Hasta La Gadget!

Apple’s giving us a patent application peek into its post-PC future, and it looks like hard keys will be so 2008. The recently revealed filing shows off a virtual, flat keyboard concept for Cupertino’s line of non-iOS products that flirts with metal, plastic and glass form factors. Using a combination of piezoelectrics, haptic feedback and acoustic pulse recognition, these prospective designs will be able to detect your finger-pounding surface input. If you’re the fast-typing kind, you’re probably wondering how your digits will recognize the keys sight unseen. Well, there’s a few workarounds for that. In its metal and plastic iterations, Jobs and co. plan to stamp or micro-perforate the layout into place, while their glass counterpart would receive a graphical overlay. The application also promises an LED-lit display for hard to see conditions and the inclusion of capactive sensors to enable multi-touch functions, so you avoid e.e. cummings-style emails. Of course, applications aren’t necessarily indicative of a surefire product, but those interested in tickling their imagination can give the source link a look.

Apple patent application takes the hard keys out of the keyboard, promises a flat surface solution originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 22:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There comes a time when that giant, corporate-issued laptop stops fitting into your lifestyle. When dragging around a Kensington roller case just won’t do. When you start to hear the siren lilt of something thinner, lighter, and maybe a bit more alluring. For years the MacBook Air has been that svelte temptress hollering your name, but it’s always been a bit too slow — all show and no go. It didn’t have the power and the longevity to make it a serious contender for your serious affections.

No more. With its latest refresh, Apple has taken what was once a manilla-clad curiosity and turned it into a legitimate machine, not just a sultry looker. Good thing, too, because the death of the plastic-clad MacBook means the Air is now Apple’s entry-level portable. Weary traveler looking for a laptop that will lighten your load and, it must be said, your wallet too? This might just be it.

Continue reading MacBook Air review (mid 2011)

MacBook Air review (mid 2011) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A teardown of the new 13-inch MacBook Air reveals the logic board, in its tiny, mighty glory. Photo courtesy of iFixit

A quick peek under the hood of Apple’s new MacBook Air reveals the company’s diligent efforts to squeeze in its brand-new Thunderbolt technology.

Gadget repair site iFixit dissected the new laptop to look at its chip board, which includes an Intel Core i5 processor and an integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics chip. The chip layout opens space for an Intel platform controller hub with Thunderbolt technology.

“Shifting to integrated graphics on the processor freed up a lot of room on the board — enough for Apple to add the sizeable Thunderbolt-capable Platform Controller Hub,” iFixit explained in a press release.

Apple released the upgraded MacBook Air on Wednesday. The newest additions to the notebook are backlit keyboards and Intel’s Thunderbolt connectivity. The Thunderbolt port technology allows for speedy data transfer that puts USB to shame.

As for wireless, the new Airs feature a Broadcom BCM20702 Bluetooth board, which supports BLE. Unlike previous generations’ Bluetooth, the new Air has 128-bit AES security, 6-millisecond latency, and better power efficiency. With OSX Lion, you might’ve noticed that the icon on the upper right is no longer the AirPort, but just “Wi-Fi,” powered by a Broadcom BCM4322 Intensi-fi Single-Chip 802.

Apple laptops in the past have been notoriously hot (temperature wise — not just in terms of looks), and to prevent unintended combustion, last-gen Airs received hefty dollops of thermal paste. The new Air, it seems, has resolved some of the cooling issues because there is far less paste than in the last generation, though the fan is still conspicuous, according to iFixit.

Previous Airs missed out on the backlit keyboard featured on the corpulent MacBook Pro. Now, from not-so-deep inside, a backlight cable powers the LEDs that illuminate the keys. But the MacBook Pro kids get one thing to brag about: the Air’s thin screen can’t accommodate FaceTime HD.

The Air’s upgrades, thanks to the circuitry inside that’s organized like a perfect game of Tetris, comes at a price. This laptop is not meant for tinkering, even in the name of repair. The RAM is soldered in (read: not upgradable or exchangeable) and the LCD panel so snug that it’s tedious to replace. Luckily, the solid-state drive (SSD), the quick, more stable, but smaller alternative to spinning-disc hard drives, isn’t soldered in, so it’s possible to upgrade for more storage.

Should anything catastrophic happen to their Air, owners will have to schlep to the nearest Apple Store — the laptop doesn’t come with a USB recovery drive this time around. Be careful with this thing.

The new MacBook Airs' i5 processor and backlit keyboard make it a speedy, slick machine

If you bought a MacBook Pro last year, tough beans: It just got outflanked by its slimmer, smaller cousin, the MacBook Air.

According to benchmark tests, the 2011 MacBook Air outperforms every 2010 MacBook Pro.

Laptop magazine reports that the 13-inch Air had a performance boost of 100 percent over last year’s Air, scoring 5,860 on the Geekbench test. It boots in 17 seconds, and has a 6.25-hour battery life. The 11-inch Air jumped 149 percent, for a Geekbench score of 5,040, compared to 2,024 for last year’s model. It took 19 seconds to boot up, and its battery lasted a little longer than 4.75 hours.

As a direct comparison, the 2010 17-inch MacBook Pro scored 5,423 on its benchmark test — so the new 13-inch Mac Book Air is more powerful than the 17-inch Pro, and the 11-inch Air is on par with it. Kind of mind blowing.

The MacBook Pro line, particularly the 2010 MacBook Pros, have been a big target audience for Apple. Available in 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch sizes, they featured the most powerful processors in Apple’s line of portables (the 15- and 17-inchers came standard with a 2.6-GHz Intel Core i5 Chip).

Apple’s big performance boost for the MacBook Air illustrates its larger plan. The company in recent years has invested less on products for the professional marketplace to focus on hardware for general consumers, including iPhones, iPads and now, the MacBook Air.

Apple’s steady strides away from the professional marketplace are exemplified by the recent release of Final Cut Pro X, a dumbed-down version of the video-editing tool, which angered many professional video editors. Also, Apple in recent years has been slower with releasing upgrades for the Mac Pro.

And here’s an obvious tell: Apple hasn’t updated its Pro webpage in two years.

Last year’s MacBook Airs were lauded for their super-slim .76-inch thickness and less than 3-pound heft. That frame came at a price, though: They housed less impressive Core 2 Duo processors, relegating the Air to niche markets like frequent travelers who were looking for just a decently performing ultra-portable notebook.

Since Apple unveiled its newer, faster MacBook Airs yesterday, it seems the MacBook Air will be taking the front seat from the Pro.

It looks like size doesn’t matter. Well, when it comes to Apple notebooks, at least.

Apple’s brought both sizes of the MacBook Air line straight up to what you’d expect from a laptop in 2011, adding a Thunderbolt port, but more importantly some sweet Sandy Bridge i5 and i7 chips—and backlit keyboards. More »