Nifty MiniDrive started life as a Kickstarter project, where this microSD memory card adapter will be able to fit flush with the side of your favorite portable MacBook computer of choice – the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. In a nutshell, you are able to add another 64GB of additional flash storage using a single port, and it is a good thing too, since this particular port is not one that many folks use all the time.
The Nifty MiniDrive is also about aesthetics to keep in line with the rest of Apple’s design philosophy, since it ensures that there will be no nasty ends that protrude from the side of your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, since it comes in a custom fit design for various MacBook models. Having said that, if you own an Air version, it will not be at home on the MacBook Pro, and vice versa. Removing the Nifty MiniDrive is a little bit more tricky however, since you need a special tool that thankfully, Nifty has included with each MiniDrive purchase.
MacBooks are on a straightforward path to becoming closed case devices, with very little in the way of aftermarket expandability options for consumers. Which is why the Nifty MiniDrive Kickstarter project seemed so promising: It’s a microSD card adapter that fits flush with the side of your MacBook Pro or Air, which means you can add up to 64GB of additional flash storage via a port that many people probably only use very occasionally anyway.
It’d be easy to do this yourself if Apple used the kind of spring-loaded, flush-mount SD card slot you see on a lot of Windows PCs, but as it is, when using standard SD cards and adapters, the end protrudes about a third of an inch out of the side of the computer, which means keeping something there permanently will invite disaster if you’re putting it in and out of a bag with any frequency. The Nifty MiniDrive fixes that, with a design that’s custom-fit for the different models of MacBook (there’s an Air version, one for the MacBook Pro and another for the 15-inch Retina Pro).
Removing the card requires a special tool that Nifty ships with each MiniDrive, which is not unlike a SIM-card tray ejector, but with a hook so that it can catch the recessed groove found on the adapter itself. It’s a remarkably effective design, which works well in practice. Losing a MiniDrive tool would mean your drive is stuck in the SD card slot, but you can fashion your own removal tool from a staple or paper clip should it ever come to that, so it isn’t a huge concern. Plus, these are designed to be used mostly by people who don’t require frequent access to that port anyways.
As you can now get microSD cards in capacities ranging up to 64GB, with 128GB possibly to follow soon, that adds a considerable amount of extra disk space in a package that adds almost no weight to your existing setup, and doesn’t change the outside physical profile of your machine. On my 128GB MacBook Air, the Nifty MiniDrive with a $60 64GB microSD Class 10 card gives me 50 percent more storage. And if I fill it up, it’s easy enough to swap out another drive, keeping the first microSD card close at hand in case I need to retrieve something from the archive.
Although only made of plastic and glue (plus the metal connectors), the two Nifty MiniDrives (one for 15-inch Retina Mac and one for 13-inch Air) I have are performing well. They’ve survived multiple removals without incident, the silver finish on their endcaps matches the color of the MacBook’s aluminum case perfectly, and OS X instantly recognizes the drives when inserted. In an age of Wi-Fi cameras and mostly cramped SSD storage, they’re a great little addition to any Mac notebook setup, and should be available to order soon from Nifty’s website.
Microsoft recently increased the price of its Office Product for the Mac OS. Office for Mac Home and Students now costs $140, which is about a 17% increase from its original $120 price. Office for Mac Home and Business now costs $220, which is a 10% hike from its original $200 price-tag. Microsoft didn’t release a statement about why it increased the prices, but at the same time not a lot of people noticed.
The increase in prices brings the Office for Mac OS software up to the same price-point as Office 2013 for Windows. Also with the price increase for Office for the Mac OS, it looks like Microsoft has also gotten rid of its multi-license products, which is probably a move that’s meant to drive consumers towards Microsoft’s Office 365 subscription service. For $99 a year, or for $9.99 a month, you can subscribe to Office 365 for families, and install Office on up to 5 devices. With the subscription, the user will be given the installation software for Office for Mac Home and Business. For Windows users, you get the installation files for Office 2013.
According to Computer World, the price change for the Mac OS software was most likely increased around January 29th, the same day Microsoft Office 2013 and Office 365 was launched. For Mac owners, if you still want to purchase Microsoft Office for the older price-point, many retailers, like Apple itself, are still selling Office for Mac 2011 at its original price.
Microsoft hiking up the prices of its Mac software, and also its elimination of multi-license software does bring the spotlight to open source projects, like Open Office or Libre Office, who offer programs with the same functions for free. So unless you specifically need the Microsoft Office software for your job or business, there are plenty of alternative, free software that can meet your needs.
It looks like Apple and Staples has come to an agreement that will allow Staple to sell Apple’s products through its U.S. retail stores. The first confirmation came from Regis Mulot, Senior Vice President of Global Human Resources at Staples, who sent out a tweet saying, “After Canada, #Apple products arecoming to #Staples in US. Great news!”. We assume that Regis Mulot was a little too trigger happy with his tweet because it was deleted soon after. Fortunately for us, many other executives has confirmed the agreement as well.
To Apple, this is probably just another day of meetings and agreements. But to Staples, this is a huge win, and it’s apparent due to the excitement from its executives. Erin LaFlamme, Strategic Accounts Coordinator for Staples, tweeted, “Thanks #Apple for letting #Staples sell you…oh, and for the delicious apple products to celebrate at… ”. Mike Goggin, Field Services Manager for Staples, tweeted, “Staples just finalized a deal to begin selling Apple products #finally”.
This agreement has been long overdue in the U.S., especially considering that Canada’s Staples stores have been carrying Apple products for quite a while now. The availability of Apple products in Staples’s U.S. retail stores should increase the convenience of purchasing an Apple device for many consumers. Not everyone has an Apple store nearby, so Apple enters into agreements with retailers to get their products into the hands of as many consumers as possible.
None of the tweets about the Apple/Staples agreement said anything about when Apple’s products will be available at Staples, but it shouldn’t be too long from now. There also wasn’t any confirmation on what Apple products would be for sale at Staples, but if it’s anything like the Staples in Canada, you should expect to see Apple’s whole selection of products, including iPods, iPads, Macbooks, and Apple TVs.
The CBBC’s Blue Peter program is the world’s longest running television program made specifically for children, run after 54 years as a magazine / entertainment show for learning and engaging with kids. This show has this week prepared an award for none other than Apple‘s Sir Johnathan Ive, here sending the designer off with the show’s “highest accolade.” Though those of you outside the UK may never have heard of this show (thumbs down to you), this award has stricken Ive (born in Chingford, London) as “absolutely incredible.”
The gold Blue Peter badge, as it’s called, is a rarity in the history of the show – so to speak – having only been given out to the most honorable of guests over the program’s many years on the air. Right around 1,000 badges have been given out, according to the BBC, others having been handed to the likes of JK Rowling, Damian Hirst, and The Queen (of England, of course).
Acting Editor of Blue Peter Ewan Vinnicombe spoke up on the event, saying that Ive “is an inspiration to children around the world.” The award was given on an episode of the show that will be broadcast on CBBC Saturday the 16th of February at 10AM GMT. In the episode, Ive conducts miniature reviews of product designs sent in to the show by Blue Peter audience members. He gives advice to the children who designed said products, and lets them know what they can do to make great products in the future as well.
Also during the show you’ll see Ive being interviewed by presenter Barney Harwood, who has Ive recalling the influence the program had on him when he was as child. Speaking about how “vividly” he remembers watching the show in his early years, Ive speaks about how he enjoyed the way the creators of the show “reused products that you though were no longer useful.” Fun stuff!
BONUS: Having been given a tip that he’d be getting a gold Blue Peter badge before going on the show, Ive came prepared. Having been handed an official badge, Ive gave Barney a giant aluminum (aka aluminium) badge in return – one that took 10 hours to craft!
Be sure to catch the program as you eat your cereal in your footie pajamas in the fabulous England morning and let us know how it goes! For those of you in the USA that’ll be asleep at that point, just bust out your typing fingers and have a search for it – the CBBC will certainly post it up sooner than later. Can’t wait!
Today an announcement has been made that the cider and apple-related food and goods store “The Apple Shop”, located in Norwich, England, will be changing its name after several years of calls by Apple computers users looking for technical support. And yes, today is indeed a slow news day, if you were wondering. The owner of this institution Geoff Fisher has spoken with the BBC saying that he’s making the name change after 20 years with the same name of his own accord – and he’s not mad about it. On the contrary, he’s actually been quite amused, for the most part.
The Apple Shop has had the same name and been in the same location for the past 20 years, but after an Apple computer store opened in Norfolk in 2009, calls began to flow in to the wrong location – the juice store. According to Fisher, he’d been receiving an average of 24 calls a week since the Apple computer store moved in nearby. While most of the situation has been entertaining, he said, some callers have been rude as well.
Fisher notes The Apple Shop was opened by his brother Stephen back a couple of decades ago soon after he’d first started up the Norfolk Cider Company in 1987. As his telephone “has a Norwich prefix”, as he explains, “people unawares ring up the Apple Shop.” He’s made it clear his fair share of times with a kind “I’m very sorry, I can’t help you, but please do come along and get com proper Norfolk cider to get over your sorrows.” This comment is met with either an understanding chortle or a bit of an angry hang-up.
With too many hang-ups on the line and a bit of time lost due to too many mistaken calls each and every week, Fisher has decided to change the name of the shop. The new name of the shop will be The Norfolk Cider Shop from Easter. Fisher has made it clear that Apple has not forced him to make the change – so no worries!
With the power and capabilities of our tablets these days, would it be fair to compare them to PCs? Well research firm Canalys seems to think so, and according to their latest report which combines the sales of Apple computers and tablets, Apple has roughly sold about 27 million computers during Q1 2013, owning 20.1% of the PC market which leads Canalys to dub Apple as the largest PC maker in the world. However it should be noted that other research firms like IDC and Gartner distinguish between the PC and tablet market, so really we guess it’s just a matter of perception.
To put this into context, rival firms like Lenovo managed to sell 14.8 million PCs, while HP shipped 15 million, giving them 11% and 11.2% of the market share respectively. Samsung’s combined PC and tablet sales gave them 9%, while Dell on the other hand managed 9.7 million desktops shipped, giving them about 7% of the market. What do you guys make of this? Do you think it’s fair that tablets are lumped together with PCs, especially since a lot of people are starting to use tablets for productivity purposes, web surfing, reading and even gaming?
This week we’ve gotten our hands on the Microsoft Surface Pro for an extended review, and one of the first things to strike us was the idea that this device might be another competitor for the MacBook Air. With the Surface Pro running Windows 8 and the MacBook Air (the newest model, that is), running OS X, there’s some things that simply cannot be compared – some people simply prefer one over the other. When it comes down to the experience and one-on-one comparisons between these two devices, on the other hand, winning features shine through on both devices.
With the MacBook Air you’ve got an 11.6-inch display while the Surface Pro works with a 10.6-inch display – you could also get a 13-inch MacBook Air, mind you, but here we’ll compare the display that’s nearest the Surface Pro. The display on the Surface Pro works with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution while the MacBook Air’s native resolution is 1366 x 768 pixels. It’s also worth making the distinction between these two displays in the fact that the MacBook Air does not work touch.
Windows 8 is an operating system that makes full use of the 10-finger touchscreen display on the Surface Pro while the MacBook Air is a machine that relies on its touchpad to mouse around, select items, and make gestures. The Surface Pro works with a cover that doubles as a keyboard, too. And in that point is the biggest differentiation point between these two machines – one is a tablet, the other a notebook.
While the Macbook Air is a notebook computer that made and continues to make a point of its ultra-thin nature and how it can work as a full-function notebook computer with as tiny an amount of bulk as possible. You’ll see from the images above and below as well as the hands-on video we’ve got prepared that the MacBook Pro is a significant amount thinner than the Surface Pro – or so it might seem at first.
MacBook Air (11-inch) Thickness: 0.11-0.68 inches Width: 11.8 inches Height (front to back, while closed) : 7.56 inches Weight: 2.38 pounds
Both devices have the ability to store a massive amount of data, with the Surface Pro having two iterations, 64GB and 128GB. Those are the amount of internal storage the Surface Pro has in its two different iterations, each of them with their own cash cost – that’s also one of the only things that differentiates the different versions of the Surface Pro at this very moment. The MacBook Air comes int two different iterations (with several different modifications available therein), one of them 64GB, the other 128GB.
The power you’ll be able to work with in a MacBook Air is either an Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processor. The Microsoft Surface Pro works with one configuration at the moment for processing power, that being an Intel Core i5 – and all of the processors here are 3rd gen Ivy Bridge, mind you, regardless of Apple or Microsoft surroundings.
The MacBook Pro has a lovely collection of ports and connections including: 720p “FaceTime” HD camera 2x USB 3 ports Thunderbolt port MagSafe 2 power port Microphone Headphone port Wifi Bluetooth Stereo Speakers
With the Surface Pro you’ll also be connecting with ports and wirelessly like mad: 2x 720p HD “LifeCam” cameras (front and rear-facing) USB 3 port microSDXC card slot power port Microphone Headphone port Wifi Bluetooth Stereo Speakers
You’ll notice that the 11-inch MacBook Pro doesn’t have an SD card slot – the 13-inch version of this device does, but the 11-inch version does not. The Surface Pro also benefits from its form factor in that it can make use of such sensors as an Accelerometer, a Gyroscope, and a Compass. With these you’ll be about to, for example, steer a car in a racing game, while the MacBook Air is meant to stay stationary while you’re using it.
The MacBook Air also benefits from the fact that it’s a notebook computer, able to stand up on its own with its keyboard attached, while the Surface Pro works in an entirely different way for stationary standing. The Surface Pro uses a kickstand on its back that’ll keep it upright while you tap away and also has a keyboard cover that, like a notebook computer, folds up and protects the device’s display or down for everyday typing use.
The Surface Pro also works with its own pen that sticks to the side of the tablet when not in use, utilizing an active digitizer in the display to make more than just standard capacitive moves galore. The pen creates a rather unique experience for you with the Surface Pro while the MacBook Air really isn’t the same universe – the only other place you’re going to get a digital pen experience in a mobile sense like this right now is in the Samsung Galaxy Note series – have a peek at our Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 review for more on that environment.
And this is only part of the story – for more information on both machines, you’ll want to check our full reviews of both devices. Have a peek at our MacBook Air (mid-2012) review as well as our Microsoft Surface Pro review for everything you could ever want to know!
Also be sure to let us know which of these two devices seem like they’d suit your needs given what you know today. Is there one that strikes your fancy more than the other?
Apple has released a bunch of firmware updates in order to fix a rare issue which plagued systems which rely on excessively used batteries, where it involved the affected device to be unable to boot up. This bunch of EFI firmware updates should bring an end to systems affected that will sometimes see the unexpected shut down or having the machine simply freeze.
Apple has long determined battery health via the number of charge cycles which said battery has gone through. A solitary charge cycle is a sum of partial charges which equates to one full charge, and has claimed that batteries ought to last anywhere from 300 to 1,000 charge cycles. Needless to say, Murphy has struck as a relatively rare issue in select systems resulted in a non-functional machine whenever the system detects that it has already passed the 1,000 charge cycles mark.
Apple’s shares have dropped 5% and were halted during trading hours at $514 and the after-hours price is down another 10.21% $461. Although Apple is still making a lot of money, the growth indicators have alarmed investors who were betting on “growth”. Just one year ago, analysts were predicting a share price of $1000 and just five months ago, AAPL was worth $700. Apple shipped shipped the expected number of iPhone units (for moderate analysts), but the Macs numbers tanked by 21% year over year… this is bad. (more…)
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Nifty MiniDrive started life as a Kickstarter project, where this microSD memory card adapter will be able to fit flush with the side of your favorite portable MacBook computer of choice – the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. In a nutshell, you are able to add another 64GB of additional flash storage using a single port, and it is a good thing too, since this particular port is not one that many folks use all the time.
With the power and capabilities of our tablets these days, would it be fair to compare them to PCs? Well research firm Canalys seems to think so, and according to their latest report which combines the sales of Apple computers and tablets, Apple has roughly sold about 27 million computers during Q1 2013, owning 20.1% of the PC market which leads Canalys to dub Apple as the largest PC maker in the world. However it should be noted that other research firms like IDC and Gartner distinguish between the PC and tablet market, so really we guess it’s just a matter of perception.
Apple has released a bunch of firmware updates in order to fix a rare issue which plagued systems which rely on excessively used batteries, where it involved the affected device to be unable to boot up. This bunch of EFI firmware updates should bring an end to systems affected that will sometimes see the unexpected shut down or having the machine simply freeze.
Apple’s shares have dropped 5% and were halted during trading hours at $514 and the after-hours price is down another 10.21% $461. Although Apple is still making a lot of money, the growth indicators have alarmed investors who were betting on “growth”. Just one year ago, analysts were predicting a share price of $1000 and just five months ago, AAPL was worth $700. Apple shipped shipped the expected number of iPhone units (for moderate analysts), but the Macs numbers tanked by 21% year over year… this is bad. 
