Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

Apple's next Mac OS X update, Mountain Lion, is just around the corner. However is this OS update worth the fuss or upgrade? We expect the price to be $29 USD, like it was for Snow Leopard and Lion. We also expect it will be easy to download and install via the Mac App Store. We also don't see any big technology changes (32bit to 64 bit, PowerPC to Intel, removal of Rosetta, etc), so compatibility with apps that run in Lion shouldn't be a big deal either.

Apple continues to simplify its product line-up to help consumers make simpler decisions. Some of the latest changes have been to remove the version number from the iPad name. The next version of the iPhone will also not include the version number. This simplification process will not end with iOS devices. The Mac product line-up will also see some changes.

While the Mac Product line-up is simple, it is about to get even simpler. Apple removed the standard MacBook a while back, which left just the MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs. These two lines do create some confusion to customers on what to buy, as there is some overlap. That confusion is about to end.

The Latest iPad, which debuted a couple of weeks ago, now includes a Retina Display. The pixels are small enough on a Retina display that the user can not see them at normal viewing distances. It gives the user a very crisp and sharp display, which is great for viewing pictures, movies and reading text.

How does that compare with other Apple products? The Macbook Air does have a higher resolution option, but it is no where near the pixel density of a retina display. The iPhone 4 and 4S Retina Display have 326 pixels per inch or PPI. The new iPad comes in a little under that with 264 PPI. Generally, people hold the iPad farther away, so the pixels are still unnoticeable. The current MacBook Air PPI comes in at around 130 depending on the screen choice. The MacBook Air has half of the PPI of the new iPad. Will that change soon?

AppleCare has been a mainstay and profit center since Steve Job's returned to Apple. AppleCare is essentially an insurance policy for your Apple device should it fail prematurely. AppleCare grew in popularity and its "payback" became even better when Apple Stores launched and there was a real person you could talk to about your particular problem and get a real answer (not just "Well, send it in and we'll see what we can do for you.").

The question though is whether AppleCare is a good deal. Sure you're buying more peace of mind by turning a 1-year hardware warranty and 90-day telephone support into an overall three year support contract. The question reamins does paying an extra 10 - 75% of the original purchase price make sense? Is that a good deal?

One of the features I just love about OS X was the introduction of Spaces with OS X Leopard. Spaces allowed me to have multiple "desktops" and easily assign apps to launch in those spaces. For example, if I wanted to quickly get to my Mail I knew it was in space 2 and iChat, Address Book and Calendar in space 1, and so forth. This was a great way to run many more apps without having a super cluttered screen. It was almost like having multiple monitors on my laptop.

If you've been to any retail technology store lately, you've likely noticed a host of new UltraBooks filling store shelves to take on Apple's MacBook Air. Just one problem: these ultrabooks stink. But don't get me wrong, that's putting it nicely.

Acer has some fairly lame plastic shelled fake MacBook Airs, and recently, Dell launched their new XPS UltraBooks to compete with Apple's MacBook Air lineup. But don't just take my word for these devices being horrible (well, you can, but I love Apple's design detail and quality products), so listen to those trying their best to hold up the Windows realm - but can't.

 Ever since the latest MacBook Air came out last summer, it has had errors in correctly displaying brushes at different sizes. This was true for most of the graphics software, including Pixelmator, Aperture, and Photoshop.

The latest version of Pixelmator addressed this issue and fixed the brushes issue most of the time. Yet, Aperture, Photoshop, and Lightroom still had the same issues. Apple released 10.7.3 this week, and for MacBook Air graphics users, it was a big update.

 Apple has a great and focused line of products. Each one fills a need for their customers. They have focused on each line to create a product that is significantly better than their competitors.

While all their products have gone through a great deal of research and development, they can't focus on all of their products at once. Apple has to decide which products they need to focus on and which can wait. For 2012, Apple needs to focus on their top three products. Those three products are:

The MacBook Air had a great year in 2011. With a 250GB solid state drive and a Sandy Bridge processor, the MacBook Air became a mainstream computer. It was one of Apple's top selling macs for 2011, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

The MacBook Air will see even greater success in 2012. With such a hot product, Apple will continue to focus on the MacBook with another update in the Spring. Intel's new Ivy Bridge processor and graphics processor will bring even faster performance. What else will Apple add to a new MacBook Air?

I've been an advocate of Macs since my first introduction to a Mac Plus in dorm room back in 1986. Ever since then I've never seen the reason behind PeeCees — whether MS DOS or Windows. DOS was just plain ugly. I shutter to think if Apple hadn't brought us the Mac, then we'd probably all be running MS DOS version 31 — and would it ever be blazin' quick to see a directory! And then there is Windows. In my mind Windows has always just been a Mac user interface knock-off. Sure Windows improved on some items, but its essence is still a second rate knock-off. Let's not even get started with security woes or viruses (or is that viri?) that plague the PC world.

It happened to me again yesterday morning. I was giving a presentation at a conference on the subject of e-mail marketing. There was an HDTV in the room and I couldn't use it. Instead I used the projector provided by the conference. Why couldn't I use the HDTV? Cords.

Like Steve Jobs was, I consider myself very particular about presentations. How I look when giving a Keynote means as much as the quality of the content. If the messenger gets in the way of the message, the message falls on deaf ears because of distractions the messenger creates. For example, all the other presenters at this conference were using PC's and Powerpoint. As expected, their slides were boring, full of words and just plain awful. Each new slide was more of the same — lots of text, a poor graphics and then someone yammering for time to eternity about all the words... Wake me up when it's over.

Autumn has finally arrived in North America. While that means the college football seasons begins as well as school starts as well as cooler morning air bringing a change to the leaves, we Apple aficionados also know that means October is just around the corner.

October means a couple of things. First, a new fiscal year for Apple. We'll get to hear 4th quarter results and annual results in mid-October. This let's us know whether Apple is on track or has slipped somewhere. Second, it usually means new products of one sort or another.

First of all, I trust everyone had a Happy Labor Day. If you don't know why most don't work on the first Monday of September, it's worth a click and a quick read to learn.

Now, back to the subject at hand, how Apple finishes 2011 strong. FIrst of all don't expect much for the month of September in the form of product launches. September is the last month in Apple's fiscal caledar and historically Apple (like most other businesses) wait until the new quarter or new year to make such new product shipments. Whether Apple announces new product, such as the iPhone 5 in September, that's another matter. But for actual shipping product, October is going to be a very busy month.

 The new MacBook Airs are fast and light, but they currently come with a few software bugs. We have already talked about one of them here at T-GAAP, but there are more.

Many of these bugs are minor annoyances that should be solved in the next update to Apple's operating system, Lion, but there is one bug that needs more than just an operating system update.

The New Macbook Airs have been out for a couple of weeks, so it is time to check their performance scores and see how they compare with previous models and other MacBooks.

As an owner of a 13" MacBook Air, one of the surprising benefits of upgrading to OS X Lion was the speed difference. Snow Leopard was nice, but wow, Lion took opening windows, using spotlight, launching apps, to entirely new level. This was not something that Apple touted (a faster OS), but from my experience, it's one of the best things about Lion, especially for those with the older Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

That said, there is a price I seem to be paying for that speed improvement — fan noise.

A long time ago I had the opportunity to accompany a friend to an Alcohol Anonymous meeting. It was a very sobering experience (pun intended). The building was old and the room looked like a beat up classroom. Light from outside peeked through the curtain drawn windows and smoke filled the air (this was way before any indoor smoking laws had hit the books).

I learned a lot that day. I learned that if not careful, anyone can slip into addictive, self-destructive behaviors. I learned the power of a support group and accountability. I also learned most of the people in the room were seemingly addicted to something else in place of alcohol. The smoke filled room was one clue. Another was "Bill" who needed to go from one support group to the next in order to stay sober. You may be asking, what does this all this have to do with Apple?

Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) is coming up on June 6. Products that are showcased at WWDC give developers who are going to the conference a chance learn how to incorporate them into their applications. Usually, Apple has come out with iPhone hardware about this time of year, so developers can add the new hardware features to their applications.

This year, Apple has not shown off the new iOS version yet, so don’t expect new hardware. This would mark a change in Apple’s annual iPhone update cycle. With the iPhone hardware rumored to be delayed until this fall, what is Steve Jobs going to announce during this keynote at WWDC?

The polycarbonate MacBook was last updated in May 2010, which was a minor speed improvement. The last major update for the standard Macbook was the move to a polycarbonate unibody case back in October of 2009.

Up until last fall, this MacBook was the cheapest laptop Apple offered. That ended when Apple released the 11-inch MacBook Air in the fall of 2010. Will Apple keep two laptops in this price range or get rid of one?

Apple has improved their batteries in two ways over the past couple of years. In January 2009, Apple improved their battery capacity by as much as sixty percent in the MacBook Pro 17-inch. This was largely due to removing the packages that made the battery removable, which mainly allowed for a bigger battery. Apple also added a chip that controls each cell’s current for maximizing battery life.

Last fall, Apple debuted new battery technology which allows thirty days of standby power. While not as big of a feature on MacBooks, due to frequent use, it still changes day to day use by not requiring the battery to be charged everyday. With thirty days of standby power, mobile devices will have the power when the user needs it. These are nice advancements, but there are new battery technologies which Apple could incorporate into their products soon. Lets take a look at some of the more interesting potential battery improvements that are just on the horizon.

I had built my presentation in keynote, hooked up the projector just to make sure all was working with my newly acquired MacBook Air. I hit play in Keynote and then grabbed my Apple remote to begin forwarding slides... but nothing was happening.

“What’s going on here?” I thought. Maybe I had a remote with a dead battery so I grabbed another and tried again. Still nothing. To my horror, I quickly learned the newer MacBook Air's no longer have an infrared sensor. The sensor had been replaced with a second USB port. Zoiks! I had a presentation in 2 hours. What was I to do? No way I was going to look like a PeeCee idiot and walk up to my laptop and click the arrow keys every time I needed something to happen.

I've been a MacBook Pro owner since the Titanium PowerBook G4 days (think 2002). I remember making the jump from a G4 Gray Blue Tower to the portable, sleek and "less powerful" but "more portable" PowerBook G4. It was a scary leap. What if I couldn't run Photoshop or InDesign fast enough? What about other general tasks? Nothing drives me nuts more than to see my computer struggling to keep up with me (and I'm not that fast!). But when the PowerBook G4 arrived it was, in Steve Job's words, "magical"! It was so cool, so sleek, so portable. I didn't have to sit at my desk. I could work on the couch or at the kitchen table or take my work with me when I traveled. All was well until...

Historically, desktop computers have been faster and cheaper than laptops. Recently though, laptop prices have fallen to desktop levels, and laptop performance has caught up and surpassed the needs of today's software. This transformation in the PC industry has led to an explosion in laptop sales.

These same trends have also occurred in the Mac ecosphere, with many people switching from Mac Pros or Power Macs to MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Now that the latest iMacs are out, it is time to compare the performance of the latest product line-up coming out of Cupertino.

Not all solid state drives (SSD) are created equal. The same is true for Apple's built-in drives on the MacBook Air. When Apple released their new MacBook Air last year, they included Toshiba made SSDs.

Recently, Apple switched their SSDs on new MacBook Airs. These new SSDs, which have a different model number of SM instead of TS, are assumed to be from Samsung. How do these two drives compare with other after-market drives? Time to find out.

The MacBook Pro 15-inch has a 16% larger screen and is 24% heavier than its smaller MacBook Pro 13-inch sibling. This extra weight makes it difficult to carry around by its palm rests while open, which is significant as a majority of users don't leave their computers on the desk anymore. While the 15-inch is twice as fast in Geekbench scores, most users will not notice the difference unless performing CPU intensive tasks.

The 13-inch is the perfect size for most users. It has just the right amount of screen real-estate while maintaining its true portable nature. Mac OS 10.7 full screen mode, which will be coming out this summer, will help maximize its screen. Apple offers three different 13-inch MacBooks for different customers: MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air.

 The Powerbook 100 series were the first laptops that Apple produced and they had 9-inch screens. For the next 10 years, the computer industry kept developing larger and larger screens for laptop computers. In 2003, 12 years after the first PowerBook, Apple introduced the 17-inch PowerBook. While the 17-inch may have been popular in the graphics and desktop replacement sections of the market, the majority of the users found them to be too big. Users soon found that the 13-15-inch displays worked the best for most users.

Last year, Apple released a major update to the MacBook Air line. They have become a huge success by taking 25 percent of the total Macs sold the the following quarter. The MacBook Air is neither the fastest MacBook, the cheapest MacBook, nor the biggest. So why has the MacBook Air become a major success?