A Michigan school district is selling off close to 800 iMacs, MacBooks and iPads for astonishingly low prices ranging from $50 to $100.
The schools are in the process of upgrading their classroom technology, and made the decision to sell off the old equipment instead of adding it to the tons of unwanted computers and other gadgets that get thrown away each year.
IBM became Apple’s largest corporate customer this year when it agreed to buy 50,000 MacBooks from Apple, but according IBM’s chief information officer Jeff Smith, the company will more likely end up purchasing between 150,000 to 200,000 Macs when all is said and done.
In an internal IBM video, Smith describes how he and Apple CIO Niall O’Connor struck the deal that will see 50-75% of IBM’s workforce switching from Lenovo ThinkPads to Macs. Apparently that’s not good enough for Tim Cook though, who asked IBM VP Fletcher Previn, “well, what about the other third?” when the company told the Apple CEO of the massive bulk order they were planning.
Watch the video below:
We’ve seen before that changing from Chrome to Safari can make a big difference on your Mac’s battery life.
But if you haven’t switched from Chrome or Firefox to Safari yet, this fact might change your mind: If you’re a MacBook user, you’re losing an average of one hour of total battery life by using anything but Safari.
If you’re going to own a Mac, you should maybe put it away somewhere if you’re expecting a visit from Clippy.
Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon learned that lesson the hard way when he was talking up the launch of Windows 10, Microsoft’s latest OS last night. As is his wont, Microsoft Word’s built-in assistant appeared at random, and everything was cordial until the talking paper clip spotted the MacBook on Fallon’s desk.
You can check out the rest of the clip below.
Despite launching a few months ago, the new MacBook hasn’t gotten a tremendous amount of love from accessory makers so far. Above the Fray, a company based in Thailand, noticed a glaring omission for a 12-inch MacBook cable manager so the team took it upon themselves to create one.
That Apple logo on your iPhone sure is pretty, but it doesn’t do a whole lot other than remind you who made your phone in case you forget. It’s kind of lazy that way, really.
But a recently published patent suggests that Apple might put that shiny bobble to use in future models of its hardware.
My MacBook Air’s charging cord was basically destroyed after only about two years of owning it. I just kept putting black electrical tape around it but that only seemed to make it worse. I finally waved the white flag, went to the Apple Store and bought a new charger for a whopping $79. If you’ve been through this before, listen up, because Juiceboxx will help you out.
Juiceboxx is a plastic case that wraps around your MacBook’s power adapter and forces the cord to point straight forward at the base. That way when you need to wrap it up and go, the cord isn’t dealing with the stress of being bent and twisted. More importantly, your cord won’t fray as it tends to do, leaving you with more money in your pocket and one less trip to the Apple Store.
For my car, I have an anti-theft device called the Club. It is a telescoping device that hooks on each side of the steering wheel and locks in place with a key. Can it be broken? Probably, but the idea is to present a time-consuming obstacle to the thief who relies on speed.
For my MacBook Pro, I have the Blade by Maclocks. The Blade sits inside a bracket that affixes to the bottom of my computer. The Blade folds out from the bracket, providing a slot in which I can attach a lock tethered to a cable.
It is most secure when you loop the cable through an anchored object, like a pole or, in the case of one coffee shop from which I like to work, a table support that is bolted to the floor.
Leander is having a bit of a moment. One of his favorite features of Apple product design is missing on his shiny new MacBook.
Jony Ive, what have you done with the magnet?
You can commiserate with our Editor and Publisher over the loss of the magnet that secured the cable to the charging port in the latest Kahney’s Korner video.
Most creative and designer types travel around with two things perpetually tucked under their arms: their portfolios, and their MacBooks. Vienna-based fashion designer Eva Zar decided to consolidate the two: her portfolio is a MacBook, at least in appearance.
Why does the latest iPhone still ship with just 16GB of storage as standard? Why does the new MacBook have only one USB port? Why does Apple make devices thinner and thinner rather than adding bigger batteries?
At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco this week, marketing chief Phil Schiller sat down with The Talk Show to address some of these questions.
If you’ve got an Apple developer account and a Mac, you might want to instal the latest OS X 10.11, better known as El Capitan, onto your machine right now.
Until it’s out of beta, though, you might want to consider installing it on a second partition of your Macintosh, in case things get wonky. It is a beta, after all, and you should never rely on a beta for a mission-critical device.
If you’re un-daunted still, here’s how to install El Capitan safely onto another partition on your Mac to try it out without nuking your current install of Yosemite.
The new MacBook has been out for a couple of weeks, and OS X apps are starting to take advantage of its Force Touch trackpad.
Pixelmator, a popular photo editor and Photoshop alternative on the Mac, is an early example of how third-party developers are utilizing Force Touch. The app recently added support for the pressure sensitive trackpad along with a number of other improvements.
In a video sent out to Apple retail employees, Apple’s senior vice president of retail Angela Ahrendts clarified that the Apple Watch will be arriving for many customers this Friday, but that online ordering was still the only way the Apple Watch can be purchased right now.
Ahrendts talks directly to retail employees, reminding them that the Apple Watch isn’t the only great new product aut right now, but that it is an entirely new type of product and way of selling things for Apple.
“This is not just a new product for us, this is an entirely new category,” she says in the video, “and it is the first time we’ve ever previewed a product two weeks before the availability.”
Even with the horrible audio echoes and Ahrendts’ vocal-pause-laden and seemingly unrehearsed speech, the video is a fascinating look at the messaging all Apple retail staff will be hearing this week as they prepare for the hordes of new customers looking to buy an Apple Watch or new Macbook.
You know how the iPhone and iPad plays a little chime when you plug it in? The new MacBook also does that. But sadly, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro remain completely silent when they connect to juice — which can make it hard to tell when you’ve accidentally knocked the MagSafe loose.
If you’ve got a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, though, it’s easy to hack in the new MacBook’s power-charging sound. Here’s how.
Apple’s new MacBook may be one “for the future” but it’s already had a teardown from our friends over at iFixit, filling you in on all the ways the next-gen notebook differs from its predecessor.
That includes Apple’s butterfly mechanism keys, its Force Touch trackpad, form-fitting layered battery, and, of course, the thinnest, most energy-efficient Retina display ever seen on a Mac.
It’s not just ports the new notebook is missing, however. It’s also one of Apple’s least-repairable notebooks to date!
Being a workaholic means I’m always taking my MacBook with me wherever I travel, but carrying around a $2,000 machine is a constant risk. In today’s s video I show you everything you need to know to keep your MacBook safe while you’re on the move.
There’s no question that Google Chrome is one of the best web browsers you can get, but it’s long been a resource hog under OS X. By simply avoiding it on the new MacBook, your battery could last more than three hours longer in between charges.
If you haven’t already pre-ordered your gorgeous gold MacBook, you’re going to be waiting 3-4 weeks for it to ship. Initial supplies have already been claimed since the device went on sale this morning, but the silver and space gray models are still available in 1-3 days if you live in the U.S.
I was setting up my MacBook Pro with Retina display to work with a new external monitor today, thinking that when I connected to the monitor via HDMI and closed the lid, I’d see the display up on the new monitor.
I was disappointed when I saw absolutely nothing up on my new monitor, so I went searching to find out how to make it work. Is it a special setting in the System Preferences? I haven’t had an external monitor for a while, now; maybe things are more complex.
Luckily for me (and you!), it turned out to be much simpler to make happen. Here’s the recipe.
Apple Watch has been hogging so much of the tech spotlight lately that you could be forgiven for forgetting that Apple is also about to release a revolutionary new computer.
The first reviews of the new MacBook landed on the web to remind us that the first gold MacBook will be available to order tomorrow, too. According to the experts, it’s the most beautiful computer ever created. But should you buy it?
Here’s the good and the bad of the new MacBook.
Apple’s new MacBook won’t go on sale for another week-and-a-half. But if you want to get an advance glimpse of the next-gen notebook, you can check out a new unboxing video, which shows off the device’s ultra-thin form factor for the first time in all its glory.
The video’s in Vietnamese, but if you’ve been keeping up with our coverage here on Cult of Mac, you should know what to expect — from the edge-to-edge keyboard to the minimalist USB-C port. Did I mention how much I want one?
I pretty much love Apple and Lego in equal measure, so the idea of somehow combining the two is never going to fail to win my approval.
Assuming that I’m not the only person to feel this way, allow me to introduce the Brik Case: a fantastic Kickstarter campaign intended to raise the cash needed to manufacture a MacBook case that can be decorated with Lego bricks, to create any design of your choosing.
Apple redesigned the LED backlights for the new MacBook keyboard, and it appears a similar update could be coming soon to the Apple Wireless Keyboard.
Several images of an updated keyboard appeared on the online Apple Store for the Czech Republic as well as an Arabic keyboard in the U.S. store. Some of the images of the keyboard have already been pulled, but the redesign adds toggles for brightness to the F5 and F6 keys, as well as a power button on in the upper right corner.
This week: it’s kind of a big deal—the wonderful world of Nintendo is coming to iOS. Plus: the reviews are in, people are loving the new Force Cluck Touch Trackpad; Apple’s rumored streaming TV service might land in June; and why the new Macbook hails the end for the Macbook Air.
Our thanks for Freshbooks for supporting this episode. FreshBooks is the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. It also makes tax time a cinch. Get started now with a 30-day free trial.
Full show notes ahead!
