Mac Pro

Looking to grab market share from rival makers of Mac Thunderbolt docks, CalDigit today announced Thunderbolt Station 2, an aggressively-priced Thunderbolt 2 docking hub that promises to surpass earlier Belkin and Elgato units in features and build quality. Redesigned from a prior model, Thunderbolt Station 2 includes the expected twin Thunderbolt 2 ports, three USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, HDMI and analog audio in/out ports. What’s new are twin eSATA 6G ports and an enclosure that can be mounted vertically or horizontally, saving space on a desk.

With a regular price of $200, it’s already $30 cheaper than Elgato’s Thunderbolt 2 Dock and $100 under Belkin’s Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD, but a special $170 pre-order price makes it the most affordable Thunderbolt 2 dock yet.

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My first post for 9to5Mac is on a topic near and dear to my heart: best-of-breed Apple products and accessories. Why should you trust me? I’ve been a professional product reviewer for 23 years and an Apple user for 28 years. Last week, I finished an 11-year stint running the editorial side of iLounge, the leading Apple product review site, where I tested literally thousands of Apple accessories from every major company on the planet. Readers have praised my reviews as accurate and insightful, and I always put my readers’ needs first when testing new products.

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Hyper, the brand behind a number of popular Mac and iOS products we’ve reviewed in the past, is today offering its best deals ever for Black Friday. The sale includes big deals on external battery packs and other iOS accessories including the world’s only external MacBook battery.

Some of the notables: A $10 3600 mAh battery pack (Reg. $49), a $20 7200mAh battery pack (Reg. $70), and up to $50 off the company’s external battery for MacBooks. Head below for the full list of deals. 
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Hot off the heels of their iPad app, the Pixelmator team have today released Pixelmator 3.3 for Mac. This update centers around design and structural optimizations for OS X Yosemite, including an extension for integration with other apps and a new icon to match the ‘flatter’ aesthetic of the operating system. The update also includes a new file format to improve syncing and compatibility with the iPad version.

Although the app largely resembles previous versions, with custom floating panels and black chrome, it now takes advantage of Apple’s transparency effects to mesh well with the OS.

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TwelveSouth, makers of various popular Mac and iOS device accessories, today announced a new BookArc product for the Mac Pro. Much like its BookArc products for MacBooks and iPads, the BookArc acts as a desktop stand that allows the Mac Pro to lay horizontally opposed to its usual upright orientation.

As pointed out by TwelveSouth, the horizontal mount cuts down the roughly 14-inches vertical height requirement to 7.5 inches, allowing Mac Pros to fit in rack mounts and other places the computer normally wouldn’t fit. In a rack mount, for instance, that means 5 rack spaces when using the BookArc opposed to approximately 8 spaces for the vertical Mac Pro. 
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The early reviews are out for the iMac with Retina 5K display, and the tl;dr version is: if you can afford it, buy it.

Everyone of course agrees that the key market for the machine is video professionals (beating even the base-model Mac Pro in benchmarks), the 5K resolution offering the ability to display full-size 4K video while still leaving enough room for editing tools.

But while the new iMac may be overkill for more mundane tasks, reviewers also agreed that the display is so good that even if you don’t need one, you’ll still want one … 
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After first showing off the latest Mac Pro at WWDC 2013 and launching the professional-class desktop computer last December, Apple’s certified refurbished online store is now carrying discounted models for the first time.

The 2013 Mac Pro, which is the only Mac computer manufactured in the United States, ordinarily starts at $2,999 for the base model configuration, but customers looking to save on that cost can now get the same configuration for $450 less at $2,549. A variety of other configurations are available in refurbished models with discounted price tags ranging up to $7,479…

There are a few companies that make skins specifically for Apple’s keyboards to add icons for the various shortcuts that pros use daily in apps like Logic Pro and Final Cut. I’ve tried a few in the past, but the benefits never seemed to outweigh the tradeoff of putting a clunky rubber skin over Apple’s masterfully built keyboard. The latest Logic keyboard I received in for review from EditorsKeys, however, has actually won me over and proven up to the task of permanently replacing my stock Apple keyboard.
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Apple has started sending out OS X Yosemite builds for Beta Program, as announced yesterday. The build is being sent out to a million Beta Program members. Participants can get a redemption code from the site, to redeem in the Mac App Store.

Apple has said that Apple will not update the Beta Program Yosemite builds as often as the developer seeds (which come out every two weeks, usually), but participants will be able to upgrade to the final public version of Yosemite seamlessly through the App Store, when it is released.  The seed released in the beta program is one build newer than the one released to developers on Monday.

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Apple’s operations chief said today that the company paid out over $3 billion to small businesses that supplied Apple with parts for its products in 2013. That money was split up between around 7,000 different suppliers as part of the SupplierPay program started by the White House.

SupplierPay is an extension of a federal program called QuickPay that required the government to issue payments to small business partners within 15 days of billing in an attempt to promote economic growth. With SupplierPay, the program is extended (optionally) to private businesses like Apple.

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As we reported two weeks ago and again yesterday, Apple has today launched its Back to School promotion for this school season. Like previous years, qualifying student customers will get a free gift card alongside any purchase of a Mac, iPad or iPhone. While last year Apple gave out Mac App Store/iTunes cards, this year’s cards are for Apple Retail Stores.

Buying any Mac makes the buyer eligible for a $100 Apple Store gift card and $50 cards will be distributed alongside iPads and iPhones.

Interested students can buy any Mac (except for the Mac Mini), or any iPad or iPhone currently on sale at the Apple Store, to be eligible for the promotion. Students can also receive education discount pricing where applicable, alongside the gift card giveaway.

Back to School runs from today until September 9th and available in many regions, including the United States, Canada, the UK and many other countries in Europe.
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As rumored last week, Apple has today released a new model of iMac. These machines are considerably cheaper than their predecessors, priced at $1099. Previously, the cheapest iMac SKU was priced at $1299 (which is now the mid-range model).

The cheaper iMac features a 1.4 GHz dual-core i5 CPU, which represents a significant worsening in performance over the previous base model of iMac, which featured a processor clocked at 2.7 GHz.  The CPU does Turbo Boost up to 2.7 GHz however, which does make up some of the difference.

Aside from the CPU, the hard drive has also been cut to 500 GB. The new model also features a lower-end integrated graphics chip. All other iMac models continue to use either Iris Pro integrated graphics or dedicated Nvidia cards. Otherwise, the internals of the new machine are unchanged.

Apple’s Press release below…

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While you still may not be able to walk in to an Apple Store and expect to walk out with a 2013 Mac Pro, the $3,000 and $4,000 base models of Apple’s professional desktop are shipping within 24 hours of ordering for the first time since its launch in late December last year. This includes shipping to Apple Retail Store locations for pickup. Apple, of course, previewed the latest Mac Pro model at WWDC 2013, exactly one year from yesterday, but it only promised then that it would begin shipping later that year. Availability has since proven to be a challenge for the ‘assembled-in-USA’ Mac line…
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Many of us were deeply disappointed when Apple discontinued the MacBook Pro 17. While the Retina MacBook Pro 15 introduced at the same time offered higher resolution, sometimes there’s just no substitute for physical screen size. Photographers and videographers in particular loved the combination of the sheer size and the option of a matte screen.

I loved mine enough to immediately sell the three-year-old one I owned at the time in order to replace it with the last model made, to maximize its useful life. I still love it enough that I’ve just laid out a thousand bucks on a 2.5-year-old machine to fit 2TB of SSDs, giving it the best of both worlds: lightning-fast performance combined with huge storage that allows me to have all my files with me when I travel.

There may not be too many others who’ll follow my admittedly extravagant example, but I do think it’s time for Apple to revisit its decision and bring back the mobile professional’s workhorse … 
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Just a couple of weeks after releasing OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 to users, Apple has seeded the first beta of the upcoming OS X 10.9.4 to developers. We first reported that Apple was nearing a release of OS X 10.9.4 in beta to developers. It’s unclear what changes are in store with the new system, but hopefully it fixes the many headaches that Mac Pro users have been facing since 10.9.3’s release earlier this month. No word on when 10.9.4 will go public, but it is interesting that this Mavericks release will be in beta in tandem with OS X 10.10‘s beta release next week at WWDC. Thanks, D!

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