Apple unveils thin, light MacBook Air netbooks

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled sleeker, lightweight MacBook Air laptops at an event Wednesday.

(CNN) -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs, near the end of a meandering presentation Wednesday, unveiled his trademark "one more thing": two refreshed MacBook Air laptops that add some of the ease of use of an iPad.
The largest of these slender, lightweight netbook computers has a 13-inch screen, is .68 of an inch thick at its widest point and weighs less than three pounds. It'll be priced at $1,299.
A smaller version will have an 11-inch screen and costs $999. Both are available today.
"What would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?" asked Jobs to laughs from the audience at Apple's Cupertino, California, headquarters. "This is the result."
Both computers boast unibody construction, full-size keyboards and a webcam for FaceTime video chatting. They also have no hard drives and run on Flash storage instead, meaning they boot up instantly, like the iPad.
Earlier Jobs introduced the newest version of Apple's operating system, to be nicknamed Lion. The new OS follows a big-cat theme, most recently with its 10.6 version, also called Snow Leopard.
"We're really happy with Snow Leopard, but we know how to take it even further," Jobs said. The Lion OS will be released in summer of 2011, he said.
Jobs also announced that Apple will open an App Store geared specifically for the Mac within three months.
The Apple leader announced that FaceTime, the video-chat feature available now on the iPhone 4 and newest iPod Touch, will be coming to Macs as well. A beta release was available Wednesday.
Jobs also rolled out an update to iLife, Apple's suite of photo, music and moviemaking tools. iLife '11 includes a new version of iPhoto, featuring multiple new features including Facebook integration, full-screen mode and the ability to create greeting cards.
Filmmaking software iMovie '11 and music-maker GarageBand '11 also are getting refreshed. The iLife '11 suite sells for $49 and is available now, Jobs said.
Wednesday's "Back to the Mac" news conference focused attention away from mobile devices like iPhones and back to the company's laptop computers.

Apple is spring-boarding from a record quarter for its computer division, having sold 3.89 million Macs between late June and late September. While the company sold more iPhones, iPods and iPads than Macs, profit margins on desktops and laptops are generally higher, so they make up a crucial part of Apple's revenue.

CNN's Brandon Griggs, Mark Milian and Doug Gross contributed to this report.