The white MacBook Air may be a goner, but its spiritual brother the Mac Mini is still with us, and got updated by Apple today. It’s starting to feel Air-like, though–none of the new models have an optical drive.
Tag Archives | Apple
The White MacBook, 2006-2011: An Elegy
Among the umpteen things that makes Apple different from other technology companies is this: it makes news by discontinuing products as well as introducing them. Today’s big announcements involve the arrival of OS X 10.7 Lion and updated MacBook Airs. But it’s also decided to stop producing the $999 white MacBook, a machine that had an uncommonly long life as the cheapest general-purpose Mac portable.
As recently as a week ago, the reliably unreliable Apple rumor mill said that an upgraded white MacBook was on its way. Then it decided that no update was imminent. And the truth turns out to be there won’t be an update because the machine is leaving the market.
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New MacBook Airs: Thin, Light, and Utterly Mainstream
When Steve Jobs unveiled the first MacBook Air at Macworld Expo back in January of 2008, he induced lots of oohs and aahs over its astoundingly thin case. I don’t, however, remember many people declaring that it was Apple’s first pass at building the garden-variety Mac of the future. I sure didn’t–in part because I was too busy bemoaning the things that it lacked, such as built-in Ethernet.
Super-thin laptops similar in concept to the Air have been around since at least Digital’s 1994 HiNote Ultra. People have usually assumed that they were aimed at well-heeled businesspeople with decidedly undemanding computing needs–or at least at folks whose real computer is something brawnier and more feature rich.
Today, Apple is releasing two new Airs, the successors to the much-improved ones it rolled out last October. It isn’t pitching the new models as specialty machines. Even more than with their predecessors from last year, it’s treating them as well-rounded, versatile computers that happen to be really thin and really light. In fact, a tagline it’s using–“The ultimate everyday notebook”–doesn’t even mention their lack of bulk. And just to clarify things, it’s discontinuing the last machine in its lineup that was simply called a MacBook. From now on, if you want a Mac portable, you’ll choose between a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro.
For the past few days, I’ve been reviewing a 13″ model loaned to me by Apple, but I didn’t need any arm-twisting to accept the notion of it as a mainstream notebook. I’ve already been using its predecessor as my primary system since last fall, dual-booting it between OS X and Windows 7. (And spending a fair amount of time explaining to curious passers-by that it really is the computer I spend most of my time on.)
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iPhone 5 Rumors: Cut. It. Out.
PCMag.com’s Sascha Segan has a simple plea: “Stop the iPhone 5 Rumor Insanity.”
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Android Uncertainty: Apple Wins a Round Against HTC
On Friday, Apple won a round in its court battle against Taiwanese phone maker HTC, when an International Trade Commission judge ruled that HTC’s Android handsets violate two Apple patents. HTC is appealing the judgement.
My two favorite tech/law bloggers are FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller and This is My Next’s Nilay Patel. Mueller thinks this court decision could be a big deal:
I have looked at those patents before and they appear to be very fundamental. They are very likely to be infringed by code that is at the core of Android. It’s telling that those two patents are also at issue between Apple and Motorola (and the ‘263 patent was also used by Apple against Nokia). A while after Apple started suing HTC, Motorola filed a declaratory judgment action against a dozen Apple patents including those two. Apple then counterclaimed by asking the court to determine that those patents are valid and infringed by Motorola. So the relevance of this goes way beyond HTC!
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The 4G iPhone Placebo Event
The iPhone 4 has a “4” in its name. It’s also the fourth-generation iPhone. But it’s not a 4G phone–which is what a meaningful minority of the people who participated in a Retrevo survey think it is. I wonder if thinking that makes you more impressed with its network speed, or less so?
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MacBook Airs: Let There Be Light!
When I switched from a MacBook Pro to a MacBook Air as my main computer, there were only three features I missed: the optical drive (occasionally), built-in Ethernet (very occasionally), and a backlit keyboard (fairly frequently). But according to AppleInsider, the next-generation MacBook Airs which might arrive real soon now will address that last omission.
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Apple Rumors: The More the Murkier!
Apple rumors, in case you hadn’t noticed, are everywhere. There are tons of them–especially on future iPhones and iPads. And if you don’t like a particular one, wait a day or two–another one will come along that confidently says that the first one was hogwash.
As I’ve mentioned here, perhaps too often, I don’t bother to report most Apple rumors here. (I do cover ones that seems utterly plausible or utterly implausible–they’re the two best kind.) I do read them on other sites, though. And I’ve decided to perform a public service by rounding up a bunch of them. I figure that the chances are virtually 100 percent that at least a handful of the “scoops” after the jump are spot on. Your job is to figure out which ones!
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Artist Takes Pictures of Mac Users in Apple Stores, Gets in Trouble
Good advice for artists: if your art project involves installing software on the demo Macs in Apple Stores and holding the exhibit in the Apple Store, you might want to reconsider.
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iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad HD, Arrrrrrrgh!
I’ve sort of given up on keeping track of Apple rumors (which is why I cheerfully ignore most of ’em and never write about them here). But here’s Josh Topolsky of This is My Next with a snapshot of the current thinking on the question “When will we see the next iPhone and iPad, and what will they look like?“