For weeks – months even – analysts have been telling Apple to make a netbook for the masses, a $299 junker designed for those who surf the web on the couch, their Cheeto-stained hands scrabbling for the TiVo remote while they incessantly refresh Reddit and hope against hope that their Craigslist Missed Connection emails them back. The Air, they said, was too expensive, designed for the frou-frou quiche-eaters of Silicon (V)alley while the MacBook Pros were too overpowered for the likes of Flyover Sally and her sad-eyed brood of younglings. They needed to sell something to the masses, something solid, American, and corn-fed.
Well, now Sally, the quiche-eaters, and the Cheeto dude – and the rest of us – have the new MacBook. It offers a bit less power and peformance than the Pro line, a little more of the styling of the Air line, and sells right at $999, a magic marketing number that is neither North of $1000 (before taxes) and South of corporate financial suicide.
[UPDATE - Added battery test.] Read More
Imagine if it were your job to race to the Apple store whenever anything came out, and then as soon as you step outside, to just hurl it against the wall and take pictures of the fragments. Well, that’s pretty much iFixit in a nutshell. Sure, they use screwdrivers and stuff, and take it apart all neat-like, and have nice cuticles, but basically they’re exploding the latest and greatest device for your entertainment.
Hey, it’s not like I have a problem with it. Otherwise I’d never know what those new MacBooks look like on the inside.
Gadzooks, a new MacBook! Yup, Apple has re-designed the entry level MacBook, and it’s now made of “rugged polycarbonate that withstands the rough and tumble of everyday life.” LED backlit, too.
Here at TechCrunch HQ, almost all of us have laptops, with some connecting their laptops to an external display. In my case, I use a 15″ Unibody MacBook Pro connected to a 22″ Gateway display. I have always gone by the theory that the more real estate space you have, the more productive you are. To keep both displays level, I’ve been trying out number laptop stands; anywhere from paper stacked on top of each other, to cardboard, but it seems like the best laptop stand for my Mac is the mStand from Rain Design. The mStand is designed for the MacBook and MacBook Pro, yet it works with all laptops. The mStand is made of a single solid piece of aluminum that matches MacBook Pro’s silver anodized finish.
Apple has apparently told its direct-sales partners like the Apple Stores not to order new iMacs or Mac Minis and don’t expect any more shipments either. This can mean only one of two things: Apple is going bankrupt or there are new models coming real soon.
Now that the new iPods have been announced, it’s time for the next round of everyone’s favorite game, What’s Apple Got For Us Next? This time research firm Wedge Partners thinks that we will see new iMacs and new Macbooks “in the next several weeks.” O rly?
Geeks.com has a wheel of a deal on a refurbished Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz notebook at just $599 when you use promo code SAVENB at checkout.
The machine itself carries a 90-day warranty and includes 1GB of RAM, 120GB hard drive, slot-loading DVD burner, web cam, Bluetooth, and Mac OS X 10.4 preinstalled.
Not too shabby for $600, eh? The deal’s good until the end of the month.
Tablet PCs never really caught on, did they? And yet, nearly every laptop sold today has a touchpad / trackpad thingie. Wouldn’t it be cool to use that for the few tablet-y things you’d like to do, like signing your autograph on a document, or making a doodle? Well now you can, with Autograph!
The plastic MacBook that I’m typing on right now has been around for three long years now, but if you believe certain Barclays Capital analysts it’s about the be completely redesigned. About time!
In case you didn’t know, Apple refreshed its notebook lineup a few weeks back and rebadged the 13-inch unibody Macbook as a Pro model. Apparently the masses like it as that model now occupies the top spot in Amazons best selling laptop computer list and number four overall. It wasn’t that long ago that netbooks ruled that second list and the white 13-inch Macbook was the top selling Apple computer at number 14.
When Apple updated the white, plastic MacBook a couple weeks back, we noticed that it was now more powerful than its unibody, and more expensive, counterpart. The benchmarks are now in, and it seems that it is indeed a better deal as it outperforms the $299 more expensive model almost across the board.
Just in time for graduation shopping, the $999 white 13-inch MacBook is now a bit more powerful. This is the second time that Apple has updated the least expensive Mac notebook. This round of updates isn’t as impressive, but we’ll take anything we can get.
Harry G. Frankfurt wrote a great essay on the concept of “bullshit,” explaining that it is the locus of truth and and falsehood, the “deliberate making of false claims about what is true.”
“In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all,” he writes. Well, the boys at BBG just picked up on a little pet peeve of mine: analysts and their various prognostications. To wit: Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray who has been predicting an Apple tablet “coming very soon” since 2007. Read More
Ah yes, HyperMac, how I’ve pined over you for two whole days and now I have you in my possession. The 60Wh and 150Wh are in our testing lab (re: my office/apt) and we’ll have a review shortly, but just wanted you to see what they looked like in person (images of the 60Wh only). The 60Wh is pretty small and relatively lightweight while the 150Wh is a bit of brick and heavy, but if it means I’m getting 17.5 total hours of use then it’s worth the backache. We’ll see if that holds true in the next week or so. And yes, the HyperMacs come with MagSafe adapter attachments. Read More
Praise Jeebus! Today in Sunnyvale, CA, Sanho announced the world’s first external battery pack for all MacBook laptops. The HyperMac is available in 60Wh, 100Wh, 150Wh and 222Wh capacities with built-in variable power tech that adjusts output based on the MacBook model that’s being charged. You can also plug in your iPhone or just anything else via a USB port. Each HyperMac model is rechargeable up to 1000 times and comes with a one-year warranty.
As Apple’s WWDC gets ever closer the rumors begin to hot up. Today’s drivel: the MacBook and MacBook Pro may see slight upgrades there. Apple may throw in built-in 3G support, along with the usual speed bumps; it may also make the battery more difficult to remove, in the interest of aesthetics.
The bottom casing cracking issue that some folks have been experiencing in their 13-inch white MacBooks is real and Apple is willing to replace your MacBook if it happens to you, so sayeth the latest Apple service bulletin.
This is similar to the iPhone cracking syndrome that was eventually accepted as truth but don’t try to take your MacBook back if you dropped it out the window.
Eddie Zarick, the guy who stuffed an LCD into the little cut out Apple logo on his Macbook. While you’re not going to get much overall usability value out of the mod, it’s still quite cool.
Ed has published a full tutorial on how we worked his magic and it doesn’t look hard as long as you don’t mind cracking open your MacBook.
Whoa, now here’s a patent that’s actually worth discussing. (The majority of patents are boring, that’s the implication.) Apple filed a patent last September (but just now made public) that would turn give your iPhone or MacBook the ability to determine your identity, thereby increasing its security. That is, the device would have a built-in scanner, biometric or otherwise, that would determine if you’re really you, if that makes any sense at all. You touch the iPhone’s screen and it recognizes your fingerprint; hello, world! You place your palm on your MacBook’s palm rest and trackpad and the computer recognizes you; no password needed anymore!
Geeks.com has a wheel of a deal on a refurbished Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz notebook at just $599 when you use promo code SAVENB at checkout.
