No New Mac Hardware Until Lion Ships? New iPhones Waiting for iOS 5?

Updated Mac hardware will not ship until Mac OS X Lion is publicly released or at least finalized sometime in July, this is to insure that new Macs will include Mac OS X Lion and iCloud preinstalled, according to a new report by AppleInsider.

The decision is expected to impact the release dates of several unannounced products, including a refreshed MacBook Air, a new Mac Mini, and even a Thunderbolt Apple Cinema Display.

For instance, new Thunderbolt-enabled Sandy Bridge MacBook Air models expected to go into production this month have been ready and waiting for some time, according to people familiar with the matter. But management is currently unwilling to usher the new models into the market with the current Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system.

Instead, the Mac maker is said to be locked on waiting till it can image the new notebooks with a Gold Master build of Lion so that buyers are afforded the latest and greatest Apple experience. This includes complimentary iCloud services that will come built into the software

In a similar manner, AppleInsider also suggests that refreshed iPhone and iPod touch models will also depend on the release of iOS 5, which is set for Fall of this year.