Apple is relatively unscathed by the recent Thailand flooding which threw for a loop PC makers more dependent on hard drives. That’s the word from Wall Street analysts who say Apple’s move to flash memory saved the Cupertino, Calif tech giant from the fate of Intel.
For only the second time in recent memory, Apple has used its pile of cash to buy a hardware company and threaten survival of another tech industry. Reports say Apple is ready to spend up to $500 million to acquire Anobit, an Israel-based flash memory maker already used in the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. It probably didn’t hurt that the purchase could free Apple’s reliance on its courtroom buddy Samsung.
It had to happen: Apple’s workhorse, the iMac, is expected to relinquish its title as best-selling all-in-one computer in 2012. What with its success in smartphones, tablets and notebooks, Apple appears ready to throw the PC industry a bone — a very limited one, however.
Sales of the iPhone and Mac are topping analyst expectations for the holiday quarter, eating into Android marketshare. On the flip side, despite reaching new record sales, iPad demand is described as “a little light,” one analyst told investors Wednesday. In the kind of bad news rivals could only hope to have, iPhone demand continues to outstrip supply and those soft iPad figures are partly due to increased interest in another Apple product: the MacBook Air.
Your next MacBook Air should support a total of three displays at once via one Thunderbolt connection, according to a leaked roadmap of Intel’s plans for its Ivy Bridge processors in 2012.
With Apple’s next-generation laptops primed to sport Intel’s Ivy Bridge silicon, it’s very likely that future MacBook Airs and Pros will be able to support two external displays plus the MacBook’s built-in screen.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then this Chinese imitation of the MacBook Air is the biggest compliment that Apple has received in a long time. Cleverly called the “AirBook,” this feat of design plagiarism looks exactly like Apple’s MacBook Air.
Costing only $499, the AirBook possesses many similarities to Apple’s notebook, but there some crucial differences. Did we mention that it runs Windows?
Despite being caught in Apple’s vise-like iPad and MacBook Air grip, Acer continues on with the belief there must be a market somewhere remaining for netbooks – maybe China. Monday, the head of the company’s China operations said “emerging markets” could boost vanishing profits. On Monday, the head of the company’s China operations said “emerging markets” could boost vanishing profits. In other words, everyone else may think netbooks suck, but they’re still good enough for those third-world citizens who don’t know any better.
While rumors surrounding a 15-inch MacBook Air have been circulating for a number of months now, we had no idea when Apple might be gearing up to launch the new device. Sources “from the upstream supply chain” are now reporting, however, that the 15-inch ultraportable will arrive during the first quarter of 2012 as part of a completely refreshed MacBook Air family.
Apple famously keeps its Black Friday deals a closely guarded secret until the day of the event. But thanks to a leaked sales pamphlet from a “trusted tipster,” we already know where the Cupertino company will be slashing prices, with savings to be made on the iMac, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, iPod nano and iPod touch, iPad, and plenty of accessories.
This is a cute little stocking stuffer for the narcissistic Mac fangirl in your life: the MirrorBook Air, a $12 hand mirror that looks just like a tiny, palm-sized MacBook Air. Get it now before Apple C&Ds it, which they will, but hopefully not before Christmas.
After Apple finally converted its entire Mac lineup to AMD, SemiAccurate is reporting that Apple is switching back to NVIDIA as the graphics chip supplier for the upcoming MacBook Pro model in 2012.
While the report doesn’t specifically say why Apple is planning its move back to NVIDIA, it looks as though the rumored MacBook Pro refresh for 2012 will include NVIDIA graphics and possibly the Intel Ivy Bridge processor.
The biggest shopping day of the year is fast approaching. This Friday, countless retailers all over the U.S. will be slashing prices for Black Friday, causing a frenzy amongst shoppers who cannot wait to spend some of their hard-earned cash on discounted goods.
Apple famously recognizes the event by discounting some of its hottest products in the Apple online store for one day only, with savings to be made on new Macs, iOS devices, iPods, and even the latest accessories for your beloved Apple gadgets. This year will be no different, so based on the past few years’ reductions, here’s what to expect at the Apple online store on Black Friday.
Did Apple almost switch to AMD processors this generation in the MacBook Air? That’s the latest report, and while we’re really skeptical, if it’s true, it would have been quite the blow against Intel.
Apple’s MacBook Air has been an incredibly popular machine since the company introduced solid-state drives as standard and reduced its price tag back in October 2010. But for some, it just doesn’t come big enough.
However, dreams of a 15-inch model are about to come true, according to sources in Apple’s supply chain. And it’ll be here by March 2012.
A new Apple patent that details battery and solid state drive configurations for the company’s MacBook Air suggests that future models will boast battery life that significantly exceeds the 7 hours offered by today’s ultraportable.
Over at the Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal puts the enormous gains in the electric efficiency of computation (or how much power a computer draws) in perspective using the example of Apple’s new MacBook Air.
Imagine you’ve got a shiny computer that is identical to a Macbook Air, except that it has the energy efficiency of a machine from 20 years ago. That computer would use so much power that you’d get a mere 2.5 seconds of battery life out of the Air’s 50 watt-hour battery instead of the seven hours that the Air actually gets. That is to say, you’d need 10,000 Air batteries to run our hypothetical machine for seven hours. There’s no way you’d fit a beast like that into a slim mailing envelope.
When Steve Jobs called the MacBook Air magical, this isn’t what he meant, but after reading this article, it’ll be hard to look at the wafer-thin ultrabook on my desk the same way ever again.
Even just looking at the picture, it’s easy to see this 11-inch MacBook Air “luxury mod” is a grotesque mockery. Crystallize-Your-Design would probably have you believe that recreating “Angel of the Chapel Sistine” on a MacBook Air in Swarovski Crystals took some sort of artistry, but this is the high-end equivalent of smearing your laptop in glue and then rolling it in crushed glass and glitter.
Here’s where you’ll want to lose your lunch, though. This frickin’ thing is being positioned as a product that pays tribute to the life of Steve Jobs! A man whose obsession with clean zen aesthetics would have caused him to suffer some sort of rectal prolapse just looking at this glittering pile of faux-diamond puke. The audacity!
Apple is supposedly is preparing to overhaul its key product trifecta: the iPhone, the iPad and iMac, as well as the MacBook Air in 2012. The report, based on the tech giant’s “upstream supply chain,” echos existing chatter the company will unveil new versions of its products in the coming year.
What’s this? Looks like a unibody MacBook Air, right? Don’t bet a kidney on it: Shenzhen’s Evil Confederacy of Mad Scientist Cloners have managed to almost perfectly rip off the feel of Apple’s bestselling MacBook Air, including unibody enclosure, for under half the price of Apple’s ultraportable.
And you know what? For a piece-of-$%@! netbook dumped into a MacBook Air-like shell, it’s not a bad machine for the sub-$500 price.
It’s been three years since the last major design refresh of the MacBook Pro, and we’ve been hearing whispers for almost a year that the next major update would see Apple’s professional line of laptops take on some of the characteristics of the MacBook Air line: slimmer profiles, ubiquitous SSDs, no optical drives.
If those updates sound swell to you, good news. Inside sources say Apple’s already working on the skinnier MacBook Pro, and the new LCD displays have already been developed.
Hot on the heels of the early 2011 iMac firmware update comes an EFI firmware update for the mid-2011 MacBook Air and Mac Mini. The new updates are labeled version 2.2 and 1.4 respectively. The updates are available via Software Update or direct download.
The updates address the following issues:
During the initial iPhone 4S buzz we told you that Apple’s newest smartphone is among a class of new devices with Bluetooth 4.0. Apple’s most recent MacBook Airs and Mac minis also sport the technology.
Bluetooth 4.0 has been rebranded as “Bluetooth Smart” and “Bluetooth Smart Ready.” The technology focuses on low-energy consumption and will be present in all kinds of consumer products moving forward.
Thanks to a leak through Apple’s own website, we’re all expecting a refresh to its MacBook Pro family to introduce faster Sandy Bridge processors. According to the latest rumor, they’ll be ready to purchase from next week.
Some PC makers may have taken comfort in a few analyst comments following Apple’s fourth-quarter financial report that left some on Wall Street wondering if the laptop was truly dead. However, look a bit closer and it becomes a case of Apple sales being lost to, um, Apple.
Intel’s upcoming Ivy Bridge processor could finally bring Retina displays to our Macs, after the company announced support for ‘4K displays’ last week. That’s a display with a staggering resolution of 4096×4096 pixels.