behind its price. I’ll pass on this one.

Thunderbolt Display — Basically the identical monitor as the older Cinema Display, but with the addition, of yep you guessed it, the Thunderbolt port. Still severely overpriced, but still just as severely easy on the eyes. This is definitely worthy of ogling in the Apple Store, but not shelling top dollar for a miniature, hi-res TV.

MacBook — R.I.P. Apple’s last archaic plastic computer has been finally deaded and rightfully so. Why would you spend $1K for a cheesy looking, mid-line laptop and not dish out an extra hundred bones and upgrade to the top of the line? Well, now there’s no option of that anymore.