Jul 13
Rejoice, Apple junkies on a budget, for Apple’s refurbished store is no longer completely empty. It’s now loaded with a lot of deals with discounts up to 38 percent—all in stock. More »
Jul 11
Apple sunsets a few 64-bit Macs with Mountain Lion, video drivers likely the culprit
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Apple is well-known for wanting a close spread in hardware requirements with OS X upgrades, having dropped PowerPC like a hot potato when Snow Leopard arrived just three years after the Intel switch. Whether or not you’re a fan of that policy, it’s certainly carrying forward with Mountain Lion. When the newly-finished OS hits the Mac App Store, it will rule out the very first wave of 64-bit Macs: certain MacBook Pros, Mac Pros and other early systems will be denied a taste of 10.8. Some sleuthing from Ars Technica suggests that it’s a matter of graphics drivers rather than capriciousness on Apple’s part, as the Macs excluded from the mix are using 32-bit drivers that won’t play nicely with Mountain Lion’s 64-bit Utopia short of a wide-scale conversion effort. It’s little consolation to those who dropped a pretty penny on certain Macs just a few years ago. That said, Apple is still going the extra mile to support some systems — if you’re reading this on an original aluminum iMac, you’re sitting pretty.
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Software
Apple sunsets a few 64-bit Macs with Mountain Lion, video drivers likely the culprit originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Jul 10
This afternoon several benchmarks have appeared in the greater archives of Geekbench (a system we also use for computer reviews) which show a brand new Apple MacBook Pro with 13-inch Retina display. This is different from the current model 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display we’ve already reviewed in that, one, of course it has a different size display, and two, that it has a significantly lower score in Geekbench than we got – a total of 7806 compared to our 15-incher’s 12970. Of course it’s all relative, and the important part is the fact that this device may well exist.
This device is being displayed at MacBookPro10,2 in the benchmark. The new non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro (also released in the last few weeks) goes by MacBookPro9,2 while the 15-inch non-Retina model goes by MacBookPro9,1. The Retina model with a 15-inch screen is called MacBookPro10,1 – making this device, of course, a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro.
This device appears to be running a 3rd Generation Intel Core i7 processor at 2.90 GHz and is working with 4GB of RAM. That’s a bit strange. The 2.9 GHz Core i7 processor should by all means be paired up with no less than 8GB of RAM, and certainly is on all other Macs on the market today – this is why the score is so low in Geekbench, too. Two possibilities exist (or more, of course), one being that this simply isn’t a real device, that it’s faked. The second is that this will be a low-cost model with a strange new configuration we’ve not yet seen.
Stay tuned for more info as this next model Retina MacBook Pro gets nearer and nearer reality – we’ll see if it ever reaches the public!
[via Mac Rumors]
Retina MacBook Pro 13-inch appears in Geekbench is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jul 06
Nifty MiniDrive gives your MacBook additional storage without being unsightly
Posted in: Today's Chili
While the MacBook Air is one slim laptop, it does come with a price: a limited storage capacity. For most users – this is a huge problem. And while memory can be expanded with the use of external hard disks – it does mean you have to bring around with you an additional piece of hardware. Some folks have resorted to using the SD card slot on the side of the machine – but any cards slotted in stick out halfway which is pretty unsightly and risks being knocked out accidentally. This is where the Nifty MiniDrive comes in.
(more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Chrome blamed for MacBook crashes, Google confirms issue, Next generation MacBook Pro announced,
Jul 03
Apple may get the Italian boot, has 30 days to push a 2-year warranty for locals
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Italian regulator AGCM is clearly on a short fuse with Apple. After issuing a €900,000 fine ($1.1 million) to Apple for not properly offering the free 2-year warranty required by national law, the agency is now warning the iPhone maker that it could face a temporary exile — and we don’t mean to Elba. On top of an additional €300,000 ($377,490) potential fine, Apple now faces as much as a 30-day shutdown of all its Italian business for allegedly doing too little to tell customers they don’t always need AppleCare for extended coverage. Having lost its appeal on the original fine, Apple’s main buffer is a 30-day window to address the complaints before the hammer drops. We have yet to see if Apple will tweak its policies in time, but it’s hard to believe the American firm will risk even the momentary closure of an important European wing.
Apple may get the Italian boot, has 30 days to push a 2-year warranty for locals originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 08:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | 
Reuters | Email this | Comments
Jul 02
It’s certainly not due to low demand that Best Buy has suddenly cut off bits of the price for several Apple MacBook products here in the summer of 2012. The first of these discounts is from the massively powerful MacBook Pro with Retina display, tricked out with 8GB of memory and a 512GB solid-state drive – where normally it’d be $2,799.99, it’s now been cut to $2,659.99, that being a $140 USD discount. But why is it such a big deal that Apple products are discounted when essentially every other manufacturer discounts products such as these all the time?
The name of the game is control. Apple controls their prices – or at least makes an impression on businesses that are allowed to carry their products that they’d like their prices to remain steady. Another example of a discount here at Best Buy is the least expensive Retina MacBook Pro available being cut by $110 to come out to $2,089.99. Best Buy is a store known for their frequent price changing, and this discount could very well have been agreed upon with Apple for a very short time, so if you’re the type to fuss over a $100 discount off of a $2,000 computer, you’d best head out today.
Each of the discounts are available for in-store pickup only, and also include a MacBook Air, normally costing $999.99 and running for $949.99 right now. These notebooks have been reviewed in full by SlashGear in kind here: [MacBook Pro with Retina Display (mid-2012) Review] and [MacBook Air 13-inch (mid-2012) Review] and are both of them beasts to be reckoned with. Have a peek at our Best Buy timeline below to catch up on the dealings in the store of the hour.
[via CNET]
MacBook Pro 2012 family gets price slash at Best Buy is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jul 02
If you’re the average Joe, you don’t let your Retina MacBook out of your sight. But what if you’re an IT guy with a fleet of these things to secure on a client site? What to do?
MacLocks has just launched a locking case for the Retina MacBook, allowing folks to snap down their laptops almost anywhere. The case actually envelops the MacBook and the looped cable then fits over a table leg or pillar.
To throw in a little added value, the MacBook Retina lock also elevates the MBP a bit, to help with the laptop cool down. Unfortunately, the skin adds about a pound when you’re using both the bottom and top portion together as a shell.
Ever since Apple stopped adding laptop lock ports to their MacBooks, locking these puppies up has been harder and harder. Arguably not many care to lock down their workstations on the road – it’s too much of a hassle, man! – but it’s nice to see someone is thinking about the cautious among us.
The new Retina MacLock is available now for $69.95.
Jun 29
Google has admitted that its Chrome browser is the cause of MacBook stability problems, with an incompatibility between the app and the integrated Intel graphics leading to crashes. “Work is proceeding to find and fix the root cause” a Google spokesperson told Gizmodo, though the company does splash a little of the blame onto Apple itself and the way OS X Lion is handling kernel issues.
“Radar bug number 11762608 has been filed with Apple regarding the kernel panics,” the Google spokesperson continued, “since it should not be possible for an application to trigger such behavior.” Apple is yet to comment on the issue.
Google is taking a two-pronged approach to dealing with the glitch. Chrome users should have already received a patch on Thursday afternoon, that temporarily shuts off some of the browser’s use of GPU acceleration on machines with the Intel HD 4000 graphics.
Meanwhile, work is underway to come up with a more lasting fix with full GPU acceleration functionality still in place. There’s no timescale for its release, however.
Yesterday, at its second Google IO keynote, Google confirmed that Chrome now has 310m users worldwide, making it the most popular browser around according to all the metrics the search giant said it could find.
Google Statement:
“We have identified a leak of graphics resources in the Chrome browser related to the drawing of plugins on Mac OS X. Work is proceeding to find and fix the root cause of the leak.
The resource leak is causing a kernel panic on Mac hardware containing the Intel HD 4000 graphics chip (e.g. the new Macbook Airs). Radar bug number 11762608 has been filed with Apple regarding the kernel panics, since it should not be possible for an application to trigger such behavior.
While the root cause of the leak is being fixed, we are temporarily disabling some of Chrome’s GPU acceleration features on the affected hardware via an auto-updated release that went out this afternoon (Thursday June 28). We anticipate further fixes in the coming days which will re-enable many or all of these features on this hardware.”
Google admits MacBook Chrome crash bug is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jun 29
Chrome 20 browser released: exclusive 64-bit Linux Flash, fewer MacBook crashes
Posted in: Today's Chili 
If your new MacBook is having kernel panics, or you’re forced to run a 32-bit browser in Linux because you need Flash, Google’s brought relief with version 20 of Chrome. While acting sheepish about “yet another release,” the Chrome Blog said “hundreds of bugs” were fixed, including a MacBook resource leak issue which was temporarily patched by disabling some GPU features. Also, Linux users will finally get full 64-bit support for Flash with Adobe’s PPAPI “Pepper” version, but since it was made exclusively for Chrome, Penguin users will be stuck with that browser if they want the feature. To get it, check the source after the br… oh, right, background update. Nevermind.
Chrome 20 browser released: exclusive 64-bit Linux Flash, fewer MacBook crashes originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 05:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink 
Geek.com | Google Chrome Blog | Email this | Comments
Jun 29
We’re adding another Google Chrome-related story before you go to bed tonight. But this one’s unfortunately negative. If your MacBook has been crashing lately, Gizmodo thinks that Google’s Chrome browser is to blame. Apparently the publication has been pointing out the freezing and crashing issues on MacBook Air models used by their staff. When they switched to Apple’s very own Safari browser, strangely, the issues were nowhere to be found. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google Chrome for iOS is now the most downloaded free app in the App Store, Google introduces Chrome browser for the iPhone and iPad,
Who's in charge here?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.