Mac, News/Rumors

MacBook Pro beats Windows 8 laptops in Battery life Test

The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro beat 18 Windows 8 laptops in a battery-life test conducted by Which?, the UK consumer test organization with a reputation for the most detailed testing in the industry.

In the web-browsing test where most laptops performed best, the Acer Aspire M5-581T was the longest-lasting Windows 8 machine at 358 minutes, while the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro lasted 30 minutes longer. The Which? test was primarily aimed at comparing Windows 8 machines, but they included two non-Windows machines as a contrast. The MacBook Pro topped the list, while a Samsung Series 3 Chromebook came out in the middle of the pack at 224 minutes.

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The longest running Windows 8 laptop for web browsing is the Acer Aspire timeline Ultra M5-581T – a 15.6″ screen, 2.1kg ultrabook. It lasted almost six hours on battery – enough to get you to from London to Middlesbrough and back – and fell 30 minutes shy of the battery life of the 13″ Apple Macbook Pro Retina, but costs around £500 less.

If you switch to watching movies from the Acer’s hard disk, you’d get four hours and 37 minutes of movie viewing time – a little over an hour less than the Macbook. Similar to Consumer Reports in the United States, Which? is known for scientific approach and detail in its testing. For example, product testers hook up laptops to lab gear to measure power consumption, use thermal imaging systems to measure heat and use light-measurement kits to test screen brightness. PC manufacturers still have a long way to run to match the MacBook Pro.

Mac, News/Rumors

MacBook Pros fan speed issue

Apple’s newly refreshed MacBook Pro models with Retina displays may be affected by an issue that causes the cooling fan speed to unexpectedly spike, users say. Apparent problems with the latest Retina MacBook Pros were first highlighted this week by Geek.com. Users have also taken to a growing thread at the Apple Support Communities forum, where numerous Retina MacBook Pro owners say their system’s fan will unexpectedly spin up to full speed while doing basic tasks, then will return to normal.

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The user who started the thread, “jamezmbp,” said they attempted to reset their computer, repair disk permissions, and even ran an Apple Hardware Test, all of which did not resolve the problem.

“It could be something to do with the SSD, as when I am making file transfers the fans kick up, without the temps increasing,” they wrote in one post. “The fans also kick up at other times, but I’ve noticed it when making file transfers also.”

YouTube user “oyinko” believes the issue may lie with the new Sandisk solid-state drive being used by Apple in its latest MacBook Pros. Apple made the switch from SSDs built by rival Samsung to Sandisk, and the change may have caused a conflict in fan management.

Those posting at Apple’s official support forums say they believe the problem could be fixed with a software update. However, customers have had varying success obtaining information from Apple support officials, and some have received replacement hardware in an effort to address the issue. Apple surprised last month when it refreshed its MacBook Pro with Retina display models with slightly faster processors and lower prices. The new models are between 3 and 5 percent faster than their predecessors, but are priced up to $200 cheaper.

Mac, News/Rumors

The New MacBook Pro’s Retina Display as the Gratest Challenge for Developers

When Apple released the new iPad all developers were eager to improve their apps in order to support the revolutionary Retina Display. But developing for the new MacBook Pro’s OS X seems to be more challenging than developing for iOS.

The smooth, high-resolution display on the new MacBook Pro may give developers a rough time due a tough issue: how are they going to create a program that works and looks great both on Retina Display and on other screens?

First of all, there are the graphics and the text rendering. The Web is significantly larger than the small iOS, thus, also the Web browsers are plenty compared to those on mobile devices. Figuring out a solution for flawless graphics displaying on a wider and more powerful desktop screen, taking into consideration the diversified Web without leaving behind the other displays is the first and the toughest problem.

Also, bigger graphics require augmented page loading time. Therefore developers should find a way to equilibrate such impact.

Fueled Director Ryan Matzner, said that both developers and Web designers may handle graphics by delivering different CSS stylesheets to different browsers. Michael Gadsby, creative director at O3 World, said that developers here have already begun creating multiple stylesheets of graphics.

Source: ReadWriteWeb

News/Rumors

WWDC 2012: Apple releases next-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display

The new gadget is said to be thinner than Schiller’s finger, meaning 0.71 inches thin. One of its main important parts is the Retina Display, coming with 5,184,000 pixels. It’s stated that OS X Lion is shipped with the device but every single app has been adjusted and updates for taking advantage of the outstanding Retina Display. It offers the user Mail, Safari, iPhoto and iMovie.

Also Shiller came with good news for photography lovers and pretty soon an Adobe version of Photoshop will be updated for Retina Display. Not to mention good news for gamers, Diablo 3 is highlighted as being Retina ready.

This version of MacBook comes with faster quad-core processors (up to 2.7 GHZ, Turbo Boost up to 3.7 GHz) 16GB of RAM, up to 1GB of video memory, 768GB of Flash storage and for battery life Up to 7 hours of battery life and 30 days of standby. Other updates that are worth being mentioned are Bluetooth 4.0, Facetime HD, and Dual Microphones. The new MacBook Pro with Retina Display will be available for $2199.

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WWDC 2012 : Phil Schiller announces updates on the The MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro

From the beginning of his speech, Phil Schiller has talked about how everyone is going to copy the Apple gadgets and come with their versions. First of all the the MacBook Air is getting Ivy Bridge processors, that are going to run up to 3.2Ghz, and an improvement in graphics, up to 60% faster and not to mention up to 512 GB of flash storage. Other improvements of MacBook Air are USB 3.0. The prices would start from $999 and $1099 for the MacBook Air 11″ and the 13″ is dropping to $100. Fans would be thrilled to find out that shipping starts today, 11 June.

The MacBook Pro is also getting an update like the MacBook Air, for example 3-rd gen Core named as Ivy Bridge, Turbo Boost up to 3.7 GHz and up to 605 faster graphics. The prices for 15″ Macbook Pro and 13″ MacBook Pro will remain the same and it’s said that shipping starts also today.

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Ultra-thin MacBook Pro with Retina Display and advanced USB 3

9to5Mac argues that a new improved version of MacBook Pro is scheduled for this summer, featuring ultra-thin design, Retina Display and super-fast USB 3.

The new 15-inch MacBook is practically the prototype design of a thinner version of the old 2008 design.  Unlike the old Apple gadget, this one loses the optical drive for having the possibility of becoming smaller. Although it does not have the same appearance as MacBook Air it adopts its keyboard design, namely the power button which replaces the disc eject key. As for the rest of the design it pretty much looks the same, charging and connection ports still along the sides and a glass multi-touch track pad.

It will provide Mac Retina Display, being defined as “jaw-dropping” and “definitely the most important Mac innovation in years,” providing the possibility of adjusting the sharpness and image sizes just as the user wishes. Also Retina Display settings will be marked with descriptions like small/ optimal unlike today’s Mac display settings with numbers and resolution size.

MacBook Pro is going to be the first device that would sport the next-generation connector so USB 3 will run on the gadget as a “complementto” Thunderbolt.

Source: 9to5MAc

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Apple may withdraw the 17-inch MacBook Pro

A report published on Monday by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and KGI Securities was indicating that Apple “is likely to stop making” the 17-inch MacBook Pro due to the weak shipments.

Kuo draws the conclusion that the 17-inch MacBook Pro may no longer be produced by taking into consideration the future launch of new revamped notebooks with Intel’s latest generation IvyBridge processors and the of late selling of the Company. Almost a half of the sold notebooks were 13-inch MacBook Pro. According to Kuo’s foresight, the new notebooks will be a combination between MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

Kuo also predicted the faith of other Apple products. He set forth that Apple will give up the polycarbonate MacBook White and he analyzed few days ago how the new iPhone could get 15% thinner. It didn’t take long until the white MacBook was completely discontinued.

It seems that Apple needs to make a lot of room for a new notebook if it decided to drop out the 17-inch MacBook Pro, thus, we should get ready to say hello to other years of hard work and innovation.

Source: MacRumors

News/Rumors

Tips for increasing your Mac laptop Battery Life

Mac Books, Mac Books Pro and Mac Book Air have an incredible battery life when it comes to battery performance but we provided a few tips and tricks for increasing it as long as possible. The following steps are suggestions especially for those that travel a lot and need their battery to hold as long as possible on their portable Macs.  Average Mac users should have in mind the easiest and useful tip, namely reducing the screen brightness.

  • As argued before, reducing the screen brightness is the first step that needs to be taken into consideration for saving battery life. 50% or less would do just fine for your gadget and it could be adjusted from the keyboards, for example F1 and F2, allowing the user to control the lowest value of brightness that he can accept.
  • Reducing or even Disabling the Keyboard Illumination comes to the rescue. For those that possess backlit keyboards, reducing the illumination would also help the user save battery and the procedures for doing so are quite easy: System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Illuminate Keyboard in a low light conditions
  • Disable Bluetooth- If you are not on the lookout for Bluetooth devices, it’s preferable of turning it off. Merely open System Preferences-> Bluetooth-> ON
  • Disable Wi-Fi- We recommend it to those that don’t require an internet connection all day long  because those that cope with networking round the clock would find it a little to annoying for turning it on and off dozens of time.
  • Remove Disks from the DVD Drive- Drive spinning also reduces the battery life, so it’s advised to eject any disks, especially for MacBook and MacBook Pro users with a Super Drive.
  • Quit Unused Applications, Browser Windows and Tabs- Running apps use both RAM and CPU cycle, that meaning battery drain so try to use as little Virtual Memory as possible. It’s the same thing for videos and complex scripts; even though the web pages are inactive there is still usage of system resources.
  • Less usage of iSight Camera-  FaceTime and iSight come in handy when keeping in touch with dear ones but it surely drains battery.
  • Turn ON “Click to plugin” in Web Browsers- Meaning that the user loads plugins by clicking them because Flash and HTML movies require massive CPU cycles that surely reduce the battery.

iPad users could also increase their battery life with Tips & Tricks for iPad.

Mac, News/Rumors

Apple’s essence: the MacBook Pro fragrance

Each Apple product comes to life when its box is opened and we recall such memories each time the distinctive scent of a newly unwrapped device reaches our senses.

Melbourne artists Gavin Bell, Jarrah de Kuijer and Simon McGlinn sniffed the solution that can bring to us the joy of opening a newly purchased Apple device without buying one. The three artists are members of the Greatest Hits group and with the help of Air Aroma they created Apple’s spirit in a bottle: the MacBook Pro fragrance.

The MacBook Pro fragrance is characterized by the smell of a new aluminum laptop combined with the smell of the paper box, of ink and of plastic. In order to create the accurate scent that will offer the best effects, Air Aroma sent a new unboxed Apple laptop to its fragrance lab in France, where professional perfume makers sourced various aroma samples. Multiple blends were tested in the Air Aroma laboratory until the one that was replicating the smell of the MacBook Pro coming straight from China factories was selected.

The Apple essence will be stored within the Air Aroma Aroslim diffuser and it will be diffused only at the ‘De facto Standard’ artistic exhibition of the group at West Space. Unfortunately for Apple fans, the fragrance is not meant for commercial purposes.

Source: Macworld and Air Aroma