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Apple Confirms October Event

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APPL2013oct22Invite

Apple has confirmed that October 22 is indeed the day to look forward to as it has sent out official media invitations. The event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and will begin at 10:00 AM Pacific Time.

As we mentioned earlier, the event is expected to be primarily about an update to the iPad line which will likely feature a 64-bit processor (A7), Touch ID sensor, and updated camera. We will also likely be hearing more about OS X Mavericks and possibly the new Mac Pro. Many are also hoping for an updated mac mini, likely to be equipped with new Haswell processors.

How to Upgrade Your Mac

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macUpgradeOWC

Apple’s latest line up of computers are extremely thin and compact, it’s amazing how much can fit in such a small form factor. All of this makes for an amazing design but it also has a downside.

To those of us who are more inclined to tinker with our machines, it can appear as if there’s almost no way to upgrade Apple’s latest and greatest. There is good news however. If you want to add some RAM or your own SSD to your Mac, then there’s probably a way to do it. You can even get step-by-step instructional videos on how to do it along with all the tools you will need.

All of this can be found at OWC (Other World Computing). OWC offers all kinds of options for upgrading your Mac, they sell the hardware and tools you will need to get the job done and all of it is reasonably priced so you can save some cash by doing it all yourself.

The upgrade projects can vary in skill level quite a bit, some of them are quite simple while others will require you to be pretty confident about tearing down your Mac. It’s safe to say that most of these upgrades are for the bold but if you’re not up to doing it yourself then in some cases OWC can do it for you.

All of their installation videos are available on their site but you can also view them on their YouTube channel. OWC also offers repair services for your iPad along with a ton of accessories and additional software.

 

 

Apple Introduces New iPad Mini and Refreshes Lineup

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Today Apple has introduced their new iPad mini along with updating the iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro, and iPad. Here’s a quick rundown of what was announced.

iPad Mini

The much anticipated iPad mini has been unveiled and it looks great. Consumers who were looking for an Apple device to better compete with devices like the Google Nexus 7 can now rejoice as Apple has done just that.iPad_mini

The new iPad mini features a 7.9 inch display which is slightly larger than the Nexus 7 which features a 7 inch display. Apple chose to describe the size difference in square inches rather than on the diagonal when comparing it to a 7 inch tablet, which works out to be 21.9 square inches (7″) and  29.6 square inches (7.9). Schiller went on to explain how much better your web browsing experience is with their 7.9″ design over their competition and then he compared apps on iPad mini vs other tablets and discussed how they offer a richer experience on the iPad mini.

The iPad mini will also feature the new Lighting connector along with new accessories like Lighting to HDMI. The body of the iPad mini -no surprise here- is made of an all aluminum unibody. Apple has also brought its iSight camera to the iPad mini and the all mighty A5 chip. If you’re planing on using the iPad mini on a cellular network, you will have the ability to take advantage of LTE.

iPad

Even though it has only been about half a year since the release of the iPad 3rd generation with retina display, Apple has just introduced the new 4th generation iPad that features a new A6X chip that’s 2x as fast as the previous generation iPad. The 4th generation iPad also has the latest in Wi-Fi technology and will be able to pick up both 2.4GHz and 5GHz (dual-band). Also, the new Lightning connector is now a part of the 4th generation iPad.

 

iMac

The iMac was one of my favorite unveilings that Apple had to offer. The new iMac looks great with it’s brand new slim design that has a screen edge of only 5mm. The back of the display is a much wider than the edge but it is done in a way that’s easy on the eyes.newiMac

Speaking of easy on the eyes, you will be dealing with 75% less reflection. The new iMac uses 50% less power than previous generations and has been equipped with the latest (ivy bridge) processors from Intel including both i5 and i7 chips. Graphics get a bump up to the latest Keplar architecture with the option to get the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX on the 27″ model.

Fusion Drive

The fusion drive is a combination of flash storage and traditional HDD storage. The flash storage will hold 128GB and the traditional HDD can be 1 or 3 TB. The Fusion Drive isn’t just a mix of both technologies it actually implements some really cool software that moves your applications from one drive to the other depending on it’s performance needs. The OS and pre-installed software will be placed on the flash storage for best performance and initially all of the apps you install will be stored on the HDD. OSX will then recognize which programs you use the most and which programs require the most performance and then move them to the much faster flash drive accordingly. Pretty cool idea considering most of us are already doing this manually with our computers.

 

Mac Pro

Apple continues to push their most popular laptops forward and the Mac Pro 13″ has now been updated with a retina display, a new thinner design and an all flash architecture.MBP13Retina

Mac Mini

The Mac mini remains basically the same except it gets up bump up in processing power by now featuring the new Ivy Bridge Intel chips. It should be said that the Mac mini really didn’t need much else, the Mac mini is affordable and can be a real workhorse considering it’s small size, cool little box.

For complete details on these new products you can head over to Apple.