Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Ever wish your MacBook was a little more, well, bookish? If so, you're in luck! The folks at Twelve South are putting the 'book' in 'MacBook' with the aptly named BookBook case."

At $79.95 USD for the 13-inch MacBook, it is a bit bulky for my tastes. But if you want a novelty cover that is unique, perhaps is what you are looking for. It doesn't really appeal to me, but to each his own. 

"I've never paid much attention to laptop sleeves, but as they get fancier and fancier, they are becoming perhaps the most popular MacBook accessory out there. At least, that's according to one high-end sleeve and case maker from Australia."

These are definitely nice cases/sleeves, and they should be for what they charge, starting at $99.95 USD and going up from there. They have quite the collection on their website, including some phone cases. If I were in the business of meeting clients, etc and wanted to make an impression, I might consider something like this.

"While researching MacBook Pros, the folks at cmyplay produced an infographic charting the relative prices of MacBook Pros around the world. The variation is amazing."

I know the graphic is pretty large, but it sure shows the disparity in pricing depending on where you buy. Hong Kong is the cheapest, followed by the US and then up from there (of course exchange rates at the time of this article may have changed altering some of these prices but you get the idea). Brazil is the highest priced but as they say in the article, there are other factors such as import duties and sales taxes at play more so here than anywhere else that Apple sells their products. It is an eye-opening comparison though isn't it?

Figure 1: First impressions? Nice packaging!

I've used several protective covers for my various iPhones since my first one back in 2007, so I'd say I have quite a bit of experience with them. Last week I was sent one to try out on my iPhone 3GS from XO Skins and I was pleasantly surprised by a few things. Just what exactly you may ask? Read on!.

Read more...

"Users have a love/hate relationship with Apple's glossy displays. Namely, they either love them or they hate them. I haven't used one myself, as I'll be hanging on to my original MacBook Pro until it ceases to work."

I guess I'm in the "love" side of the love/hate angle. I've never had a problem with the glossy screen on my MBP or my MBA, but I don't usually use them outside or where there are bright lights. If I did and it bothered me, this is one option to fix it. So if you have a a 13" MacBook Pro and want the matte screen, TechRestore will do it for $200.00 USD. They promise a 24 hour turnaround but you don't get your old screen back.

"ClearCal AG (anti-glare) films greatly improve the viewability of glossy glass displays when used in brightly lit or outdoor environments. ClearCal films combine a tempered 2-mil matte finished, anti-reflection layer, permanently laminated to a 3-mil flexible transparent base. A blemish-healing siliconized adhesive provides an optically-correct, yet easily removable bond that conceals existing surface defects like abrasions and scratches. The siliconized adhesive is permanently bonded to the base layer and will never leave any residue behind if later removed."

Well there you have it. If you're one of those folks who just can't live with the glossy display, this might be your solution. I think I may pick one up just to see if it does what it says it does, but it does work in the marketing materials and we know that that always translates into real-world experience.

"With a $700 budget, Matt and Olivia find their perfect laptop a large screen HP dv7 with great battery life. Great for sharing pictures of their son Jayden with friends and family."

Wow, it sure does look sturdy, doesn't it?

Best Buy doesn't have any $700 DV7's on their site, so it's hard to tell if they got what they actually wanted, but the $589 model has a super-impressive battery life of 2 hours 30 minutes.

Do any of the laptop hunters actually say, "I want this" and actually get it?

"Ouch. Those numbers below have to hurt if you are in the market for a new high end MacBook Air. Macworld tested the new machines and found the high end 2.13GHz MacBook Air didn't perform as well as the previous high end 1.86Ghz machine with the same 128GB SSD. In fact, to them, it was noticably slower."

Makes me wonder, since I'm thinking of getting another MacBook, if the 13 inch MacBook Pro isn't the way to go. It is only about 1.5 pounds heaver with bigger hard drive and faster processor, as well as built in superdrive. I've done some weight comparisons (very non-science, lifting one then the other) in the Apple Store, and the difference wasn't all that much. But I sure like the thin factor of the Air. What would you buy if you were in the market for a laptop and having a built in superdrive wasn't a deciding factor?

"Following an investigation of a complaint by Dell, NAD, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, said Apple was “unique” in having chosen only to produce laptops that meet the highest EPEAT environmental standards. “While other manufacturers may have subcategories of lines with similar ratings, none has comparable high ratings for all of the notebooks it produces,” NAD said. However Apple was asked to remove the the reference to “world’s greenest” given the potential for overstatement. NAD noted that some individual Toshiba Portage notebooks have a higher EPEAT rating than MacBooks."

Interesting distinction. There are individual laptops that are as green or greener, but not an entire line that's as green as the MacBooks. Fair enough. Frankly, I think this whole rush to get green thing is a bit annoying already, but there are obviously people who make their buying decisions based on the color of their environmental impact (not to mention idiots like GreenPeace who won't shut up).

Frankly, I don't buy computers based on their environmental footprint, but that's me.

"Phil Schiller kicked off today's keynote with a light update to the MacBook Pro family. All the models now include the new lithium polymer battery introduced with the 17 inch MacBook Pro earlier this year. They also have an SD-card slot in exchange for the Expresscard slot, a weird move by Apple. The Expresscard slot remains only on the 17-inch MacBook Pro. And lastly, the 13-inch MacBooks now have a Firewire 800 slot, officially making them part of the MacBook Pro family."

So there you have it, no netbook but they sure made improvements in specifications as well as pricing. The unibody MacBook is turned into a MacBook pro with the addition of the FireWire 800 port, and they drop the price down to $1,199.00 USD. The only MacBook you can purchase now is the white one, which is probably the best value of all the laptops when you compare performance. The big change is the sealed battery unit in all of them, giving the battery life a boost to 7 hours, but you lose the ability to swap out your batteries or replace them without going to an Apple Genius. Apple feels the trade off in the battery life increase is worth it, what do you think? Read more...

"The latest entry-level MacBook rolled out by Apple a week ago offers more than just an improvement on the white laptop it replaces in Apple's notebook line. According to Macworld Lab tests, this new system outperforms the 2GHz aluminum unibody MacBook that costs $300 more."

That's pretty insane, if you ask me, although understandable. The Aluminum models haven't gotten a spec bump since they came out while the Whitebook just got one. Newer usually means faster. Yet again this proves what most of us have been saying and already know: the Whitebook is a great value, a good workhorse, and a powerful machine.

Chew on that, laptop hunters.

"Apple released a stealth upgrade of the entry-level MacBook this morning. The white MacBook, still priced at $999USD, now has a 160GB hard drive, a 2.13GHz processor and a slight increase in RAM speed -- 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM."

The MacBook White is still a solid deal for anyone in the market for a new laptop and is quite the capable little machine. Apple may not compete in the low end, but when it comes to the mid range, the White is still a solid performer. At $999 it would probably satisfy a good majority of the needs of the people who need a new laptop.

"Brushed aluminum and black accents...it screams Apple design. What is it? It's Just Mobile's answer to the heat issues many of you may be experiencing with your MacBook. But is it just a bar of aluminum, or is it something more? Fortunately, it's something more. Yes indeed, you can use it as a weapon when needed. Seriously, this thing is a solid bar of aluminum. You could really mess someone up with this thing, not that you find yourself in that sort of situation all the time...or do you?"

This looks like a pretty slick device in case your Macbook gets hot, very Apple-like. It has rubber spacers so you don't scratch your Macbook, along with a slot for your power cord. At $40.00 USD or so, it is a bit spendy for a piece of metal, but it sure looks good doing what it does, and isn't that all that really matters?

"In laptops, Apple MacBooks rated first in the 13-inch category, the 14-to 16-inch size, and the 17-inch list; Dell, Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard were also-rans. The 15-inch MacBook Pro was rated overall with a score of 75 out of 100, ahead of a 64-rated Toshiba Satellite (the Pro costs $2,000, the Toshiba $700). Among desktops, the Mac mini finished second to an H-P Pavillion Slimline, and the iMac placed second behind a Dell XPS One. CR surveyed its readers about computer tech support. Apple trounced the field in both desktop and laptop categories."

Well, I'd call that a sound trouncing. Not that I'm surprised. Dell's support is bad, and Toshiba's so far beyond bad that it can't even see the light from bad within 3000 years.

Now who's gonna break the news to all those "laptop hunters?"

Yep, they're at it again. Meet Lisa, a mom who thinks Apple computers are "popular at that age" (as she points to her whatever year old kid) and her son, Jackson, who wants a big hard drive, speed, and a computer that's good for gaming. What do they look at? Why, a Vista 64 laptop from Sony, of course! Doesn't everyone?

Unlike in the Giampaolo ad (surely you remember him? he's the "picky" and "technically savvy" guy who walked out of Fry's with an utter piece of slow heavy crap after saying he wanted speed and portability), these guys actually got a halfway decent machine. Of course, you'll never find that machine listed on the Laptop Hunters site; they don't put the machines there anymore, so you can't make fun as easily as you used to!

Either way, it has all the features of a typical "Laptop Hunters" ad. The stupid dig at Apple, the revelation that they need a PC, and the purchase of a PC at a big box store where your options are grossly limited to whatever they have in stock on the shelves. Should be interesting to find out, down the road, how well Jackson's gaming is going on a laptop (!?) running Windows Vista 64 (*sigh*), with a graphics chipset that's roughly 2 generations old (nice move). But hey, they have Blu Ray! On a 16.4" screen! With a remote!

Here's the machine they bought.

"Apple has apparently begun to acknowledge the existence of small white cracks in older plastic MacBooks, according to a report. AppleInsider says Apple service providers started receiving notices last month that the plastic chassis on the white 13-inch MacBook released in 2006 can crack in four different spots. Apple had previously helped out users who had noticed hairline cracks around the trackpad on the top of the notebook, but did not acknowledge cracks in other places as a design flaw, according to AppleInsider."

AppleInsider also has a nice collage of cracks on various white Macbooks. Apple is advising their repair folks to repair the Macbook even if it is outside the warranty date. That is, if it is determined that the owner of the Macbook is not responsible for the cracks. Interestingly enough, the black Macbooks aren't experiencing the same type of cracking, and are not granted the repair consideration outside warranty dates.

"On a budget of just $1500, Giampaolo looks for a high-spec laptop that's up to his standards."

Portability, power, and battery life. Got it. So what does he end up with? An HP laptop with under 2.5 hours of battery life, RAM that's running at half the speed of his CPU, and a 16" screen. But don't worry; Giampaolo is very picky and he knows what he wants. Oh, and Macs are just about aesthetics, you see. There's no portability, power, or battery life there.

In fact, in every way he was searching for, the MacBook that he dismissed as "only about aesthetics" actually fit his needs better. It has a much better battery, a screen that runs at almost the same resolution (the HP he picked up runs at 1366 x 768 which I'm sure looks marvelous blown up to 15 inches), and a CPU of equal speed with RAM that's matched to it. Oh yeah, and no OS upgrade required to run 4 gigs of RAM.

At least with the "Lauren" ad, she kinda got what she was looking for. This one features a guy who set out for three things, told us how picky he was and how technologically savvy he was, then proceeded to buy something that wasn't even within the guidelines Mr. Picky set forth at the beginning of the ad. For that reason alone, this one should've ended up on the cutting room floor.

Giampaolo got just what he paid for. Not what he wanted; just what he paid for.

I don't really know what came over me. I've been doing this Executive Editor thing here since November and I've been ignoring the amazing Microsoft product line all this time. What was I thinking?

Yesterday I was in Best Buy and it was as if the voice of God Himself guided me into the computer section and showed me where I needed to go. I saw this copper and bronze beauty and had to have it. Now I finally understand what Lauren was talking about. This is the ultimate in computing values.

For years and years I've been tricked by Apple fanboys and Kool-Aid drinkers into thinking I need to have a Mac to get anything I wanted to do done. What they didn't tell me was that I could've saved $1700 over the cost of my MacBook Pro and got this 17" monster! I mean, look at it! It has a numeric keypad! And I can do HD video just as good as I can on my former MacBook Pro. Yeah, the Turion processor is a bit slow, but that just means I have more time for my wife and cats.

And sure it's a bit heavy (more than my newborn godson was, to be precise) but that just means it won't slide around on my desk when I'm working on it.

I've seen the light, and hopefully you all will too. Welcome to Microsoft Thoughts, the new home of all things Microsoft. I'm going to turn the site back over to Jason and hopefully he'll find someone fitting to run it.

Thanks for the memories, fanboys!

"Apple has yanked a software update that was intended to fix graphics-related issues with its latest notebooks just two days after pushing the patch to users via its Software Update mechanism. It's unclear what prompted the removal of the patch, released Monday as NVIDIA Graphics Update 2009 and pulled from the company's website and automatic software update system on Wednesday."

I have to say that despite the complaints mentioned in the article and in the Apple Forums, I have had no such issues since upgrading. In fact, as I mentioned on the day the release of the update was posted, it actually fixed my only issue with my MacBook Pro's display and that was it not waking up when my Dell monitor was connected. I'm glad I grabbed it before they yanked it because it has made my life a whole lot easier!

"If you're one of those people who would have gotten one of the slick new 15" MacBook Pros but just can't bear the thought of using a glossy LCD screen, then you need to know about TechRestore. The electronics repair service, known for its speedy repairs of Mac laptops, has introduced a new service that trades the glossy screen for silky matte goodness."

Yep, that's right. If you have a 15" MacBook Pro (the new shiny purdy one like yours truly) then you too can spend $200 more to have the beautiful screen converted to a matte finish so that you don't have to go through the pain of adjusting the viewing angle to minimize reflections when the sun is glaring over your shoulder. Honestly, I think people are a little ridiculous when it comes to their disdain for the glossy screen, but if you're one of "those" folks, then this might be for you.