"Apple announced a warranty extension for the Radeon 2600 XT that were delivered in the early 2008 Mac Pro."

If you have a Mac Pro with this video card, you get three years from the original date of purchase or until 7/31/11, whichever gives you longer coverage. More can be found here at the support page Apple provides.

"Apple recently posted a support document acknowledging an issue with ATI X1900 XT graphics cards that shipped with Mac Pro systems between August 2006 and January 2008."

If you have one of the affected machines, make sure you get it in sooner than later, as the program lasts from three years from date of purchase or until January 31, 2011, whichever provides longer coverage. If you have already swapped out your card, you can dig up the old one (if you still have it) and bring it in to any Authorized Service Provider or Apple retail store and get some cash back. More info here [link].

"The Apple Store went down this morning, and when it came back up, Apple had given us all a depressingly good excuse to give them five grand: their new 12-core Mac Pros."

And that is the basic model.

"Apple® today unveiled a new Mac® Pro line with up to 12 processing cores and up to 50 percent greater performance than the previous generation.* Featuring the latest quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors, all-new ATI graphics and the option for up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD), the new Mac Pro continues to deliver amazing performance and expandability for the most demanding consumers and professionals."

Not only did Apple introduce a new trackpad and battery charging system, but they also showed off a new Mac Pro and 27-inch Display. The display will replace the 24-inch as well as the 30-inch displays, but won't be available until September, and will come with a price of $999.00 USD. The Mac Pro will be available in August for $2,499.00 USD to $3,499.00 USD, depending on the options.

"If you work with FireWire audio devices on a Mac Pro that you purchased after March 2009, Apple placed a little gift in Software Update for you."

That gift is in the form of Mac Pro Audio Update 1.1 for Mac Pros running Mac OS 10.6.3, which is the fix for some sort of "audio anomaly" that customers reported hearing when they were using FireWire audio devices. And this wasn't the only update from Apple, as they also released one for Epson printer drivers version 2.3.1 for Mac OS X 10.6.

"Apple may have skipped out on this year's Macworld Expo, but the company at least marked the first day of the annual Mac trade show with a release-Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0."

What better way to celebrate the first day of Macworld than with an update from Apple right? This update is for the Mac Pro models circa early 2009, that are running Mac OS X 10.6.2. This update "reduces processor utilization during audio activities such as playing or recording music." For more info, check out the support page from Apple. 

Well, suprisingly, the rumor mill did very well. While they didn't get the timing right, they definitely got the updates right. Apple refreshed a bunch of hardware yesterday, and here are a few of the highlights.

The New iMacs

The new iMacs are a solid deal. The 20" inch model is nicely priced now at $1,199 and the 24" monster is perfect for power users at $2,199. While I'm not convinced there's a big market for desktop computers any more, if you are a Mac user and want some oomph on your desk, this is the place to get it. Another notable is that even the base configuration now has 2 gigs, and most of the desktops have 4. That's definitely in preparation for Snow Leopard.e

Cosmetically, nothing's changed aside from the keyboard, which is utterly baffling to me. Apple seems to be phasing out numeric keypads, now, and even the wired one now doesn't have a numeric keypad. I wanted the Bluetooth wireless keyboard really badly for my MBP so I sucked it up and tolerated the fact that it didn't have the keypad, but I just don't get this move at all. In some ways, this adds fuel to the fire of people who hate Apple and their "our way or the highway" approach to computer design.

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