Today’s deals include half-a-dozen new App Store freebies, refurbished MacBooks for under $600, and Apple’s ongoing Back to School hardware sale, which throws in a fee iPod Touch with a computer purchase. Plus many more.
Details of these and other Daily Deals can be found on the CoM Daily Deals page.
New rumors this weekend suggest that Blu-Ray may finally be coming to the Mac. But while Blu-Ray is high on many people’s wish list, the rumors just don’t make sense.
Citing a “pretty reliable source,” Boy Genius Report says Blu-Ray is coming to iTunes 9, maybe as soon as September. The rumor jibes with a particularly vague story on AppleInsider suggesting that new iMacs will get new features (yeah, it’s almost sounds like self-parody), possibly Blu-Ray.
But although Blu-Ray format is gaining popularity, it’s unlikely to come to the Mac, ever. Here’s why:
Today’s deals include a refurbished PowerBook G4 for $699, a MacBook Pro with 15-inch screen, an Apple Back-to-School offer and many more.
Details of these and other Daily Deals can be found on the CoM Daily Deals page.
Today’s deals include a back-to-school sale on Macs, refurbished unibody MacBooks starting at $949, refurbished MacBook Pros and many more.
Details on these deals and more can be found on the CoM Daily Deals page.
The MacBook Air is thin, sexy machine, but you wouldn’t want one smashed into your chest during a car accident.
That’s what happened to this MacBook Air above. It was sitting in a man’s lap when the airbag went off and crushed it into his chest, bending the lid like a Taco. Amazingly, the computer still works, but it left a MacBook-shaped mark on the man’s chest. The man is lucky — the MacBook Air is thin enough to slice through bread and human flesh (see the pix after the jump).
“He does have a bruise that matches the leading edge of the MacBook Air,” says Dana Stibolt, president of MacMedics, the Maryland repair shop that’s attempting to fix the machine.
Stibolt says the man had the MacBook Air open in his lap as he sat in the passenger seat. When the car was involved in a serious smash, the airbag deployed and “pushed the top edge of the MacBook Air (where the camera is) into him, and then kept pushing from the bottom of the hinge area effectively crushing it on his chest,” says Stibolt. Ouch!
The picture on the screen – which looks like a black-and-white mountain — is the pattern of the broken LCD.
Stibolt is hoping to replace the screen — the rest of the computer seems to work fine. More at MacMedics.
Today’s deals include refurbished aluminum iMacs starting at $999, Apple 8GB iPod nano, a price drop on App Store applications and many more.
Details of these and other gadget deals can be found on the CoM Daily Deals page.
Today’s deals include Jensen’s $25 Docking Digital Music System for iPods, a RCA digital camcorder and Apple’s Mac Family box set and many more.
Details of these and more Daily Deals can be found on the CoM Daily Deals page.
In a bid to preserve some of the best modern industrial design for future generations, Smithsonian’s National Design Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, is asking Apple fans to donate their old and not-so-old devices.
Aptly, webmaster William Berry calls the request a “wish list:”
Newton Message Pad (1993)
iBook (2001, white)
iPod, 1st generation (2001)
iMac G5 (2004)
Macbook Pro (2006)
iPhone, 1st generation (2007)
Macbook Air (2008)
While you can get rid of something that has given up the ghost, your device should still be in excellent (external) condition, with original parts and power cords or batteries. All donors will be listed on the credit line whenever the works are displayed or published.
The generous-minded can get in touch with Cynthia Trope, Associate Curator of Product Design and Decorative Arts, at [email protected].
What, if anything, would you be willing to part with for a museum?
Apple has cut the price on previous-generation notebook computers buy hundreds of dollars, looking to get rid of end-of-life stock before the arrival of new machines for retail distribution later this month.
13-inch MacBook prices have been slashed by $100 to $300, previous-generation MacBook Airs by $400 to $800, and previous-generation MacBook Pros by $400 to $500, though not all Apple Stores may have all models in stock at the discounted prices.
In all, nine previous Mac notebook configurations are being offered with end-of-life pricing.
If you don’t happen to live near an Apple retail store, see this handy online price guide (scroll down to see end-of-life pricing on discontinued models).
Reports indicate that even the new notebooks may be had at significant discounts to Apple’s announced pricing at resellers such as ClubMac, which is offering online retailer’s rebates with special coupons that knock an additional 3% off the cost of the just-announced machines.
No matter how great an Apple Keynote goes, there are always disappointments. Changes not made, rumors left unrealized. For this year’s WWDC, Apple actually managed to avoid most of these (other than anything that has to do with the strength of AT&T’s network or upgrade pricing for existing customers). We got a more powerful iPhone, meaningful upgrades to the unibody MacBook Pro line, and release announcements for both iPhone OS 3.0 and OS X Snow Leopard. Other than a few pipe dreams (Steve Jobs riding in on a white tiger, cold fusion-powered tabler), Apple did a great job by hitting a whole bunch of base hits. No home runs, but no strike-outs, either.
Except for one thing: the all-new iPhone 3G S looks exactly like a previous-generation iPhone, to the point that there is no way at all to tell the new 16 GB model from the model it replaces — even in the fine print on the back. This was a shock to many folks, myself included, who were expecting Apple to change things up with a new black frame to replace the familiar chrome and a rubberized matte case to provide a more durable experience.
Why? What could Apple possibly gain from letting its industrial design team copy and paste? Don’t they want us all lost in lust?
Of course they do — which is why Apple has been putting design resources into product lines that are either brand new or waning. The iPhone sells itself today. A specification bump alone is enough to set off an Internet frenzy about AT&T’s unjust policies (check Twitter if you don’t believe me), and there will be longer lines outside Apple Stores on June 19 to get what is ultimately an incremental upgrade to the iPhone than there were this weekend to launch the much-hyped Palm Pre. That’s with the case staying exactly the same — what could Apple possibly gain by throwing a ton of work into a redesign that can’t even alter the screen or home button?
Look at the current line of unibody laptops. A year ago, Apple’s notebook line-up was a complete shambles. MacBook Pros still looked like late-generation PowerBooks. The black and white MacBooks were under-powered and over-heavy. And Apple offered nothing to someone who wanted a small form factor and significant power. Apple Design first launched the MacBook Air in January and then rolled out its signature design elements into every single product in the family. That kind of design focus has made the unibody MacBook Pros some of the best computers Apple has ever made, in addition to being the best-selling in company history. The design team’s abilities transformed Apple’s line-up from long in the tooth to desirable in a few months.
So what’s Apple got the industrial team cooking up now? I can’t say with certainty, but people better-connected than me claim that the long-requested iTablet is real and on its way — exactly the kind of new to the world product that demands serious design attention from Jonathan Ive and team. The scenarios of use are different. A bigger exposed screen raises serious questions about protection. And, quite honestly, I don’t know if anyone outside of Silicon Valley will quite know what to make of it unless Apple designs it perfectly and makes it very clear how to use it and why you would want to. It needs attention to thrive.
Eleven days from now, when I pull my iPhone 3G S out of its box, I will be a little sorry that its back is glossy and fingerprint-laden. But I’ll be happier to know that Apple’s design team is working on something new, interesting and complex — exactly the kind of problem they’re brilliant at solving.
