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Apple’s Special Event October 2013 – iPad Air Revealed

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October 22, 2013 Apple hosted a live streaming event to announce new updates and products. Here are some of the highlights of this event:

Mavericks:

Added iBooks, and available to download today for FREE regardless of which Mac OS you currently have installed. For more details on OSX Mavericks head to our earlier post.

MacBooks

 

Macbook Pro 13 inch:

    • Retina display
    • 2.4 GHz dual-core i5
    • 4GB DRAM
    • Iris Graphics
    • 128GB SSD

Starting at $1299 (ships today)

Macbook Pro 15 inch:

  • Retina display
  • 2.0 GHz quad-core i7
  • 8GB DRAM
  • Iris Pro graphics
  • 256GB SSD

Starting at $1999 (ships today)

Mac Pro:

Less power consumption and very quiet with a completely new design. Available in December 2013

(click images to enlarge)
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iPad Air and iPad Mini:

An all new designed iPad was announced, and they are calling it the iPad Air. Along with the Air they added a retina display option and the new A7 chip to the iPad mini which will cost $399. iPad Air will be available November 1, 2013.

 ipad with mini

ipad thickness
iPad Air thickness compared to the latest generation iPad
ipad bezel
iPad Air bezel compared to the latest generation iPad

 

The biggest day ever for apps – Eddy Cue

Today they talked about major app updates and how they will now be useable on both Mac and iOS, free to download today.

iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, and iWork all with new features and updates to work with the new Mavericks and iOS 7.

To watch the whole key note head here, Apple.com 

Fix in the Works for 2013 MacBook Air Wi-Fi Problem

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EarlyMacAirWifiFix

The new MacBook Air from Apple boasts all day battery life, a 4th generation Intel CPU, a super-fast SSD, a bump in graphics performance and support for the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology. Unfortunately, there have been a few issues with the latter.

New MacBook Air owners are experiencing Wi-Fi connection drops on a regular basis and the only fix seems to require you to reboot your laptop. This obviously sucks and it’s one of the reasons I prefer to wait a while before buying the latest and greatest.

Fortunately, there is good news out there as AppleInsider has reported that Apple is indeed sending out invitations for MacBook Air users to join the AppleSeed program which will allow them to download a early version of  the “MacBook Air WiFi Update 1.0”. This update is most likely aimed at correcting the connection issues that early adopters have been dealing with over the last few weeks.

The 2013 MacBook Air in both sizes is currently the only laptop in Apple’s lineup that features the new 802.11ac standard.

Apple’s WWDC is Nearing

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WWDC2013Banner
Image credit: 9to5 Mac

Apple’s upcoming World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) is creating a lot of buzz in the tech community and rumors are at critical mass. What’s next for iOS, OSX and will there be any hardware announcements?

It’s highly likely that Apple will announce iOS 7 at this years event especially considering that banners, like the one above, are being placed at Moscone West in San Francisco, California where the event is being held.

iRadio could be a Spotify or Pandora replacement and with the recent announcement of Apple closing deals with all three major music labels, WWDC could be the perfect place to introduce the new service. OSX 10.9 is also very likely, especially considering we didn’t get any news about an OSX refresh earlier this year and the fact that there’s also a big banner with an “X” on it at Moscone, much like the iOS one. I’m thinking that we will see more integration of iOS features into OSX along with Jony Ive’s UI changes in look and feel, which is rumored to be much “flatter”.

What about hardware? Apple could be refreshing the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with new 4th generation Intel hardware, which we mentioned earlier this week. It’s hard to believe that the MacBook line up could get much thinner but they may do just that as well. If you have never picked up a MacBook Air, it almost feels fake and making it thinner would actually be pretty impressive. We have also been waiting quite a while for a big update for the Mac Pro and anything at all about this would be nice. There are also hopes to hear things like an Apple TV announcement or an iWatch release but like with any of this, we won’t know till the conference begins.

The conference is June 10-14 and you can get complete details including a schedule on Apple’s developer page.

Intel Introduces 4th Generation Processors

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4th_Generation_Intel_Core_Close_i7_p

Intel has just introduced it’s 4th generation Core processor line and they are pushing right along with some serious gains over previous generations.

One of the most notable improvements with the Intel’s 4th generation processors has got to be power consumption. Intel has claimed that they have achieved a 50% improvement in battery life over the last generation while watching video or browsing and that could be over 9 hours . As far as standby goes, Intel says it has gained two or three times as much battery life then the last generation and in some cases they have had 10-13 days of standby on a single charge.

Let’s not forget about graphics, Intel is pushing ahead with Intel® Iris™ graphics which will double 3D performance in gaming. It looks like there will be a few different options to choose from including the the Intel HD 4600 and the faster Iris Pro 5200.

intelGraphicsNaming
Intel’s Graphics Naming (Source: Intel)

Intel’s 4th genration is focusing on 2-in-1 devices and their goal was to harness the kind of power you would normally expect on a PC but in a mobile form factor. This is exactly what’s needed in today’s mobile market and it looks like Intel has delivered on their promises. If you are patiently awaiting next weeks World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) you can probably expect Apple to include these new processors in their announcements.

You can read Intel’s official announcement for complete details.