Ultrabooks are saving the high-end notebook market

For people who want super-thin computers and who don’t feel like paying more than $2,000 for a Retina MacBook Pro, ultrabooks are a blessing. And according to the NPD Group, ultrabooks are helping to keep the U.S. notebook market afloat as they “are off to a fast start capturing nearly 11 percent of all $700+ Windows notebooks sales at U.S. retail through the first five months of 2012.” What’s more, ultrabooks’ share of Windows notebooks costing at least $700 has steadily climbed month by month this year, going from just over 6% in January to more than 15% in May. NPD says strong ultrabook sales are welcome news for the Windows notebook industry, which has seen overall sales of laptops costing $700 or more fall 3% through the first five months of 2012. Full press release after the jump.

Source- BGR

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MacBook Pro and MacBook Air Computers Too Pricey?

Apple today (June 11) announced updates to its line of Mac computers at its annual developers’ conference in San Francisco. The big news is a 15.4-inch super-thin MacBook Pro with a retina display, offering four times the resolution of previous models (2880-by-1800 pixels)

But such beauty doesn’t come cheap. The new MacBook Pro starts at $2,199 and is available today.

For those that don’t have a couple of grand lying around, there are options.
First off, wait a couple of days before purchasing this system, Louis Ramirez who covers technology for DealNews, told us. “It’s hard to tell when we’ll see the first discount, but we could see a modest discount or two soon,” he said.

The longer you wait after a new product introduction, the more money you’ll save. But don’t head to your local Apple Store. Authorized resellers like Amazon, MacMall and MacConnection frequently undercut Apple Store prices, DealNews advised in their April Mac report.

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X 10.8 Mountain Lion Beta is Released By Apple For Developers

Apple released its latest Mountain Lion operating system to developers.
The software update is now available in the Mac App Store. People familiar with the latest build said it is identified as "12A206J."

Apple has reportedly informed developers that MacBook Pro model released in mid-2007 are not compatible with the new build. The issue is expected to be resolved with a future update.
The new Mountain Lion OS X is expected to be officially launched this summer, with more details about the OS being revealed at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference starting on June 11th. As more information becomes available we will keep you updated.

Source: Apple Insider

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The Case For A MacBook Pro Without An Optical Drive

When Apple introduced the MacBook Air without an optical drive, everyone freaked out. “How on earth will we be able to watch all of our DVDs and listen to our CDs?” cried the internet. And sure, totally disowning physical media with a disk drive-less laptop may have been a little preemptive of Apple back in 2008, but the times have changed since then. We live in a world of digital media and digital software distribution. The success of services like Netflix and the Mac App Store proves that.
With rumors saying that Apple will introduce new and improved Macs in the coming weeks, what can we expect? Faster processors? Solid-state hard drives? Retina displays? While these features certainly seem to be on the table, there’s also the chance that Apple’s next-gen MacBook Pro will sport significant physical changes. Namely, we could finally see the optical drive retire from the MacBook line once and for all.
The MacBook Pro’s physical design has basically stayed the same since its aluminum unibody design was introduced way back in 2008. There hasn’t needed to be new a design because the current one is already fantastic — no other laptop has yet to match it in terms of build quality or design precision.
Apple introduced the new and improved MacBook Air with a gorgeous, tapered, ultra-thin exterior in October of 2010. The sleek, lightweight design of the MacBook Air is widely considered to be the future of Apple’s MacBook line. Heck, Apple even calls it the “future of the notebook” on its website. Call me crazy, but that sounds like foreshadowing.
The current Air weighs only 2.38 pounds, and the casing is only about half an inch thick. This engineering feat is accomplished with the help of Apple’s decision to ditch the optical drive out of the gate. You have to buy an exterior SuperDrive to read disks on the Air. And who really uses their SuperDrive that often? I know I don’t remember when I used mine last.

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Apple is Developing Tools to Detect and Remove Flashback

Mac computers certainly aren’t immune to viruses and malware. In the past, we rarely heard about viruses and malware aimed specifically at Mac computers, but their growing popularity has certainly caught the attention of hackers today.

The latest attack on Mac users comes in the form of the Flashback malware. This particular malware takes advantage of the Java vulnerability, which Apple has already tried to patch. There are third-party tools for finding and removing the malware already.

However, many people prefer to wait until Apple offers tools and fixes for issues with their computer. If you’re one of these people will be glad to know that Apple has announced it is working on its own tool to discover and remove Flashback. No date on when the removal tool be available has been offered.

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This Year’s iMacs Will Be Slimmer, With New Anti-Reflective Glass Displays

The reports Says This year iMacs Will be slimmer with new anti-reflective glass display.

Apple’s iMac line of all-in-one desktops is set to receive a pretty significant refresh this year. The machine hasn’t really received any design changes since late 2009

The report curiously cites sources in adding that "G-Tech is also expected to supply AR (anti-reflective) glass solutions for Apple's all-in-one (AIO) PCs with the new products to also serve as a growth driver for G-Tech."

Anti-reflective displays have previously been something of a novelty for Apple computers, available only with built-to-order MacBook Pros. If the rumor turns out to be accurate, this would be the Cupertino company’s first desktop computer to offer this feature.

The new machines are expected during the second half of 2012.

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How To Send Any Type Of File With iMessage On Your iOS Device [Jailbreak]

Jailbreaking opens up a world of possibilities for sending files with iMessage.

Some new jailbreak tweaks have surfaced in Cydia that allow you to open and send all kinds of files between iOS devices with iMessage. Apple’s messaging protocol can be used to send much more than simple SMS and MMS messages; you can send everything from a song to a PDF.
Attacher will let you send and receive all kinds of files with iMessage, and it includes a couple features that make it a compelling offering. A pair of jailbreak tweaks called SendAny and ReceiveAny also accomplish the same goal with a different approach. Which tweak option is best? Let’s take a closer look.

Attacher

Sent from the Mac...

And available on the iPhone!

I tried Attacher first on my jailbroken iPhone 4S, and I was impressed with the options it added to the camera/attachment icon in the Messages app. Sending a random file from the Messages beta app for Mac allowed me to view and open said file on my iPhone with ease. I particularly like the voice memo feature in Attacher that allows you to record, preview, and send a voice message from your iOS device.

A recent update to Attacher lets you send any file from an iOS device with iMessage, but the major con with the tweak design is that you need to manually enter the filesystem path for the file you want to send. This isn’t good at all for those that aren’t familiar with the iOS file structure. For the geeks, it still works great.
The developer of Attacher has informed me that he’s working on adding a file browser interface for selecting an attachment in a future update. He is also working on adding iPod integration to allow songs to be sent through iMessage. That will be nifty. You can of course send photos and video like normal from your device’s Camera Roll. For a free tweak, Attacher is a pretty nice enhancement for anyone who uses iMessage heavily.

SendAny and ReceiveAny

You can also send any file over iMessage with this pair of jailbreak tweaks. SendAny lets you send any type of file, while ReceiveAny allows your device to (you guessed it) receive any type of file from another device running iMessage. ReceiveAny is free in Cydia, while SendAny costs $2. There are a few reasons this pair of tweaks should be considered over Attacher.
Once you install them, the camera icon in the Messages app will be replaced with a little paperclip icon. Tap the paperclip and you will be greeted with SendAny’s Apple-like interface. What I initially loved about SendAny was its simplicity; it almost feels like Apple could have integrated these features itself. You still have the option to take or choose an existing photo/video from the Camera app, but there’s also the option to attach a file. This option will bring up SendAny’s fantastic file browser. If you’ve placed some files on your jailbroken iPhone with an app like iFile, you can find them here and attach them in iMessage. For the purpose of this article, I just grabbed an interface graphic from the Cydia app and sent it to the Messages app on my Mac. Everything worked great.

ReceiveAny will let you receive any file from another device or a Mac running the Messages beta. If that’s all you need, then don’t bother coughing up $2 for SendAny. The two tweaks do work together flawlessly.

Showdown

Now that we’ve taken a look at Attacher and the SendAny/ReceiveAny combo, here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons:
Attacher
Pros:

• Can record and send voice memos in iMessage
• Available for free

Cons:

• Have to manually enter filesystem path to send files
• slightly cluttered interface

SendAny and ReceiveAny
Pros:

• Nice file browser for sending files
• Simplistic interface

Con:

• Costs $2 to send files from jailbroken iOS device

In case you didn’t know, iOS devices can already open files that are sent over iMessages from the Messages beta app for Mac. You can open any file on a non-jailbroken iOS device that the Mail app can open, you just can’t send any file like you could on a jailbroken device. If you just want to send files from your Mac to your iPhone or iPad, try using the Messages Mac app.

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New Slimline MacBook Pros Already In Production [Rumor]

New MacBook Pros will look more like the current Airs

Apple apparently already has slimmed-down 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros in production. The redesigned cases drop the optical drive, but storage will still be plentiful and CPUs will be more powerful than those in the current MacBook Air lineup, say the rumors.

While we aren’t surprised by this story, the rumors come via Digitimes, possibly the least accurate rumormongers on the planet. Digitimes, you might remember, puts out an article almost every week claiming that Apple is already making 7-inch iPads, so take what you like from this new story.
Digitimes sources go on to say that “shipments to Apple” have already begun, and production begins at 100,000-150,000 units per month.
It’s pretty clear that Apple is completely over the optical drive, and that even spinning hard drives will be dumped as soon as SSDs get big and cheap enough to replace them in pro machines. But thinness isn’t the only great feature of the MacBook Air. Those SSDs really make the thing fly. So as long as we’re trading on quality rumors like those above, let me add one of my own: I predict that the new MacBook Pros will ship with both a hard drive and a small SSD, somehow hidden from the user to avoid confusion.
The SSD contains the boot drive, the HDD keeps all your files. Simple, and a great compromise until the world is ready for a 15-inch MacBook Air Pro.
[Via MacRumors]

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The New Air-Like MacBook Pros Could Use Crummy Intel Graphics

This is pretty hard to believe, but if true, it could have a huge impact on the future audience of the MacBook Pro line: Apple could have dropped NVIDIA as the supplier of the next-gen MacBook Pro’s discrete GPUs, and will instead go with Intel integrated graphics. Huh?

According to SemiAccurate, Apple has ditched NVIDIA’s next-gen Kepler graphic chips from a “large number” of its upcoming laptops. Supposedly, Apple has instead decided to pick up Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs with integrated graphics that offer a higher number of shader counts, which will supposedly help make up for the difference.
That’s a laugh — Intel’s way behind NVIDIA when it comes to graphics performance. Even so, SemiAccurate believes that Apple’s next-gen low- and mid-range MacBook Pro models will not have a discrete GPU, just crummy integrated graphics.
Why? NVIDIA can’t make enough Kepler chips, supposedly.

Nvidia can’t supply, so Apple threw them out on their proverbial magical experience. This doesn’t mean Nvidia is completely out at Apple, the Intel GPUs are too awful to satisfy the higher end laptops, so there will need to be something in those. What that something is, we don’t definitively know yet, but the possibilities are vanishingly small.

I can believe that NVIDIA’s having problems with yields on a new cutting-edge chip, but going with Intel? That’s just not an option. The Pros are aimed at video and visual professionals, which means they need a discrete GPU… especially if Apple’s going to try to roll out Retina-quality displays in the MacBook Pro line anytime soon. No, the more likely answer is that even if Apple couldn’t get Keplers in the next MBPs, they’d go with a lesser NVIDIA chip or something from AMD, at least on the mid- to high-end MBPs. File this report under dubious.

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Volumify Easily Mutes Your Mac Startup Sound

If you are looking to turn off and mute the annoying Mac startup sound, a new application called Volumify has been launched on the Mac App Store. That allows you to easily disable the startup sound in OS X Lion, allowing you to reboot and turn on your Mac without letting everyone around you know.

The new Volumify application not only mutes your Mac startup sound, it can also be configured to act differently in various locations. For instance if you only want to your Mac startup sound turned off in lectures, its ease to configure.





Once back at home or in the office you can simply configure Volumify to turn the volume back to normal. Volumify developers Rolling On The Bed explain:

“Volumify is a very handy utility to automatically adjust your Mac’s volume according to your current location and to disable the startup sound. All you need to do is configure your locations in the app’s preferences. Volumify automatically detects your locations by available WiFi networks and adjusts your Mac’s volume accordingly.”

Volumify features include: Automatic volume adjustment based on your current location, Automatic detection of locations, Configure individual locations and determine the system volume for these locations, Customise each location’s radius to account for large buildings or sites, Turn off the Mac OS X startup sound.

Sure there are other ways to turn off and mute your Macs startup sounds, but Volumify makes the process so simply and for £1.99 is a bargain, to have easy control over that annoying Mac startup sound

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Apple Motion 5.0.2 Update Rolls Out, Adding Improved Speed And Responsiveness

Joining the new update rolled out by Apple today for their Final Cut Pro X video editingsoftware. Apple has also rolled out an update for its Motion 5.0.2 software. Motion 5 providesFinal Cut Pro X users with additional tools to tweak and customise video footage, and is available to purchase for $50.

Enabling users to create and edit motion graphics, titling for video production and film production, and 2D and 3D compositing for visual effects. The new update released today is around 1.05GB in size and improves speed and responsiveness of text editing.





When first released the new Motion 5 packages was updated with an interface had been redesigned specifically for Final Cut Pro editors, with a familiar look and feel. Making it easy to switch between the two applications. A new single-window layout puts all the tools you need at your fingertips, and redesigned icons make it easy to identify options at glance.

The new Motion 5 update also brings with it improved overall stability and performance tweaks and is available as a download via the Mac App Store software on Mac OS X Lion.

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OWC Aura Pro Express Adds Extra Storage Power To Your Mac Air

OWC has unveiled a new upgrade that will allow anyone with a Mac Book Air to add even more speed to the already nippy ultra book. The new OWC Aura Express 6G 480GB Solid State Disk has been created to add not only 8x more storage capacity for the MacBook Air, but also add up to 3x faster performance as well.

As you can expect the extra performance and speed comes at a price. The Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G 480GB model is priced at a massive $1,149 and is now available directly from OWC.








OWC’s 480GB SSD will perform best in the latest 11.1″ and 13.3″ Apple MacBook Air models, incorporating 6Gb/sec data rate capabilities and Tier 1/Grade A Toggle Synchronous NAND to deliver data rates.

OWC explains: “Whether you’re looking for storage capacity up to 8x the factory maximum or extreme data rate speeds over 500MB/s, an OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express SSD is the ultimate MacBook Air performance upgrade.”

If this model is a little highly priced for your budget OWV also stocks 120GB and 240GB providing alternatives to factory SSD options for the MacBook Air models. More information can be found over on the OWC website

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Digital Trends Best of 2011 Awards: Computers

Check out the top computers that graced our desks this year in our roundup of the best desktops and laptops of 2011.

This has been an interesting year for laptops. Intel and AMD both released new mobile chips with graphics components built into the processor architecture. The results of this have been noticeable. Though only one of our favorite products of 2011 is a true gaming laptop, all three laptops on this list are capable of basic 3D gaming.
In more recent history, Intel’s Ultrabook specification has finally translated into products consumers can buy. We’ve only been able to review one so far, however, and the general impression is that tsthese laptops still need a little work before they can compete with the MacBook Air.
Meanwhile, the desktop market saw little change. While several new processor lines were introduced, they were either niche (Intel Sandy-Bridge E) or disappointing (AMD’s FX). Still, some products did stand out from the rest.
Of all the desktops and laptops we’ve had the opportunity to handle this year, these are the models that come to the top of the heap.
Make sure to check the rest of our Best of 2011 Awards to see all of this year’s winners.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch, $1,299 and up The 2010 revamp of the Air transformed it from a niche product to a slim, mass-market laptop that now commands a significant percentage of MacBook sales. Apple’s update to Sandy Bridge processors this summer cured the Air’s only major flaw — processor performance — without introducing any new disadvantages. Besides connectivity (a classic Apple weakness) the Air is closer to perfection than any laptop ever built. Read our full Apple MacBook Air 13.3-inch Review.

HP dm1z, $400 and up AMD’s Bulldozer may not be having much luck with critics, but the company’s Fusion laptop processors are a different story. They offer solid integrated graphics as well as long battery life. One such processor powers the HP dm1z, but the reasons for this inexpensive laptop’s success go beyond that. The dm1z features a display that rivals much more expensive laptops, enjoyable Beats Audio speakers, and a keyboard that’s as large as what is found on some 13.3-inch laptops.

Origin Genesis, $1,337 and up Founded in 2009, Origin quickly made a name for itself among boutique custom PC manufacturers. In 2011, the company sent us a high-end example of its Origin Genesis equipped with three GTX 580 video cards and a quad-core Intel processor. It holds our records for the highest PCMark 7 and 3DMark Vantage scores of 2011, barely beating competition from Falcon Northwest and iBuyPower. However, the Genesis was configured with a lower price than either, tipping the scales in its favor.

HP TouchSmart 610, $899 and up Gaming PCs aside, the market for desktops is a bit bland, filled with products that are competent but not unique. One exception is the HP TouchSmart 610, an all-in-one featuring a touchscreen, Intel Core processors and discrete graphics. For 2011, HP introduced a new stand for the TouchSmart that makes it possible for the PC to recline, making touch input comfortable from a wider variety of angles. The company’s suite of touch software remains better than the competition, as well.

Asus G74SX, $1,449 and up Laptop gaming is often the domain of the boutique shops, but mass-market brand Asus has made inroads over the last couple of years. The company’s latest effort, the G74, retains its unique stealth bomber-inspired exterior but is otherwise redesigned, offering the latest Nvidia mobile graphics, a comfortable user interface and effective cooling. Best of all, it’s available for as little as $1449, making it both powerful and (relatively) affordable.

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Acer’s $699 15-inch ultrabook could undercut rumored 15-inch MacBook Air

Following the early successes of its of 11-inch and 13-inch ultrabooks, Acer has reportedly decided to build a brand new 15-inch ultrabook that may dramatically undercut the price of Apple’s rumored 15-inch MacBook Air. DigiTimes said Wednesday that Acer has already contracted Pegratron to build the new computer, and that the device could be priced as low as $699 — $300 cheaper than the entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air. The latest rumors suggest that Apple could be prepared to deliver its 15-inch MacBook Air to the market as soon as the first quarter next year and that the device is already in the early stages of production. It is unclear when Acer’s new ultrabook will launch.

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Apple has plans for a 2880×1800 MacBook Pro?

According to a new rumor from Digitimes, their sources have told them that Apple has plans to launch a new series of MacBook Pro laptops that will feature a whopping display resolution of 2880×1800, trumping that of the 27” iMac which only sports a maximum display resolution of 2560×1440. Safe to say that if this were true, the new MacBook Pros by Apple could possibly feature one of the highest resolutions available in its class.
At the moment ultrabook manufacturers such as ASUS and Acer have plans to launch a new series of ultrabooks in 2012 that will feature a display resolution of 1920×1080, a display that beats out other ultrabooks in the market including Apple’s MacBook Air, whose 13” model only goes to a maximum resolution of 1440×900.
The MacBook Pro was recently refreshed with newer Intel processors but we’re sure that a refresh is definitely on Apple’s to-do list for 2012, but will it sport the rumored 2880×1800 resolution that Digitimes’ sources have told them? We guess we will have to wait and find out for ourselves.

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