Teardown specialists iFixit have published a new tablet repairability guide that quickly tells you how difficult it’s going to be to mend your broken Android, iOS, or Windows 8 slate. The guide features 18 popular tablets, which have been given a repairability score between one and ten. The higher the score, the easier they are to repair.
Unsurprisingly, Apple’s iPads are some of the hardest tablets to fix, second only to the Microsoft Surface Pro — the only tablet with a score of one. Amazon’s Kindle Fire’s, on the other hand, are relatively easy to repair, as are Dell’s devices.
Sure, you can buy me an iPad mini for Valentine’s Day, but isn’t that a little predictable?
Warning: This article might deal in stereotypes. Why? Because no matter how much your woman friend might truly appreciate that power drill she’s had her eye on for the last six months (to the point of leaving a copy of Lady Power Tool magazine open on your desk with the page turned to a Makita ad), you’re still going to buy her some horrible pink iPad case with Hello Kitty ears.
So if you’re willing to make the stereotyped move, then so can I. I’ll recommend fancy lotions and cooking gadgets and the amazing (and mythical) “FourSquare for leg waxing.” But probably not for the reasons you’re expecting.
After over a year of rumor and speculation, we’re less than a day away fr0m the iPad mini finally going up for preorder. Starting at 12:01AM Pacific Time, the iPad mini (Wi-Fi version only) will be available for preorder on Apple’s official site, with units delivering on November 2nd.
It’s always hard to tell with a new product, but if history is anything to go by — the iPhone 5 preorders sold out within hours, and stock is still short — the iPad mini is going to be crazy in-demand. If Apple starts preorders in the middle of the night, it’s because they’re anticipating a madhouse… such a madhouse that if they held it in the middle of the day, their servers would crash under the pressure.
Hence this guide. We’re going to walk you through the best ways to make absolutely sure you get your iPad mini preordered right at the stroke of midnight and in your hands next Friday when it officially launches in the minimum amount of time, so you can go right back to sleep.
Following its Retina MacBook Pro teardown back in June, iFixit declared Apple’s latest portable “the least repairable laptop” it has ever taken apart. While some components aren’t too difficult to upgrade or replace, others — such as the battery and RAM — are near impossible without professional help. In its new repair guide, published today, iFixit details further repair limitations with the notebook, and estimates that a third-party battery replacement could cost around $500.
Wow, Merry Christmas indeed. Dieter Bohn over at The Verge has put together the end-all-be-all guide to iOS, an overview of Apple’s plucky little mobile OS so well-illustrated, informative and complete, all we can do is stew in jealousy we didn’t do this ourselves.
It’s that time of year again. Not the holidays — I’m mean yeah, sure it is, but that’s pretty obvious. No, it’s the time of year when we drive ourselves (and others) a little crazy running around trying to find gifts at the last minute. Especially those pesky stocking stuffers — the little gifts that fill in the gap between “it’s Christmas? Geez, I completely forgot” and “honey, I bought you a Lexus.”
Children and Apple stuff mix pretty well — iDevices cap the top three slots on kids’ wishlists, right? So it’s a good bet that there’ll be a bunch of Apple stuff underneath the trees or the Menorah this year. We’ve put together a short list of icing-on-the-cake type gifts — or great follow-ups if you got ‘em iDevices last year.
Everyone knows that Apple creates products that are great for creating. But part of what makes that statement true is the deep selection of third-party gadgets that make the most of artistic impulse. We’ve painted this next section, Gifts for the Imagination, with examples that’ll help nourish the next Pissarro, Satriani or Cartier-Bresson.
We’ve got just the thing to follow our Gifts for the Working Stiff section of our 2011 Holiday Gift Guide: This time around, we’re hooking you up with Gifts for Kicking It. So grab your fun hat (and maybe your shopping mouse) and check out this list of awesome gadgets that make it a party.
We’re pretty passionate here at the Cult of Mac. What are we passionate about? Well, the pecking order goes something like this (although maybe the order is flipped for one or two CoM writers):
1. Our loved ones
2. Gadgets
Of course, we’re also passionate about sharing our knowledge of gadgets and technology with the rest of the world. Combine these three passions, and here’s the result: our Holiday Gift Guide.
![How To Preorder The iPad Mini At Midnight Tonight The Right Way [Guide]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-25-at-11.20.52-AM.jpg "Screen Shot 2012-10-25 at 11.20.52 AM")
