Category Archives: Mac

Feb 16 2012

Mountain Lion Roars!

Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8)

Apple has announced details of Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8), with Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing saying that ”The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better.”

The developer preview of Mountain Lion has just been released to developers and has over 100 new features, including many brought from the iPad and iOS mobile operating system, according to Apple.

These features include:

  1. iCloud – In OS X Mountain Lion, sign in once with your Apple ID and iCloud is automatically set up across your Mac.
  2. Messages - Messages does everything iChat does, and so much more. For starters, it comes with iMessage. And just like iMessage in iOS, it lets you send unlimited messages to anyone on a Mac or an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 5.
  3. Reminders - Make as many lists as you need and easily add to them. Set due dates and you’ll get alerts as deadlines approach. Check items off your lists as you go and keep track of what you’ve completed. And to be sure you don’t forget anything, iCloud keeps your reminders up to date on your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
  4. Notes - Notes in OS X Mountain Lion is designed for whatever’s on your mind. Think it up. Jot it down. Make it even more noteworthy with photos, images, and attachments. You can add, delete, and flip through your notes or do a quick search. Use the Share button to send your notes to friends or colleagues with Mail or Messages. Pin important notes to your desktop so they’re easy to get to. And take them with you everywhere. Notes works with iCloud, so when you create or edit a note on your Mac, it automatically updates on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
  5. Notification Center  - Notification banners appear on your desktop and disappear quickly so they don’t interrupt what you’re doing. Swipe to the left, and you’ll see all your notifications in a simple, ordered list. So you’ll always know what’s up as soon as it comes up.
  6. Share Sheets - You’ll find the Share button in many OS X Mountain Lion apps. It’s the new, easy way to spread the word — links, photos, and videos, too. Send links from Safari. Send your notes via Mail and Messages. Post photos to Flickr. Send videos to Vimeo. And tweet just about anything.
  7. Twitter - Tweet links and photos directly from Safari, iPhoto, or Photo Booth with the new Tweet Sheet. Tweet comments and add locations. And when someone mentions you in a tweet or sends you a direct message, you’ll get a Twitter notification right then and there.
  8. Game Center - Friends will find you fast, and you’ll track them down easily. Get a multiplayer game started or go up against people you don’t know. Check out leader-boards and see how your high score ranks against opponents’ scores around the world. And discover new games based on the ones you and your friends already play.
  9. AirPlay Mirroring - With AirPlay Mirroring, you can stream what’s on your Mac to your HDTV via Apple TV. Show web pages and videos to friends on the couch. Share lessons with a classroom. Present to a conference room. It’s a big deal for your Mac. And for everyone around it.
  10. Gatekeeper - Gatekeeper in OS X Mountain Lion makes the Mac safer than ever. It helps prevent you from unknowingly downloading and installing malicious software. And it gives you control over which applications to download and run on your Mac.

There is a Beta of Messages available for download from the Apple site but when I tried there was a message stating that due to some issues with the application that downloads were suspended for the time being. No information was given as to the actual problem so I guess we will have to wait and see what happens.

As to when we can expect to get our hands on Mountain Lion, we are looking at late summer this year. Price TBC.

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Oct 26 2011

MacBook Pro update sneaks in under radar

 

MacBook Pro at the desktop.

Apple has quietly sneaked in some updates to its MacBook range of laptops. Processors were update by miniscule amounts; just 0.1 and 0.2 GHz (yes, I’m afraid its not 1 and 2 GHz!). Hard drives were updated by 180GB and 250GB and the graphic cards have also been given a boost.

Here are the details:

  • 13″ MacBook Pro base model has a 2.4 GHz processor and 500 GB hard drive, boosted from 2.3 GHz and 320 GB.
  • 13″ MacBook Pro model has a 2.8 GHz processor and 750 GB hard drive, boosted from 2.7 GHz and 500 GB.
  • 15″ MacBook Pro base model has a 2.2 GHz processor, up from 2.0 GHz. The 500 GB hard drive remains unchanged. The AMD GPU is now a 6750M with 512MB VRAM (up from a 6490M/256).
  • 15″ MacBook Pro high-end model has a 2.4 GHz processor, up from 2.2 2.3 GHz. The 750 GB hard drive remains unchanged. The AMD GPU is now a 6770M with 1GB of VRAM.
  • 17″ MacBook Pro model has a 2.4 GHz processor, up from 2.2 GHz. The 750 GB hard drive has not changed. Its AMD GPU is also a 6770M with 1 GB VRAM (up from the 6750M).

Prices remain unchanged s although this isn’t a major update its nevertheless a welcome one.

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Aug 13 2011

New build of Lion Developer released by Apple

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Image by Gory ^ via Flickr

Apple’s latest build release of Mac OS X Lion doesn’t increment the 10.7.2 version number but does bump the build number from 11C26 to 11C37. In Apple’s build system, the first number relates to the reference release of Mac OS X (11 means Lion) and the letter refers to the minor release (C = x.2), with the final number referring to the build within that release.

For those who eagled eye amongst you, you may be asking why the jump from 26 to 37 in its developer releases? well. Apple creates some builds that it never releases publicly, (in this case builds 27 to 36).

This latest build includes developments of iCloud, as Apple moves closer to the full release of iCloud and also iOS 5.

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Jul 20 2011

Latest MacBook Air makes it debut

MacBook Air

Today (Wednesday 20th July) saw Apple announce its new line-up of MacBook Air portable computers. Both the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air now feature the latest generation of Intel processors, the Core i5 and i7. With speeds up to 1.8GHz and faster memory, the new MacBook Air gains up to 2.5x the processing performance over the previous generation.

The new MacBook Air also features the Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor, which includes an on-chip engine for video encoding and decoding. It also comes with the new Thunderbolt port, transferring data up to 12 times faster than FireWire 800 and up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0. You can also use it to connect the new Apple Thunderbolt Display.The new display (more of that later) offers over 4 million eye-popping pixels while coming with the following features:

  • Gigabit Ethernet,
  • FireWire 800,
  • an additional Thunderbolt port,
  • three USB ports,
  • a FaceTime HD camera,
  • 2.1 stereo sound and
  • a built-in microphone.

Instead of a traditional hard drive the MacBook Air is now all Flash memory storage (64GB, 128GB or 256GB), offering reliability, speed and efficiency, as well as up to 30 days on stand-by. It also comes with a full-size keyboard that is backlit, as well as a Multi-Touch Trackpad, making use of the new Multi-Touch gestures in Lion (also released today and available only on the App Store).

The display of the MacBook Air measures a mere 4.86 millimetres (0.19 inch) thin, yet the resolution is so high, you’ll feel like you’re looking at a much larger screen.  The 11-inch MacBook Air features a resolution equal to that of your typical 13-inch notebook, while the 13-inch MacBook Air wows with a resolution equivalent to a typical 15-inch notebook.

Supported resolutions:

11.6-inch (diagonal) model:

  • 1366×768 (native),
  • 1344×756 and 1280×720 pixels at 16:9 aspect ratio;
  • 1152×720 and 1024×640 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio;
  • 1024×768 and 800×600 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio

113.3-inch (diagonal) model:

  • 1440×900 (native),
  • 1280×800, 1152×720 and 1024×640 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio;
  • 1024×768, 800×600 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio

The new range is available now and ships with Lion OS X. UK pricing is as follows:

  • 11.6-inch model, 64GB Flash Storage – £849.00
  • 11.6-inch model, 128GB Flash Storage – £999.00
  • 13.3-inch model, 128GB Flash Storage – £1,099.00
  • 13.3-inch model, 256GB Flash Storage – £1,349.00

The UK Apple Store is quoting 24 hours free delivery.

 

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