Alongside the release of the new Mac Pro, Apple has updated Final Cut Pro in the Mac App Store to take advantage of the machine’s immense raw processing power. Specifically, Apple says that playback and rendering has been optimised for the Mac Pro’s dual GPUs.

Final Cut 10.1 also adds 4K support, including monitoring across Thunderbolt 2 and HDMI displays as well as 4K titles, transition and generators. The update also adds a whole slew of other minor features and changes to the modern (if controversial) video editing suite.

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We’ve already heard from Michael, Zac, and Ben on their last minute gift picks for the holiday season. For my gift guide, I’ve decided to only include products that I’ve personally been using on a daily basis. I review a lot of products in all of these categories, and below you’ll find only the best of the best that have earned a permanent place in my setup for both at home and on the go:
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AAPL stock took a 1.8 percent hit in pre-market trading as China Mobile not only failed to announce its iPhone launch today as had been expected, but its chairman Xi Guohua specifically told reporters that the world’s largest carrier had no announcement to make.

While neither Apple nor China Mobile ever officially confirmed today as the launch date, the Chinese government confirmed the date as the one on which 4G service would begin, China Mobile had said it would launch “a new brand” today and the WSJ seemed confident last month that today was the day.

The deal has been a very long time in the coming, but all the pieces of the puzzle looked to have fallen into place … 
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9to5Mac readers know a thing or two. When I reviewed Postbox, after explaining that I had lost patience with the flakiness of late of Apple Mail, several of the commentators recommended Airmail, a lightweight email client based on the popular but discontinued Sparrow app. It’s also the only alternative to Apple Mail and (of course) Outlook for those who need Exchange support.

Since then, Apple released OS X 10.9.1 with Mail fixes. It’s definitely better, but those unread mail counts still don’t update promptly, and my jury is still out (to put it nicely) on Gmail integration and other issues. As I mentioned before, so long as you use IMAP, switching back-and-forth between email apps is trivial, so I decided to give Airmail a try …

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After three years without a substantial update and several months of teasing and promoting, Apple has finally announced that tomorrow it will begin selling the newly designed and more powerful Mac Pro it first showed off at WWDC back in June. (Full press release below.)

We have begun manufacturing the Mac Pro in Austin. It’s the most powerful Mac ever. Orders start tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/Jrd1Gic3Ya

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 18, 2013

The road was certainly not rapid between update cycles with two years of nary a word on whether or not the Mac Pro line had any life left in it and a full year of teasing and promoting the 2013 model being released tomorrow. Let’s take a look at the Mac Pro saga that led to today’s debut…
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Apple has a 76 percent share of the mobile device market among small to medium businesses (SMBs), according to SMB cloud services company Intermedia. Samsung took second place with 12 percent.

The company also reported seeing spikes in new device activations when Apple launched the new iPhones and iPads. Unsurprisingly, most businesses opted for the iPhone 5s over the 5c … 
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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM]

As is tradition, Apple is airing a new holiday commercial this evening, this time highlighting the iPhone 5s, its movie making capabilities, and AirPlay with the Apple TV. The ad is set to the tune of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. As you may recall, last year Apple highlighted the iPad and FaceTime, with an ad set to “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”. In 2011, Apple featured Siri and the then-new iPhone 4S.

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Apple has released OS X 10.9.1 for Mac via the Mac App Store today. The update includes a number of Mail related fixes including improved support for Gmail as well as numerous bug fixes. The update also fixes a VoiceOver issue that prevented sentences with emoji characters from being read…

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Adweek is reporting that Apple is focusing the iAd sales department almost exclusively on iTunes Radio, rather than developing its in-app ad portfolio, which is how the service originally started. According to the report, Eddy Cue told the advertising unit that iTunes Radio advertisements are a top priority, presumably as Apple is preparing to expand the music service into more countries next year.

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On Black Friday week, Amazon ($449) and Sears ($499) went into a price war on the 39-inch “120Hz” Seiki 4K displays culminating in a Sub-$400 price (that I jumped on) for the 39-inch variant.

Screw it, I bought a 4K TV for $373 bucks. https://t.co/wO93y2bbQp

— Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) December 9, 2013

I’ve been using it as a 4K, 3840×2160 display for my MacBook Pro 2013 base model (no discrete graphics) off and on for a week.

How is it as a HDTV? Can you use it as a 4K display? Should you? Here’s my take:
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At WWDC, Yahoo received an Apple Design Award for Yahoo Weather. This coincided with the unveiling of iOS 7 and its Weather app, which displayed striking similarities to Yahoo’s effort.

With the latest update to the app, Yahoo has brought the same award-winning design to the iPad. The full-bleed imagery from Flickr really shines on a larger display. The layout for iPad is largely a port of the iPhone design with upgraded icons and assets but refinements have been made for the iPad where necessary. For example, forecast information can be much larger because of the additional real-estate.

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Smartphones will reach saturation point in the U.S. by 2017, and by that time two-thirds of all Americans will own an iPhone – the conclusions Asymco’s Horace Dediu reaches through a series of calculations.

Dediu bases his calculation on three factors. First, that the rate of growth seen in the smartphone market so far will continue at the same pace. Second, saturation point for smartphones will be 90 percent (no technology ever achieves 100 percent). Third, that Apple’s market share will remain roughly constant, Dediu pointing out that iPhone growth has pretty much exactly mirrored the smartphone market as a whole … 
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Apple CEO Tim Cook, who is not known for many video recorded public appearances outside of Apple events, spoke at length regarding equality at an Auburn University event. At the event, Cook accepted Auburn University’s College of Human Sciences Lifetime Achievement award. AllThingsD first wrote about Cook’s appearance and notes Cook’s discussion of two of his inspirations: Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy:

“They sacrificed everything, including their lives, as champions of human rights and of human dignity,” Cook said. “Their images inspire me. They serve as a reminder to me every day that regardless of the path that one chooses, there are fundamental commitments that should be a part of one’s journey.”

Cook also quotes the late Nelson Mandela (who Apple is currently honoring on its homepage). Interestingly, Cook’s quote from Martin Luther King is the same one that he sent via video to Apple employees late in November. “The time is always right to do what’s right,” the quote reads. The video (above) of Cook is well worth a watch for the life lessons it provides. Cook also provides insight into Apple’s approach to making its technologies accessible for everyone.

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