Macs

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: After pulling the plug on an ambitious project — creating a self-driving car — Apple sets its sights on making … home robots?!? Say it ain’t so, Tim!

Also on The CultCast:

• New iPhone 16 dummy units bring the rumors to life. But as for those long-predicted fancy new iPads, we’re still waiting. Get used to it!
• The next-gen Apple processor could give Macs a serious performance boost. Erfon talks specs and speculation.
• Vision Pro’s new Spatial Personas aren’t creepy at all … 👻
• Griffin serves up some tips on how to take a proper photo during the upcoming total solar eclipse.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

March 20, 1997: Apple launches its Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, a futuristic, special-edition Mac that’s ahead of its time in every way. Not part of any established Mac line, it brings a look (and a price!) unlike anything else available — and Apple delivers them to buyers in a limo!

And yet the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh promptly bombs. Today, it’s a collector’s piece.

February 17, 1997: Apple launches the PowerBook 3400, a laptop the company claims is the fastest portable computer in the world.

After a rough few years for the PowerBook, this model throws down the gauntlet to rivals. It packs a PowerPC 603e processor capable of running at speeds up to 240MHz. While speedier Apple laptops will quickly overtake the PowerBook 3400, at the time it can keep up with some impressive desktop Macs.

With National Small Business Week starting Sunday, Apple profiled three small businesses Wednesday, describing how they harness Apple products to grow.

In addition, the company will feature “Grow Your Business with Apple” Today at Apple sessions next week in select U.S. cities.

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It’s more than 10 years since technology writer Nicholas Carr proclaimed the personal computer dead. But don’t tell Apple — since a new report claims that global MacBook shipments are set to skyrocket next year.

According to data from Finaria, global MacBook shipments are expected to hit 17.1 million units in 2021. That’s a 10% year-on-year increase. The firm claims that global MacBook shipments are likely to hit 15.5 million units this year, a 23% leap during the coronavirus pandemic.

New Macs are expected at Apple’s upcoming October 30 event — and the Eurasian Economic Competition database is the unlikely place that may have just confirmed that.

The online database has been updated with three new filings for desktop computers running macOS 10.14. These most likely refer to rumored upgrades of the iMac and Mac mini. Apple last updated the Mac mini four years ago on October 16, 2014.

Some people only care about the latest technology. For others, collecting the significant computers of the past — whether it’s an iconic first-gen Macintosh or iPhone, or failures like Apple’s short-lived Pippin games console — is fun in its own right.

If you fall in to this second group, you’ll love these five computer collecting tips to get the most out of your hobby. They will help you turn your passion for vintage Macs into an eye-catching computer collection.

The last Apple earnings report of 2017 is finally here and the results are even better than Wall Street anticipated.

Aided by strong iPhone sales thanks to the launch of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, Apple was able to bring in slightly higher than expected revenues and the company is expecting big things next quarter too.

If you’re a computer scientist, you can never have too many Macs. Just ask Richard Crossley, a Ph.D. candidate currently studying “optimization in high-performance computing to achieve maximum resource efficiency.”

It probably shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise that Crossley’s got a pretty vast Mac collection. Check out his system, as well as other impressive Mac setups, in this week’s episode of iSetups. It’s Cult of Mac’s new monthly show highlighting the best Mac setups submitted by viewers — plus tips and tricks for how to improve them.

Apple designs its products with an affinity for creatives of all kinds. But a French artist known as Monsieur Plant uses Macs to take “Think Different” to another level.

The Apple computers used by Christophe Guinet, 39, are not the tools but the subject in a body of work that integrates life-giving plant matter with life-altering technology.

The Apple Online Store has temporarily gone down in advance of today’s Apple keynote.

When it returns, we’re expecting to see a new MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar, MacBook, and potentially more — and there’s a chance you may even be able to order them today.

Apple’s adaptive OLED touchbar for its next-gen MacBook will be called the “Magic Toolbar,” according to a trademark filing made earlier this year.

The trademark filing was made by a dummy corporation called “Presto Apps America LLC” on February 5, 2016. Interestingly, said corporation happened to use the same lawyers as those who applied for the trademark “AirPod” in Indonesia, Canada and Malaysia.

When people look back on Steve Jobs’ most audacious moves during his 1997-2011 stint as CEO, launching the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and iPad are most frequently singled out as rightfully big achievements — as is his decision to open Apple-branded retail outlets and the iTunes Stores.

Back on June 6, 2005, Jobs made another major announcement, however, when he revealed that Macs were switching their CPUs over from PowerPC processors to Intel ones.

Here’s why it mattered.

Intel’s talking a lot of smack about ARM lately. Around a month ago, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said that he wasn’t worried about Apple ditching Intel for ARM chips. And today, Intel’s chief financial officer, Stacy Smith, is openly scoffing at the possibility, saying Intel’s way ahead of ARM when it comes to performance.

In Apple’s invitation to the company’s October 16th Town Hall event at its Cupertino headquarters, the company’s tagline is: “It’s been way too long.”

This has prompted a lot of speculation. It hasn’t been too long since Apple’s last event, which was just a month ago. And there aren’t that many other Apple products that we haven’t seen updated in the last year, with the exception of Thunderbolt displays, which frankly aren’t important enough to reference in an Apple tagline that the whole world will scrutinize.

But here’s a good theory. What if the tagline doesn’t reference a single product, but a variation of product? What if we’re about to see the return of colored Macs?

Slowly but surely, the worldwide PC market is drying up. In the first quarter, a recent report from IDC says that worldwide PC shipments have slipped 4.4% year-over years. And not even Apple has proven immune to the wasting away of the PC market, but they’re still making up for it on other ways.

Ever wondered why you can’t pick up a cheap used Mac Mini? No, me either—I always figured the new ones were already cheap enough.

But the answer is both interesting and unsurprising. Unsurprising, because it’s just down to supply and demand. Interesting because—well, let’s ask some people who really know about selling used Mac Minis: Macminicolo.

Thunderbolt really hasn’t taken off yet, even though Apple’s included the the tech in Macs since 2011. Intel is still plowing through with new updates for Thunderbolt though, and the company revealed some new details about the next generation of Thunderbolt.

Intel has officially named its next-gen high-speed data port ‘Thunderbolt 2’ and it will double the speed of first-gen Thunderbolt by supporting 20Gbps directionally on one connection. On a company blog post, Intel posted the following info on Thunderbolt 2:

Even though Apple has included Thunderbolt ports on its Mac line since 2011, the technology hasn’t really taken off yet as a go-to connection for accessory makers. Despite that, Intel is making Thunderbolt even better by doubling its data-transfer rate.

A joint venture company between Philips and Sony called Intertrust, has decided to file a patent infringement suit against Apple, asserting that 15 of the company’s patents have been violated.

Intertrust’s patents cover a range of devices and services for digital restrictions management (DRM) to protect intellectual property.

Apple’s Mac sales have been in a bit of a slump lately thanks to issues with the production of the super skinny iMacs. Now that constraints have eased up a bit, sales are coming back strong.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster released a new research report today that covered Apple’s U.S. Mac sales from January-February 2013, and revealed that Mac sales are currently up 14% year-over-year.

Owners of late 2012 Macs like the Mac mini, the new iMac or the MacBook Pro with Retina Display are reporting a major problem with their machines: they can’t re-install Mountain Lion or even re-install from a Time Machine backup if their systems get corrupted.

One frustrating aspect of Boot Camp is that it doesn’t support hard drives larger than 2.2TB. That means that if you custom install a larger hard drive, or order a new iMac with a 3TB hard drive, you won’t be able to use all of that space to run Windows. Luckily, there’s now a partial fix, thanks to the developer of Winclone.

We showed you how to switch on Power Nap on your Mountain Lion-running, SSD-equipped Mac, but just what does this new feature do?

We know that you Mac enters a kind of robotic REM sleep, where it’s brain activity spikes and the network connections power up to download various bits of data, just like Newsstand on iOS. But a new Apple Knowledge Base article outlines the surprising number of tasks which are going on under the sleepy-lidded hood.

If Apple releases Mountain Lion on the same schedule they released Lion last year, they will unleash the latest version of OS X to the world the day after their quarterly earnings call. That means that next Wednesday, July 25th, everyone should be able to drop $20 on the Mac App Store for a copy of OS X Mountain Lion.

There’s one exception though: if you bought a Mac after June 11th, 2012, you’ll be automatically eligible to receive a free OS X Mountain Lion upgrade. That means if you’re the proud owner of a new Retina MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or 2012 MacBook Pro, or any older Mac purchased recently, you’ll get a free upgrade.

All you have to do is go to this page within 30 days of when Mountain Lion drops and tell Apple you’re eligible for an upgrade. Generous, no?

Source: Apple.com
Via: OS X Daily