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Apple

Apple Introduces New iPad Mini and Refreshes Lineup

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Today Apple has introduced their new iPad mini along with updating the iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro, and iPad. Here’s a quick rundown of what was announced.

iPad Mini

The much anticipated iPad mini has been unveiled and it looks great. Consumers who were looking for an Apple device to better compete with devices like the Google Nexus 7 can now rejoice as Apple has done just that.iPad_mini

The new iPad mini features a 7.9 inch display which is slightly larger than the Nexus 7 which features a 7 inch display. Apple chose to describe the size difference in square inches rather than on the diagonal when comparing it to a 7 inch tablet, which works out to be 21.9 square inches (7″) and  29.6 square inches (7.9). Schiller went on to explain how much better your web browsing experience is with their 7.9″ design over their competition and then he compared apps on iPad mini vs other tablets and discussed how they offer a richer experience on the iPad mini.

The iPad mini will also feature the new Lighting connector along with new accessories like Lighting to HDMI. The body of the iPad mini -no surprise here- is made of an all aluminum unibody. Apple has also brought its iSight camera to the iPad mini and the all mighty A5 chip. If you’re planing on using the iPad mini on a cellular network, you will have the ability to take advantage of LTE.

iPad

Even though it has only been about half a year since the release of the iPad 3rd generation with retina display, Apple has just introduced the new 4th generation iPad that features a new A6X chip that’s 2x as fast as the previous generation iPad. The 4th generation iPad also has the latest in Wi-Fi technology and will be able to pick up both 2.4GHz and 5GHz (dual-band). Also, the new Lightning connector is now a part of the 4th generation iPad.

 

iMac

The iMac was one of my favorite unveilings that Apple had to offer. The new iMac looks great with it’s brand new slim design that has a screen edge of only 5mm. The back of the display is a much wider than the edge but it is done in a way that’s easy on the eyes.newiMac

Speaking of easy on the eyes, you will be dealing with 75% less reflection. The new iMac uses 50% less power than previous generations and has been equipped with the latest (ivy bridge) processors from Intel including both i5 and i7 chips. Graphics get a bump up to the latest Keplar architecture with the option to get the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX on the 27″ model.

Fusion Drive

The fusion drive is a combination of flash storage and traditional HDD storage. The flash storage will hold 128GB and the traditional HDD can be 1 or 3 TB. The Fusion Drive isn’t just a mix of both technologies it actually implements some really cool software that moves your applications from one drive to the other depending on it’s performance needs. The OS and pre-installed software will be placed on the flash storage for best performance and initially all of the apps you install will be stored on the HDD. OSX will then recognize which programs you use the most and which programs require the most performance and then move them to the much faster flash drive accordingly. Pretty cool idea considering most of us are already doing this manually with our computers.

 

Mac Pro

Apple continues to push their most popular laptops forward and the Mac Pro 13″ has now been updated with a retina display, a new thinner design and an all flash architecture.MBP13Retina

Mac Mini

The Mac mini remains basically the same except it gets up bump up in processing power by now featuring the new Ivy Bridge Intel chips. It should be said that the Mac mini really didn’t need much else, the Mac mini is affordable and can be a real workhorse considering it’s small size, cool little box.

For complete details on these new products you can head over to Apple.

 

How to Tell If You Are Taking Advantage of USB 3.0

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USB (Universal Serial bus), how did we live with out it?

gravisGamePad
Gravis GamePad

It’s probably a safe bet to say that most of the people who use USB technology have no idea what the world was like before it existed. Remember PS/2 and RS-232 connectors?It used to be a very different world when it came to how we connected devices to our computers.

Imagine having a different type of connector for each device you connect to your computer, that was reality in the early years of computers. I remember plugging in my Gravis Game Pad into the sound card, yes that’s not a typo, which had a midi/joystick port next to the 3.5mm jacks for microphone and audio out.

Fortunately for all of us, USB which was officially introduced in 1996, standardized the way we connect devices to our computers. We no longer had to worry about which device needed what port and which device would work on what type of hardware, everything became “universal”. The USB standard has undergone a few changes over it’s lifetime with each version slightly more stable and faster than the last.

USB1
USB 1.0

Transfer speeds for USB 1.0 are 1.5 Mbit/s and 12 Mbit/s

USB2
USB 2.0

Transfer speeds for USB 2.0 are 480 Mbit/s

USB 3.0

Transfer speeds for USB 3.0 can be up to 5 Gbit/s

Of course there are many other changes that go along with each USB release besides just transfer speeds. Changes to USB have also included power management and simultaneous two way transfer. The USB connector is really amazing, everything from keyboards to cell phones utilize this amazing interface and USB 3.0 is even better.

Now that we know how much faster USB 3.0 is compared to 2.0 (about 10 times faster) we need to know if were even using it. It may be difficult at first to tell which technology you’re using because USB 3.0 ports are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and therefore look identical to their 2.0 counterpart . If you haven’t bought a new computer in last year or so you probably don’t have USB 3.0.

In some cases an indication that you may have USB 3.0 will be a blue colored USB port on the computer itself, but the best way to tell is to check your hardware configuration via your preferred OS.

Microsoft Windows

You can check your computers hardware on Windows machines by right clicking “My Computer”, then “Manage” and then “Device Manager”.

Locate USB and you should see “USB 3.0” somewhere in the hardware description.

Mac OSX

Similarly, in OSX you can click the Apple logo in the top left of the finder bar, click “About this Mac”, then “More Info” and then “System Report”.

So is it worth all of the fuss? Absolutely! I have a USB 3.0 external hard drive and data transfer speeds are incredibly fast compared to 2.0 models. Any device using 3.0 should perform significantly better.

Apple to Hold a Special Event

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Apple has set the date, on October 23rd they will hold a special event for making some major announcements.

Apple Logo

Many of us are expecting to see a mini version of the iPad (iPad mini) which should better align Apple to compete with Amazon and Google. It would make sense to see Apple offer a broad array of tablet solutions to bombard the market with different price points,sizes and features to try and grab prospective tablet owners who may be currently on-the-fence about which tablet to buy.

At this point no one really knows for sure exactly what else Apple has up it’s sleeve. Although it will be nice to confirm, we are hoping to see more than just an iPad mini.

I personally would like to see some updates for Mac desktop solutions like the Mac Mini which could use a bit more love. For now we can only speculate and we will just have to wait and see what comes out of the event, which will be held in San Jose, Calif. on October 23rd.

 

 

Hmm That Clock Looks Familiar

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With iOS 6 came many new changes, but one change has Apple paying up for it’s new clock image. The clock image looks identical to a clock image owned by the Swiss Federal Railway service.iOSClock

The Swiss Federal Railway Service was happy to see the design being used but they were quite upset to see its clock design featured on Apples new iOS release without their permission. Fortunately, it seems that Apple and the Swiss Federal Railway Service have settled their issues with some type of licensing deal. The amounts being paid by Apple to use the image have not been released.

All of this comes at a time when it seems like every company is out for blood in this new, ‘wild west’ of portable technology. Every detail of every product including it’s software is under scrutiny, and in this case it’s definitely an infringement on Apple’s part. Often though the answers aren’t so obvious and we begin to question just what should and should not be patented and protected by the law.

One example of something that I think should be universal to all touch devices is the gesture. Gestures are an absolute necessity for any touch device and trying to come up with anything else to replace the “original” set of gestures is just silly. Nick Wingfield, a content contributor for the New York Times, likened recreating gestures to placing square wheels on a car. I’m not saying that Apple shouldn’t get any credit for initially incorporating these features but locking them down and trying to pull them away from competitors is silly, at least for gestures.

Either way I’m glad to see that Apple and the Swiss Federal Railway Service have reached an agreement.

Steve Jobs

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Steve Jobs sadly passed away one year ago today, October 5th 2011. Whether or not you liked Steve Jobs or whether or not you like Apple, you can’t say that his impact on the world of technology wasn’t huge. Apple has placed a video tribute to Steve Jobs on it’s website along with a short letter from Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple.

SteveJobs

 

I would like to take the time today to share a short story with you about how Steve Jobs has inspired me personally.

The Life of Steve Jobs is a truly inspiring story, one that when revisited today left me feeling just the way it did one year ago, well, one year ago and a day. Why do I add a day? Well, a funny thing happened last year and I thought it would be interesting to share with you all today.

A little over a year ago I was feeling defeated,  and frustrated with what I was studying, I was uncertain about what the future would hold, I began to look for an inspirational quote or speech to lift my spirits. While searching the web for a very brief period of time, I stumbled upon Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. It really captivated me and it was exactly what I needed to hear. As funny as it seems, the speech seemed to have found me, I laughed a bit because it was amazing that I had never came across this speech before, except for when I needed hear it, I guess it’s purpose was well served. What is unfortunate is the very next day, Steve Jobs passed away and this further solidified my inspirations. If you watch the speech you will see how powerful these two events being tied together like this could bring you pause.

Steve contributed greatly to the world of technology and his life has inspired millions. I would implore you to try and find something or someone who inspires you, then get out there and be innovative and create and mold the world around you.

To see the short video head to Apple.com