Apple is riding the wave of innovation with the introduction of the new versions of the MacBook Pro and MacBook portable computers, that Steve Jobs revealed were created using a new manufacturing process. They are said to be made from 2.5-pound blocks of aluminium.

These computers were introduced on October 14, 2008, Tuesday, with an audience of about a hundred journalists, bloggers and analysts in an auditorium on Apple’s campus. The main topic of discussion was not the price but the manufacturing process.

According to Apple, this new process would give them scope to create lighter, stronger and far more reliable products. The new MacBooks have been crafted with a single aluminium block, and Apple started off with a 2.5 pound aluminium block. Traditionally, all notebooks are made with numerous parts, but Apple has come up with a unibody. Steve Jobs said that Apple has been trying to create unibody enclosures for some of the new notebooks.

Nvidia was another important topic of discussion and Mr. Jobs declared that several new Macintosh computer models will feature two custom-designed graphics processors from Nvidia. This should enhance the computer viewing experience and game play. Nvidia is also the supplier of the integrating chipset for the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. Mr. Jobs also mentioned that the new Nvidia graphics processor offers much better, at least five times the graphics power of the Intel graphics processors that the MacBooks currently have. This statement does nothing for Intel and leaves a question on Apple’s relationship with Intel, which is the supplier of the central processing unit for the Macintosh.

The MacBook and the 15-inch MacBook Pro also feature brilliant instant-on LED-backlit displays and new glass multi-Touch trackpads, which offer a whole lot more tracking area, allowing users to use several finger gestures, such as swipe, rotate and pinch. They can easily switch between applications with just the touch of a fingertip.

Apple revealed that the new MacBook features everything their customers always wanted; a complete metal enclosure, high performance 3D graphics as well as a LED-backlit display.

Apple also said that it leads the industry in meeting high environmental standards by eliminating toxic chemicals, by using arsenic-free glass and mercury-free LED-backlit displays.

The new 13-inch aluminium MacBook with full features, which is based on the standard MacBook line, comes at a price of $1,299, which is $700 less than MacBook Pro that costs $1,999. It is a beautifully compact and durable notebook featuring the new Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics processor that delivers extremely good 3D game play and is much faster than the previous generation. It comes in two models; the 2.0 GHz MacBook with a 160GB 5400 rpm hard drive and the 2.4 GHz MacBook with a 250GB 5400 rpm hard drive with a backlit keyboard.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro weighs 5.5 pounds and is a good looking and compact piece. It has Intel Core 2 Duo processors, that run up to 2.8 GHz, and provides two options for users. They can either use Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphic processor for a more powerful performance or use the Nvidia GeForce 9400M processor for extended battery life. The new MacBook Pro is also available in two models; a 2.4 GHz with 250GB 5400 rpm hard drive and 2.53 GHz with 320GB 5400 rpm hard drive.

Apple updated its MacBook Air, which is sold at a starting price of $1,799 and comes with 50 percent more storage. The 17-inch MacBook Pro has also been updated. The while plastic 13-inch MacBook portable with Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 120GB hard drive as well as a slot-load 8X SuperDrive, comes at a reduced price of $999, a reduction of $100. Although, the price drop may not seem like much, it is a notable feat as this marks the first time Apple is selling a laptop computer for less than $1000.

With all these innovations and better features, Apple expects to see an increase in sales.

The new MacBook, 15-inch MacBook Pro and the 17-inch MacBook Pro are said to go on sale on Wednesday from all of Apple’s retail stores. The new MacBook Air will be available from early November onwards.

Apple’s Macintosh computer sales continue to grow everyday but it has been seen that there is a slight decrease in the rate of growth and the reason has nothing to do with the Mac itself, but is attributed to the fact that Apple has done nothing to refresh the Macs product line. With the updates of iPhone and iPod behind them, now everyone is focusing their attention on the MacBook and the MacBook Pro and they find it surprising that Apple took so long to update its notebook line, as these are the products that matter the most to Apple’s bottom line.

Apple understands what people need and is trying to keep everyone happy again by bringing out the much-awaited and long-overdue revamped notebooks. The release was earlier expected to be towards the end of September, but that seems to have changed. According to sources, it could very well be an October 14, 2008 release. However, some say that we may have to wait until November. We will just have to wait and hope it is sooner than later.

The three legs of Apple as referred by Steve Jobs are the Mac, iPod and iPhone. Well, there are high expectations from the Mac leg. (more…)

The invitations for Apple’s major music-related “Let’s Rock” event held on September 9, 2008 were sent out to the media and others, inviting them to the Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts in San Francisco.

Now with the heavily attended event behind us, the overall takeaway from Let’s Rock is that iPod is back on track. In spite of there being nothing exceptional, the incremental improvements were significant. Through this event, Apple shared a whole year’s worth of progress.

The iPhone has dominated every discussion about Apple the past few days. But at this event, one thing that figured prominently was the iPod product line and iTunes. The timing could not have been better and launching in September gives Apple a lot of time to look at the marketing and distribution ahead of the holiday season shopping.

At this event, Steve Jobs unveiled the sleekly designed iPod nano with a host of new features, an upgraded and cheaper iPod Touch and the new version of iTunes. He expressed his happiness at Apple’s growing dominance in the digital music market.

Upon his entrance, Steve Jobs talked about iTunes. He explained the new features of iTunes 8.0, which are the new “Genius” recommendation engine, a totally changed grid view, a visualizer and better accessibility on Windows and Mac OS X. The iTunes now offers 8.5 million songs, 125000 podcasts, more than 30000 TV shows, 2600 movies and over 3000 apps for iPhone and touch.

The Genius feature allows you to create playlists from songs in your existing library. It also scales to TV shows, podcasts and movies. This is done by selecting any one song and pressing the Genius button, which in turn creates about a 25 to 100 song playlist based on songs you have in your library, which will go well with the song you selected. (more…)

Apple has created quite a stir with the multinational launch of iPhone 3G, which is now in the process of resolving the teething problems and slipping quietly into the hands of keen buyers, who throng the markets to get their share of the “Apple Pie.”

There is not a free moment at the Apple headquarters and they know how to keep the “rumors alive,” to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the technology freaks.

Apple is planning on closing the year with a few new product introductions.

iPhone Nano

This time, it is the “Nano fairy” all ready to sprinkle its dust on the Apple product line.

According to a source quoted in a British newspaper, the iPhone Nano is expected to be unveiled soon – perhaps a Christmas gift?

The reason for this is believed to be the fact that the EDGE and 3G iPhone models are expensive and it would be easier on the light-pocketed customer to have a smaller sized phone that is similar to iPod Nano.

The iPhone Nano could be a “iPhone Lite” device without full internet access, with a rear-facing iPod style touch wheel for inputting the numbers and a display screen that is front facing.

Meanwhile, the iPhone is expanding its wings into new territories. (more…)

It cannot be denied that Apple, which has long been a ghost in the mainstream corporate infrastructure, has begun casting a shadow as several corporate customers look at Mac platforms as a realistic alternative to Windows as well as Linux. With more and more customers having a successful experience, usage of the Mac is said to have doubled in the last year.

Apple is constantly upgrading in order to meet the demands of their growing user base.

The latest entry into Apple’s growing list of corporate customers is Axel Springer, the German newspaper publisher, who is said to be replacing all their PCs with the complete range of Apple’s products, including MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac mini as well as Mac Pro desktops. The transition is said to take place over a period of five years on about 12,000 PCs. According to Heise Online, the German magazine, Axel Springer is Apple’s second largest client after Google.

Things are changing for the Mac in the corporate scenario. Google lets its employees use what they wish to run; either the Mac, Windows or Linux. IBM too has been experimenting with Macs.

With the increase in Mac users, especially Mac notebook users, there are five companies that formed an alliance to promote the Mac to corporate customers. These companies are Parallels, Group Logic, Atempo, Centrify and LANrev. These companies concentrate on the technology between the Mac OS X and Windows. They realize that many people think that the Mac is harder to use and support, and they intend on educating corporate users about the ease of use of the Mac.

Since most corporations are already using Windows, the major issue for those that are planning on using the Mac in an environment almost exclusively Windows, is what the potential shift to the Macs entails; whether they should have two teams, one supporting the Windows and the other supporting the Mac. Most users are also concerned that the software will be different or that it may not be possible to share files with other PC users. People wonder about the differences in using the Macintosh operating system and Windows. (more…)

The much awaited iPhone 3G has arrived and is considered a huge hit, going by the 1 million handsets sold in the first three days.

According to Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, the new iPhone 3G is off to a great start all around the world, when compared to their original iPhone that had taken 74 days to sell the first 1 million handsets.

However, the huge demand caused unexpected technical difficulties across the U.S. and Europe. Some of the buyers in the U.S. were unable to use their new handsets for many hours after purchasing them, due to the iTunes store grinding to a halt under the burden of the huge number of requests.

These problems are attributed to the unprecedented demand that was not anticipated.

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets are of the opinion that the low price and the demand, along with the distribution across 22 countries and 28 mobile operators may be the cause of issues that caused frustration to buyers, due to limited stock.

They also feel that the target of selling 5.1 million iPhone 3Gs throughout the world, during the third quarter of 2008 will be met by Apple. They are confident that Apple is highly likely to meet its long-term target of launching the 3G handsets in 70 countries and selling about 14 million iPhones in the next year.

As has been mentioned in our previous pre-release article, the iPhone 3G comes in two forms, 8GB and 16GB, with either white or black back. The front is black for both. The 16GB model is available in both these colors, while the 8GB is available only in black and it appears as if most people appear to like the black much more.

The iPhone 3G, bearing a slightly tweaked design, is almost identical to the old iPhone, except may be for a slight difference in the thickness. The old one was 0.46 inches thick, while the new 3G is 0.48 inches; however this is not a visible difference because Apple has slightly refined the shape at the back. The backside seems thinner than the old iPhone when held in hand, in spite of being slightly thicker. The metal back is now in plastic making it look better, less slippery, provides better signal strength and reduces the weight of the iPhone by 2g too without making it feel cheap or shallow. The Wi-Fi reception also seems to be a bit better. (more…)

Apple’s core calling is “creating the next cool thing for the world’s consumers.” Apple practices what it preaches and succeeds at it too.

The month of March changed a lot of things for Apple, in terms of fading resistance for Mac. Mac sales reported an enormous 51% increase compared to the previous year. This is said to be three times the rate for the personal-computer industry. These figures are excluding that of the iPod and iPhone. Adding them would bring Apple’s sales from $5.2 billion in the year 2002 to $24 billion last year. Even the share prices have seen a rise.

The reason for this is the millions of consumers that are looking at the Mac in a new light. Once only favored by artists and students, today the Mac is fast becoming the first choice of many.

The Mac revolution is also slowly making its way into the corporate world, with employees increasingly insisting that employers provide them Macs to work on. Google is always said to have given its employees the power to choose any system they want. Now even IBM and Cisco are running tests to see if they should allow Macs into their offices. The Mac always had fans who would sing its praises, but now even the mainstream users are learning the song.

There are several reasons why Macs make sense in the corporate world. With Apple’s share jumping to more than 10% in the consumer PC market, and with consumer applications from chat to Facebook entering the office environment, more businesses consider notebook PCs for their personal use as well as for work, and many choose Apple’s MacBooks.

Software evaluation analysts say that Apple’s operating system, the OS x, is superior to Microsoft Windows by many metrics, including its design, efficiency, bug-free operation, and the fact that it is less vulnerable to viruses and hackers. (more…)

It only happens in movies like “Time Machine,” where scientist Alex Hartdegen moves on to the year 2037, only to find the moon showering the earth with huge chunks of rock.

Time to travel back to the present to Apple’s Time Capsule, which takes people into the future with its advanced technology!
Most computer users face the dread of losing important data. People more often than not forget or put off backing up their data, since it is a cumbersome process of using either CDs, DVDs or even an external hard drive.

Apple was the first to come up with a solution earlier, with the creation of Time Machine, which comes with MAC OS X Leopard. Time Machine makes backing up data easy and painless; however, there is still the requirement of either having an external hard disk connected to the MAC through a USB or cable. This proves to be a problem with MACBook users.

Apple decided to do something about it and created “Time Capsule,” which automatically backs up a computer, offering constant protection – and the best part is that it is wireless.

Time Capsule has been designed to be compatible with Time Machine in MAC OS X Leopard.

Time Capsule comes with a wireless 500GB or 1TB hard drive, which is excellent and has the potential to handle all the backup needs. It provides plenty of room for storing huge amounts of data and there is no issue of running out of space.

Apple says, users of MAC OS X Leopard will have to set the Time Capsule as the backup drive for Time Machine and forget about it. The first time it is used, the time taken may be overnight or a little more, to complete the backup, depending on the size of the data. However, since the next time only involves backing up the updated files, it happens quietly through wireless in the background, without any sort of user intervention whatsoever. (more…)

Next time you are in Japan, do not get carried away if you catch someone winking at you. The poor guy could only be operating his iPod.

A group of researchers from Japan have come up with a system that makes us humans lazier than we are already. There is no need to use the hands anymore to use an iPod. Soon, people will be able to operate their iPods with the flick of an eye.

The lead researcher, Kazuhiro Taniguchi from Osaka University’s Graduate School of Engineering Science, says the system they are developing comprises of a single chip computer and two infrared sensors and works by monitoring the movement of the temple. The most amazing thing about this is that it is very tiny and can be fixed into the sides of the eyeglasses or headphones.

What do we do to run the iPod? Close our eyes for a second and this starts the iPod and blinking again stops it. Winking one eye reverses and winking the other one skips to the next tune. Close both eyes to pause or play.

How about those that cannot wink with one of their eyes? Researchers have not left any stone unturned and have come up with a perfect solution for such people. They are programming the system to give commands by blinking twice in fast sequence. (more…)

It’s time for Macworld again, and this year the much anticipated trade show by Apple will have some tools sure to capture the company even more market share. Apple Computers have always been much too artsy and bohemian for the real world of business, but that all may be changing. Apple Computers is now Apple Inc, and some of the goodies expected to be on display at MacWorld are small business applications. Could Apple be courting the office place after all?

Microsoft Office for Macs
The most telling sign of the times is the newly released Office for Macs. The Windows product is fully integrated with Apple’s operating system making the Office utilities streamlined and efficient. There are terrific features such as an automater and connectivity between functions so that fields can be almost immediately populated, menial tasks can be completed in record time and everything is done with the ease and reliability Apple is known for.

Medical Software
MacPractice introduces medical software for Macs that support complicated forms and other medical documents.

Macs as Servers?
You can now turn your Mac into a server of sorts by installing software called SeeFile. This allows multiple users into the same database. While this technology is nothing new, it is priced well below what similar servers would cost. (more…)