Tag: apple macbook

Apple Will Replace Some 13 Inch MacBook Pro Batteries For Free

Apple has introduced a new battery replacement program for some 13 inch non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro. Under this program, Apple would replace the batteries of these MacBook Pros for free.

According to Apple, there is an issue with a small number of MacBook Pros manufactured between October 2016 and October 2017. Apple notes that some non-Touch Bar MacBook Pros manufactured in the mentioned time frame have a faulty component which causes the battery to expand. In order to check eligibility, head to this page and enter the serial number of your MacBook Pro (non-Touch Bar).

It is worth noting that users who have already replaced their batteries can contact Apple for a refund. Once a MacBook Pro qualifies for the program, owners can either visit an authorised Apple retail store or can mail it to Apple’s repair centre.

Apple’s preemptive move will be appreciated by MacBook Pro owners especially considering the program will be valid for 5 years since the original release of the 13-inch MacBook Pro (non-Touch Bar). Apple has recently been criticised for not handling the iPhone slow-down debacle well. The company’s efforts of prolonging the life of older iPhones were misconstrued as a deliberate way of influencing users into buying new iPhones. However, Apple has since come out and made its intentions clear.

The company also released a feature in the latest iOS 11 update wherein users can choose between peak performance or better battery health. Apart from that, Apple also announced that the battery replacement charges will be reduced to US$ 29 for out of warranty iPhones.

April 23, 2018
Top Tech Deals At The Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale

The Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale for Amazoon Prime members is now live and we take a look at the top 10 tech deals available during the sale. People without Amazon Prime membership will be able to access these deals from September 21.

Seagate Backup 4TB Hard drive

This Seagate 4TB storage hard drive is ideal for people who hate deleting their old data and like to carry it with them wherever they go. The hard drive has USB 3.0 transfer speeds and is backward compatible with USB 2.0 ports at USB 2.0 transfer speeds. The hard drive comes with 3 years of warranty as well. It retails at a price of Rs 22,199 but, during the sale, it will be available for a price of Rs 9,499.

WD Elements 1TB Hard Drive

This WD hard drive is light, portable and gives you an extra 1TB of storage in case you run out of the onboard storage on your desktop or laptop. This hard drive also has USB 3.0 transfer speeds and a 2-year warranty.

SanDisk 64GB Class 10 Memory Card

The SanDisk 64GB Class 10 Memory Card is water, dust and shock proof. If you need more storage in your smartphone and your phone has a microSD card slot, this memory card is ideal. Even if your phone doesn’t support microSD card, yiu can store your media in this card and carry it with you along with a USB OTG card reader and consume media on the go without hampering your phone’s onboard storage.

Samsung Gear S3 Smartwatch

The Samsung Gear S3 is an ideal smartwatch for you if you have an Android smartphone. The smartwatch has 1.3-inch 360×360 Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display, Corning Gorilla Glass SR+ and is IP68 certified water and dust resistant. It has a dual-core 1GHz CPU, 768MB RAM, and 4GB onboard storage.

Honor Band 3

The fitness tracker is ideal for people who want to keep a track of their activity but do not necessarily need a fancy smartwatch. The Honor Band 3 tracks your steps, sleep and is water resistant up to 50m.It has a heart rate monitor and a battery life of up to 30 days. Moreover, it has smart notifications to reduce your interaction with your smartphone while you’re busy or driving.

Lenovo Yoga Tab 3

The Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 has 4G LTE connectivity and an 8-inch 1280 x 800 px display. It has an 8MP primary camera with autofocus and an 8MP front-facing camera, 1.3GHz Qualcomm APQ8009/MSM8909 quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, and 16GB onboard storage. The tablet is powered by a massive 6200 mAh battery and runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box.

Samsung Evo Plus 32GB Memory Card

If you’re looking for a memory card with high transfer speeds and durability, the Samsung Evo Plus memory card is for you. The microSD card has a 32GB storage and fast read and write speeds up to 95mbps and 20mbps respectively. The included SD adapter makes it compatible with even more devices whilst retaining the high transfer speeds.

SoundBot Bluetooth Speaker

The Soundbot Bluetooth Speaker has 40mm premium drivers for both active outdoor and indoor use. The speaker comes equipped with Bluetooth 3.0 and has a 3.5mm AUX output as well. The speaker is shipped with 1 year of manufacturer’s warranty as well. The average battery life of the Soundbot Bluetooth Speaker is 10 hours.

Acer Switch 10.1 inch Laptop

This laptop is ideal for people who are not power users and just need a device for general media consumption and document editing. The Acer Switch has a 1.44GHz Intel Atom x5-Z8300 processor, 2GB DDR3L RAM, and 32GB flash storage. The laptop runs Windows 10 Home and has a battery life of 12 hours.

Apple MacBook Air 13.3 inch

The Apple MacBook Air for people who want to be a part of the Apple ecosystem but, do not need the power of a MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air has a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB LPDDR3 RAM, 128GB Solid State hard drive and, Intel HD Graphics 6000. The MacBook Air is light, portable and efficient. It usually retails for a price of Rs 77,200 but, during the sale it will be available for Rs 55,990.

September 20, 2017
Apple Quietly Updates the MacBook Pro and Introduces a Cheaper 5K iMac

Just a month ahead of the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple has unveiled two newest additions to its Mac family, the new 15-inch MacBook Pro and the huge 27-inch iMac in India.

The new 15-inch MacBook Pro features Force Touch trackpad that promises of a new level of interactivity to the Mac. Simply put, Force Touch is a mechanism that senses pressure. It is an entirely novel innovation that merges the previously released Multi-Touch with force sensors.

This Mac also has new PCIe-based flash storage that provides up to 2.5 times better performance than its predecessor. It has an Intel Iris Pro graphics and offers additional hours of battery life, with up to 9 hours of wireless web browsing and 9 hours of movie playback. Other than this, standard options include a 2.2 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of flash, with, of course, Intel Iris Pro graphics.

The new iMac boasts of Retina 5K Display, which has 67% more pixels than a 4K Display. It features a 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost Speeds up to 3.7 GHz and AMD Radeon R9 M290 graphics. It includes 8GB of memory and 1TB of storage, along with four USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt 2 ports that are capable of delivering up to 20Gbps each.

Every Mac will come along with OS X Yosemite. The updated 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is accessible from today on selected Apple Authorised Stores and is priced at Rs 1,59,900. Configure-to-order options include faster quad-core Intel Core i7 processors up to 2.8 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.0 GHz and Flash storage up to 1TB.

The 27-inch iMac is also available on selected Apple Stores and is available for Rs 1,59,900. Configure-to-order options include faster quad-core Intel Core i7 processors up to 4.0 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 4.4 GHz and Flash storage up to 1TB.

May 19, 2015
New MacBook is the First Apple Device to be Powered By Intel Core M Chipsets

Apple’s new product lineup unveiled at the recent ‘Spring Forward’ event. As expected, the event was mostly dedicated to Apple’s new product family, the Apple Watch. Apart from the Watch, Apple also brought out the new powerful yet slimmer MacBook, which is powered by Intel’s fifth-generation Core M processor.

Intel Core M processor was previously called Broadwell-Y. It is a dual-core chip based on 14 Nm architecture. It has 1.3 billion transistors on its tiny surface. The Core M chipset was launched to reinvent the notebook and looks like Apple has taken a lead in that game with the new MacBook.

Core M is claimed to be one of the most energy efficient processors in the market. It requires 5 watts of power to perform its tasks. On the MacBook, it comes along with Intel HD Graphics 5300. The processor also helped to create a fanless device that would that you won’t be troubled by the never-ending buzz of the notebook’s fan ever again. The logic board is seated on top of an anisotropic graphite sheet, which helps disperse any heat that is generated out to the sides, thus removing the need for the fan.

Core M processor helped in creating miniaturized logic board and offer rest of the space to the battery.

This new processor also helped Apple to miniaturize the hardware components of the MacBook so that the maximum amount of space can be freed up for battery storage. The MacBook comes in two variants in India; one with a 1.1 GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.4 GHz while the other is offered with 1.2 GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.6GHz.

With this launch, Apple has put in its contender in the Intel Core M powered device market. Brands like Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus and others have already introduced their Core M offerings. Samsung had already gone ahead and launched their fanless notebook called Ativ Book 9 in the market. Now with the Apple MacBook coming into the arena, this space will see some intense competition.

March 10, 2015
The Innards of the New Apple Macbook Are Made Mostly of Batteries

Apple finally brought the Apple Watch to the market. The smartwatch line up comes with varied shapes, features and customization options. They are a bit on the pricier side but with their premium look and Apple logo, they may not find it difficult to find customers. But along with the much-awaited smartwatch, Apple also launched the revamped Macbook with a thickness of just 13.1 mm. Even with the slim design, most of the insides of the new notebook is made up only of batteries while a tiny portion is taken by the other hardware bits.

Apple Redesigned their batteries for the new device to maximize battery availability.

The new Macbook’s have been put through immense redesigning process. The battery design, as well as the insides of the device, have been designed to offer maximum battery storage space.

There have been immense efforts and breakthroughs in the miniaturization of the internal components but the battery technology still has a long way to go. So Apple decided to offer maximum space to the battery in the device. The company says that the new Macbook has 35% more battery capacity in comparison with the current mainstream technology. Apple has made every attempt to make most of the available space and has packed in as much space as possible with the newly designed battery.

The miniaturized logic-board is covered all around with batteries.

The new MacBook packs in a high definition 2304×1440 display that will demand a great deal of energy. Even with such high-def display, Apple claims that the ultra slim notebook offers a full day of battery life. It is also said to offer 9 hours of battery life when browsing the web continuously and 10 hours worth of iTunes film playback with a single charge.

Apple has been known for its tryst with the slim. It was one of the first companies to introduce the ultra-thin laptops with the MacBook Air, and now it has taken things further with the new MacBook lineup. Even with the barrage of smart device offered in the market, a notebook is still an essential device for work and entertainment purposes. Apple’s efforts in making the notebooks more portable, yet more powerful will surely be appreciated by the consumers in the market.

March 10, 2015
Apple Introduces the Thinnest Keyboard With the New Macbook

Apple yesterday re-introduced the product line of Macbook, but this time, it comes with a complete makeover. It is thinner than any other product in the laptop market. Apple says one of the major changes in the new Apple Macbook is the addition of a new keyboard that helps to slim the device down further.

Apple has done away with the traditional “scissors” and inducted a new “butterfly” mechanism. This new design allows for a shorter keystroke that the company claims helps in more precise typing and fewer errors. The company also claims that the design of the keyboard is 40% thinner than the regular keyboards and is four times more stable in comparison.

To make it easier to work in low light conditions, the keyboard also features a LED light under each key. This allows for more light and better visibility of the keys in comparison to other keyboards.

Check out how the new keyboard comes together in the video below.

March 10, 2015
24th April Onwards Apple Watch Will be Available in Nine Countries

While we have known most details about the Apple Watch since Apple’s last major event, the company officially announced the smartwatch today. It is one of the newest entrants in Apple’s ecosystem. Tim Cook, Apple CEO, had earlier announced that we would be able to buy the device sometime in April, we have now been given an exact date for the same.

[quote text_size=”small” author=”Tim Cook” author_title=”Apple’s CEO”]

Apple Watch begins a new chapter in the way we relate to technology and we think our customers are going to love it,

[/quote]

It will be available on 24th April to customers in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US. While 10th April onwards, in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US, Apple Watch will be available for preview, try-on by appointment at Apple’s retail stores, and available for pre-order through the Apple Online Store. Customers who purchase online or in-store from Apple will be offered Personal Setup to customise and pair Apple Watch with their iPhone.

Want to know more about the Apple Watch? Click here.

March 10, 2015
Apple Announces ResearchKit, a Software That Turns iPhones into Powerful Diagnostic Tools

The much-awaited ‘Spring Forward’ event by Apple has finally commenced and before the main highlight of the show, the Cupertino giant made several other important announcements. The CEO of the company Tim Cook took to the stage and recalled the strongly growing iPhone ecosystem. He stated that iPhones will continue to transform every part of our lives through three mediums – CarPlay, HomeKit, and HealthKit.

Today in San Francisco, Apple today announced ResearchKit, an open source software framework designed for medical and health research, helping doctors and scientists gather data more frequently and more accurately from participants using iPhone apps.

It is made specifically for medical researchers. ResearchKit and HealthKit work hand in hand. Simply put, the ResearchKit turns iPhones and HealthKit into power diagnostic tools.

The University of Rochester together with Sage Bionetworks built mPower, an app that uses ResearchKit to conduct Parkinson’s disease research. It helps iPhone users sign up for studies, which will help further research. Now it’s simple for Parkinson’s patients to take tests and perform tasks and feed the information to researchers.

Apple is releasing ResearchKit next month, and the first five apps will be available from today. The first apps made with ResearchKit target diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and breast cancer.

For more updates, keep checking back this space.

March 10, 2015
Pricing of the New Apple MacBook Revealed for India

Apple today unveiled the all-new MacBook, a new line of notebooks. At just two pounds and 13.1 mm thin – they are their thinnest and lightest Macs ever. The new MacBook features a 12-inch Retina display that is the thinnest ever on a Mac, an Apple-designed full-size keyboard which is dramatically thinner and highly responsive. With this launch, for the first time, MacBook is available in three finishes—gold, silver and space grey.

For India, the MacBook will begin shipping on Friday, 10th April through select Apple Authorised Resellers. The new notebook comes in two variants – one with a 1.1 GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.4 GHz, 8GB of memory, 256GB of flash storage and Intel HD Graphics 5300. It is priced starting Rs. 99,900.

The second, and the more powerful variant, comes with a 1.2 GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.6GHz, 8GB of memory, 512GB of flash storage and Intel HD Graphics 5300 is priced starting Rs. 119,900.

Stay tuned, more details coming up soon.

March 10, 2015
Apple Outs its Lightest, Thinnest Notebook Ever; Meet the ‘MacBook’

Apple’s Spring Forward event, recently dubbed as the ‘Apple Event’, will soon be renamed the ‘MacBook Event.’ We were looking forward to a slew of major announcements about the Apple Watch, but instead we were introduced to the new MacBook. Yes, that’s the name. It has been simply named ‘MacBook.’

The new notebook, weighs a mere 2 pounds (lightest ever.) It comes with the beautiful retina with edge-to-edge glass covered 12-inch display with a 2304 x 1440 resolution. It’s as thin as 13.1mm thin, compared to 17.3mm of the MacBook Air. It’s 24 percent thinner than the Air, the company mentioned at the event.

The new MacBook has an all-new, full-size keyboard that’s been reengineered from the ground up. One of the most interesting aspects about the newly unveiled device is the fact that it comes with a Force Touch trackpad. Force Touch was introduced with the Apple Watch, it is the mechanism which senses pressure. The Force Touch trackpad has force sensors that detect how much pressure you apply on its surface. So basically, it can tell the difference between a light tap and a deep press.

The keyboard comes with a brand new backlighting system, with every key having its own LED light. It helps the entire keyboard get a uniform glow. Not only does this save space, but it also allows the new MacBook to run in silence. The company claims to have added a new, custom-shaped battery maximizes every millimeter of space, helping the MacBook achieve an all-day battery life.

Another first from the company, it has used USB-C a third the size of a standard USB cable (more on that later.) The Macbook comes in two variants, 256GB (1.2GHz Intel Core M) priced at $1299 and the second configuration for $1599 features the 12-inch Retina display, 1.2GHz Intel Core M, Intel HD Graphics 5300, 8GB memory, and 512GB of flash storage.

The MacBook starts shipping on 10th April 2015.

March 9, 2015
Rumour : MacBook Air With Retina Display Coming In Q3

The MacBook Air could be in line for a Retina Display upgrade later this year, according to reports.

Taiwanese newspaper the Economic Daily, citing those infamous ‘supply chain sources’ is claiming the ultra-portable laptop will be fitted with a super hi-res display and launched in the third quarter.

The report added that both the 11.6-inch and the 13.3-inch iterations have been earmarked for the screen technology first utilised on the iPhone 4, before the 4S, 5, iPod touchand iPad 3 got in on the act.

The tech also arrived on Apple’s computing products in 2013, with a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a 2560 x 1600 Retina Display and a 15-inch Pro with a 2880 x 1800 Retina Display launched.

Apple last week cut the price of its 256GB MacBook Air by $100, to $1,400. The move was a response to it dropping the price of its MacBook Pro with Retina down to $1,500. Apple also boosted processor speeds in its MacBook Pro line.

In addition to talk of improvements to the MacBook Air, another report out of Korea today said Apple’s next-generation iPad would come with GF2 display technology, a thinner alternative to what’s currently running in the device. Apple’s iPad Mini uses GF2 display technology. The addition of GF2 should make it easier for Apple to deliver a thinner full-size iPad.

This news comes after Google today launched the Chromebook Pixel.

The Chromebook Pixel from Google features a 12.85-inch touchscreen display that has a resolution of 2560 x 1700 pixels, amounting to a pixel density of 239 pixels per inch (ppi). Google says that the display on the Chromebook pixel is the best screen that has ever been put on a laptop. The display is a step ahead than Apple’s 13.1-inch Macbook Pro with Retina display that has pixel density of 227 pixels per inch.

February 22, 2013
Apple Launches ‘Get Stuff Done’ Promotion For Mac App Store

Apple on Thursday kicked off a three-week promotional campaign offering discounts on a number of productivity apps in the OS X App Store, with each week featuring a new section and a different batch of titles from which to choose.

New discounted Apps will be made available every week, under the categories of “Prioritize”, “Organize” and “Utilize”. This week, Apple is focusing on the first category, offering certain To-Do apps for way less than they would generally be sold for, some as much as 50% off. Many well-known apps are on offer, namely Things 2 (available for $24.99), Todo (for $6.99), Due ($4.99), The Hit List ($24.99), BreakTime ($2.99), TaskPaper ($11.99), 2Do ($14.99) and Clear ($6.99).

As reported by TUAW, if you are looking to snap up a good deal, you should hurry, since these offers are expiring on January 31^st. If you to-do lists are not your thing, worry not, since Apple will offer more discounted apps starting next week, first under the “Organise” category and “Utilize” the week after.

January 25, 2013
Messages Beta For OS X Lion to End December 14th

Messages beta for Mac OSX Lion will no longer be operational next month. In an email to users on Friday, Apple reminded Messages beta program participants that the preview period will end on Friday, Dec. 14, noting that the service will then only be available on OS X Mountain Lion.

AppleInsider was first to note the upcoming closure, which brings the OS X 10.7 Lion preview service to an end. Apple introduced a beta of Messages for Lion in February alongside the surprise release of a developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion. The latter went on sale in July for $19.99, a third less than its two predecessors.

Mountain Lion includes Messages, as well as several other features and services that debuted on iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad.

Apple pulled the download of the Messages beta for Lion in mid-June, when at its annual developers conference company executives revealed more information about Mountain Lion, including its price and a July ship date. Lion users, however, could still run Messages if they had already installed the beta.

If you’re still on Lion, you’ll have until December 14th to update to Mountain Lion, when Messages will expire. At only $19, it’s really a no-brainer if you haven’t updated yet.

November 18, 2012
MacBook Pro Retina 13-Inch Teardown : Redesigned battery, Samsung flash, Soldered RAM

The $1,699 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display has a reconfigured battery that is much easier to remove, an iFixit teardown reveals.

Now that Apple has taken the wraps off its latest MacBook Pro, a 13-inch notebook updated with the company’s high-definition Retina display, the teardown team over at iFixit has taken the screws to it—or out of it, as the case may be. During the analysis, the company noted the most striking change was the redesign of the device’s battery—which has been changed in a few ways.

The flash storage in the 13-inch MacBook Pro taken apart by iFixit is a Samsung MZ-DPC2560/0A2 unit rated at 3.3 volts and 2.39 amps with 256 gigabytes of storage.

The disassembly discovered that the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro has the same AirPort card as its 15-inch counterpart, while the heat sink has been slightly scaled down to fit into the smaller notebook. Apple has also once again used fans with asymmetrical blade spacing to reduce fan noise.

And like the 15-inch model, the RAM is surface-mount soldered to the logic board, meaning no upgrades are possible. Apple does not offer any more than 8 gigabytes of RAM on the new 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Another strange inclusion found in the notebook is a flash memory chip on the trackpad board. The same feature is also found in the 15-inch model, but iFixit doesn’t know why a trackpad would require flash memory.

“The 13in MacBook Retina is slightly more recyclable than the 15in Retina,” the Ifixit team said on its Macbook teardown page. “Once inside, it took us ‘only’ 15 minutes of prying to remove the battery, and we didn’t puncture the battery cells.”

Ifixit also found that the battery fitted inside is glued into the laptop’s top case, but is slightly less difficult to remove compared to the 15in model.

One of the biggest worries for the Ifixit crew is the display assembly, which it says is almost impossible to take apart. “If anything ever fails inside the display, you’ll need to replace the display as a whole,” it said.

As a device repair site, iFixit rates the repairability of the electronics it disassembles. They found that the 13-inch MacBook Pro is a slight improvement over the 15-inch model in terms of recyclability and repairability, specifically with relation to the removal of the device’s batteries. Still, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display could only earn a repairability score of 2 out of 10.

October 26, 2012
Apple rejoins environmental registry

Apple has rejoined an environmental ratings scheme a week after quitting the program. The firm published a letter on its site saying it had realized the move had been “a mistake” after many of its customers had complained.

The u-turn follows an announcement by San Francisco city officials that they planned to ban local agencies from buying Apple Mac computers saying at the time that they hoped Apple would reconsider.

Apple helped set up the EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) registry in 2006. It is designed to identify which electronic devices pose the least risk to the environment.

In dropping out last month from the registry, Apple offered no explanation but speculation centered around its use of batteries on some MacBooks which are glued into the frame and thus are not easily recycled.

July 14, 2012