That matte aluminum laptop with the white Apple logo is an all too common sight these days, be it in on campus, in a design studio, or at our next press event. And apparently it’s popular with good reason. Consumer Reports, an advocacy group that tests and ranks various consumer products, has given all the top spots in its latest notebook rankings to Apple’s MacBooks.
Apple is reportedly readying a refreshed version of its MacBook Air ultraportable, adding in Intel's 2011 "Sandy Bridge" Core processors and Thunderbolt 10Gbps connectivity. Shipments are expected to begin later this month, according to DigiTimes' supply chain sources, with a retail launch predicted for June or July.
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Apple's MacBook Air could lose its super-speedy resume advantage if Intel has its way, with news that the chip company will be pushing "fast flash standby" support to PC manufacturers with the debut of the Chief River notebook processors in 2012. By shifting the standby system state from RAM to SSD storage, Fudzilla reports, Chief River based notebooks will be able to offer the same resume speed performance but with significantly reduced power consumption.
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It’s a strange week to be talking about Apple dumping Intel. Only a few days ago, the company was proudly unveiling its new iMac line-up, relying on Core i5 and Core i7 processors – along with AMD GPUs – to make them the fastest all-in-ones Apple has offered to-date. Yet at the same time as Intel’s latest quad-core chips are finding their way into what Apple’s Phil Schiller describes as “the world’s best desktop,” there’s also talk that the company’s close relationship with Intel is about to get served with divorce papers. ARM is coming, and the computing industry will never be the same again.
Apple is reportedly planning to ditch Intel’s processors for ARM-based chips, a potentially huge revolution that will supposedly kick off with the company’s MacBook notebooks. According to SemiAccurate‘s sources, Apple is looking to a mid-2013 timescale for the transition, when 64-bit cores such as NVIDIA’s Project Denver are common.
Apple's switch to SSD-only storage in the MacBook Air made for a whippet-fast boot/resume time, but the expense of solid-state memory meant capacity was limited. Officially up to 256GB is on offer, but entry-level users are stuck with a measly 64GB. Now OWC is teasing us with up to 480GB in the shape of the new Mercury Aura Pro Express upgrade.
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Microsoft has kicked off another of its periodic comparison campaigns, pitting PC against Mac and claiming that Windows-based hardware is far better value than the Apple alternative. This time targeting the Canadian market, "Do the Math" suggests that for the same price as a 17-inch MacBook Pro, customers could have an HP Pavilion DV7 and CA$1,350 to spend on a surfing trip in Hawaii. However, some of Microsoft's comparisons are likely to raise eyebrows even among the Windows faithful.
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Samsung is reportedly looking to dump its hard-drive business, in an attempt to refocus in areas of stronger growth such as flash storage, in which the company has seen recent wins from industry heavyweights like Apple. According to the WSJ's source, Samsung is hoping to sell its traditional hard-drive business for $1.5bn, in a move that would leave it focusing on solid-state drives instead.
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We've been tipped by our good pal Josh over at Notebooks that an issue may well be developing between Apple's newest suite of MacBooks and none other than technology's oldest enemy: magnets. The issue in question here was brought up to Josh regarding the MacBook Air 11" model, which we just happen to have here in front of us. thusly we tried it our for ourselves and indeed there is something strange going on. Your humble narrator also picked up the newest model MacBook Pro 15" yesterday so the test was done on it as well, and again the issue held true. What do magnets do to these new Apple machines? They basically give them a black eye. How does all this relate to the new iPad 2?
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We're taking a hands-on look at the new MacBooks released today and we've noticed something potentially quite important. When attempting to use Verizon's LTE Pantech card/software, we've found that it doesn't work with this brand new MacBook Sandy Bridge platform. When attempting to work with the VZAccess Manager we get an error which says it's unable to launch. This is a saddening situation for us who've basically it seems like just five minutes ago gotten 4G on our OSX machines.
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It appears that a source "familiar with the matter" has come forth to AppleInsider to spill the dish on some big fat Apple news about what might be a product launch next week. This release might have to do with inventory levels of the MacBook Pro or because Apple fans are ravenous as ever, either way it appears that rumors for two weeks from now are bunk, and next week is the source of heavenly Apple light. This meeting or press conference might well be the place where the next generation of MacBook Pros originate, and that'd be alright with yours truly as this 2007 MacBook is just about to hit the bin.
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A new Apple survey has prompted suggestions that the company is planning a MacBook Air 3G, with integrated high-speed cellular connectivity. The questionnaire, spotted by AppleInsider, asks a number of questions of MacBook Air owners about their use of 3G wireless, including how often they take advantage of it and what sort of modem they use - USB, wired or wireless tethering, mobile hotspot or something else.
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