Apple’s current line of MacBook Pros is heavily constrained with all models appearing to be nearly out of stock. Don’t fear, though, if you want a MacBook Pro because new models are right around the corner. Updates to all MacBook Pro models have appeared in Apple’s inventory system for the 13-inch, 15-inch, and 17-inch screen sizes. Apple will continue to ship two 13-inch models, two 15-inch models, and one 17-inch model.
This MacBook Pro refresh will not be the expected re-designed models, but will likely bring some marginally faster processors and the Bluetooth 4.0 technology that Apple started shipping in the latest MacBook Airs and the new iPhone 4S. The new internal code names for the updated MacBook Pro line are K90IA (13-inch), K91A (15-inch), and K92A (17-inch). The A in the codename signifies this next MacBook Pro refresh as being relatively minor. Thanks, Mr. X!
A frustration for many users in the past is the fact that Apple IDs are currently not able to be merged. As Apple’s iOS 5 and iCloud near launch, Apple might be taking an important step to allow the merging of Apple IDs. iOS 5 includes several services such as iMessage, iCloud integration, Game Center, FaceTime, iTunes, the App Store, and iBooks.
Some users are frustrated because all of those services are spread across multiple Apple IDs. For example, some people have a separate Apple ID for iCloud (especially migrators from MobileMe) and for iTunes/App Store/iMessage/FaceTime, etc. According to an answer from Apple’s executive relations team, as reported by MacRumors, Apple could be readying a solution that merges all of a user’s Apple IDs:
Tim Cook about the issue, and quickly received a phone call from an Apple executive relations employee. She had spoken to the team responsible for Apple IDs and acknowledged that they understood the issue and that more people would run into the problem with iCloud. She also repeated that there is no way yet to combine accounts but revealed they are working on it. In the meantime, she recommended picking a single account to plan on keeping indefinitely and to make all future purchases on that account.
If you really want to turn your new MacBook Air out, OWC is offering up a new SSD upgrade option that promise up to 4X read/write performance (>500MB/s) over Apple’s factory installed SSDs. The SSDs, priced at $350 for 120GB and $600 for 240GB use a Sandforce 2200 controller.
• Tier 1/Grade A Toggle Synchronous NAND
• SandForce 2200 Series Processor
• Offers nearly 4x factory SSD capacity.**
• Compatible with 2011 MacBook Air
• Utilizes 6G SATA bus in 2011 MacBook Air to deliver over 500MB/s data rate performance
.
In other OWC news, they mention that yesterday’s MacBook Pro update fixed lingering issues with the 6GB SATA port on the MacBook Pros (not to be confused with the 3GB Optical port.)
…in New Zealand anyway. One 9to5Mac reader said that the Thunderbolt Display he ordered on August 17th was now en route to his home. If anyone else has a shipping display let us know in the comments or at tips@9to5mac.com.
What’s perhaps most interesting about this shipment information is that these displays aren’t shipping directly from China as most Apple products do. They are shipping from a holding spot in Australia (below) perhaps indicating that the wait on these displays isn’t because of hardware, but in fact software, which, incidentally was updated last night on Thunderbolt MacBook Pros and Mac Minis.
If, for some reason, you don’t want to run Lion on your new Mac Mini, it appears that using a clone of a recent MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard will boot and operate the Mac Mini. MacBidoulle cautions the Ethernet hasn’t been properly tested and the new Radeon Video cards in the high end model may need some hacking to get 3D working. Expand Expanding Close
AIreports that the MacBook Pro line will receive minor processor updates before the holiday shopping season. In fact, they say the updates should come before the end of the month.
According to people with proven insight into Apple’s future product plans, the late-2011 MacBook Pro refresh will deliver marginal speed bumps to the notebooks’ Core i-Series of Sandy Bridge processors but will otherwise introduce no material changes over the existing models.
While precise timing for the update may change, those same people say the Mac maker currently anticipates an introduction of the refreshed line before the end of the month,
This seems to fly counter to earlier reports from MacRumors that the next update to the MacBook Pro line would be a big redesign.
MacRumors has heard reliable confirmation that the next revision of Apple’s MacBook Pro line will utilize a new case design for the first time in several years.
For what it is worth, we’re seeing no hiccups in the supply chain on current models. Silent updates aren’t unheard of however.
Apple’s Thunderbolt hardware pieces are coming together and to get ready, Apple is updating MacBook Air firmware. The 4 MB update promises to enhance the stability of Lion Recovery from an Internet connection, and resolve issues with Apple Thunderbolt Display compatibility and Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode performance on MacBook Air (mid 2011) models.
Just a quick note on the earlier charity giving email from Tim Cook. It was a lovely gesture and will generate millions of dollars in giving to worthy causes, no doubt.
First of all, Jobs is a charity giver but only privately, never on a personal-corporate level, and he certainly never publicly encouraged Apple employees to do so. Of course there is Product(RED) and numerous disaster relief projects. But today’s public email/idea would never have been prioritized by Jobs.
Second, Apple PR would never have acknowledged an internal email, regardless of its contents to the media. This move was clearly meant to be broadcast to the media. If, for some reason, Jobs had encouraged Apple employees to give to charity it would have been a personal Apple internal-only move.
Finally, ApplePR doesn’t usually give information, let alone acknowledge rumors blogs. ApplePR told Macrumors that the internal email was legitimate. Jobs would have mowed down those PR reps.
The move takes a cue from Microsoft, which has had an employee-matching program in place for many years. Microsoft matches up to $12,000 in non-profit donations annually.
This might be a generous move and one that Apple and its employees can feel good about. But it isn’t one that would happen at Steve Jobs’ Apple.
The image on the left (above) is the logo of Sichuan China-based food company Sichuan Fangguo Food Co., Ltd. It’s also the logo that Apple claims infringes on trademarks related to it’s own iconic Apple logo, according to a report from go chengdoo. (We cant help but feel that it looks more like an Apple logo merged with elements of LG’s logo)
CEO of Fangguo, Zhao Yi’s intial response:
“There’s a leaf so you can tell it’s an apple, but it also contains two Chinese characters. … The orientation is also different, and ours is a totally different shape … .” Besides, he added, “When I started Fangguo, I had never even heard of Apple.”
The company claims to have received a letter on July 19 from Beijing Zhucheng Law on behalf of Apple that gave the company until August 6th to respond to complaints regarding the resemblance of their logo to Apple’s. This was two days before Fangguo’s logo registration application was to be extended. The trademark registration license currently extends to August 19, 2017. Expand Expanding Close
Apple was a good sport too and allowed one third party app in the top two rows of apps.
Update:Macrumors notes that Apple has begun selling Final Cut Pro 7 (which is likely not enhanced for Lion) the old fashioned way.
We confirmed with an Apple telesales representative at 800-MY-APPLE that Final Cut Studio, part number MB642Z/A, is again available for $999, and $899 for educational customers. The product is only available through the 800-number and is not available in Apple Retail Stores or on the Apple Online Store.
Final Cut Pro 7 was pulled ahead of the release of Final Cut Pro X in June but there has been some backlash among the higher end users because of missing features. Apple, for what it is worth, promised feature updates by the end of summer (which is coming on pretty fast now). Expand Expanding Close
In an operational sense, today won’t be any different than yesterday at Apple. The people who help curate the sjobs@apple.com email address will probably be putting in some extra hours, the work changing around the placards is probably almost done, and it appears Apple isn’t going to be doing any sort of media tours to ‘help allay investor fears’.
And they don’t need to. Nothing has really changed. I imagine bigger changes were slowly happening behind the scenes a few months ago when Operations VP (incidentally, Tim Cook’s original title) Jeff Williams was promoted to the Executive Bios page. He probably began doing the work of a traditional COO at around that point and, of course, Tim Cook has been acting as a traditional CEO on and off for years.
As Cook’s email to the troops this morning explained, Apple is not going to change – drastically, that is. As any company, Apple is always changing. But Jobs has set up an internal ‘University’ program run by a former Yale dean to make sure that his and other leaders’ values continue to be passed down to Apple’s new VPs and employees.
Steve Jobs hired dean of Yale School of Management Joel Podolny to run the Apple University, an internal group also featuring business professors and Harvard veterans that are writing a series of case studies to prepare employees for the life at Apple after Jobs. These case studies focus on Apples recent business decisions and internal culture, they are exclusive to employees and taught by top executives like Tim Cook and Ron Johnson.
As John Gruber made note, Apple the company is as meticulously designed as any Apple product:
Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.
Apple is the most valuable tech company in the world, an accomplishment that took fourteen years of fantastic long-term decision making. That same intelligence and foresight has gone into the planning of life after Jobs roaming the hallways. Compare today’s long-prepared news on Apple’s share price (none) with that of HP’s bungled earnings news last week on their share price (–20%).
Renaissance Man
Jobs isn’t just a technologist. He built and directed Pixar into the greatest animation studio in the world ahead of anything Hollywood could produce. He changed the music industry forever.
“For a guy who never recorded a song, or signed a band, or founded a label or a music festival, Steve Jobs has probably had more of an impact on the music world than any other person in the last quarter century – and possibly since Thomas Edison.”
He might have been the best, but for all of his greatness, Steve Jobs was not a perfect leader. There have been a few flops and mistakes. Perhaps Jobs was too trusting of Google early on? Options back-dating happened under his watch. AT&T?
Obviously, the triumphs far, far outweigh the mis-steps. As you look at a 55-year-old man in the body of someone decades older, it’s hard not to imagine what a healthy Steve Jobs with twenty years left at the helm might accomplish. I wouldn’t compare the loss of Jobs’ ability to “move the world forward” to the burning of the Library of Alexandria, but it’s hard to find another such comparison that makes sense. This is the man that ushered in personal computers, then did it again with the Mac GUI, then put iOS on portable devices and ushered in the smartphone revolution that we are in the midst of right now and finally re-invented the Post-PC personal computing device. He might have even done things we don’t even recognize yet. Perhaps he’s killed office park campuses with the Mothership HQ? Maybe Apple releases a wearable device in a few months that changes watches like the iPhone changed phones?
What huge innovations will we miss decades from now?
Perhaps the knowledge of his own mortality pushed Jobs even harder. You don’t need to listen to his famous Stanford speech to understand his appreciation for the opportunity he got as a cancer survivor. He worked every day as Apple CEO, just like yesterday, his last.
So how is anyone supposed to follow Jobs, especially an Industrial Engineer out of Auburn who, comparatively, seems introverted and certainly not as innovative?
Give Cook some credit
Remember, Jobs hand-picked Tim Cook to be his successor. What greater honor could you bestow on someone? Jobs didn’t just pick him out of the air, either: they’ve been working alongside each other for over a decade. Jobs picked Cook to be VP of Operations just months after taking back the reigns at Apple in 1997-98. We’re talking 13 quality years working side by side every day here.
As we know, Jobs isn’t shy about telling people what he thinks or cutting people loose who aren’t meeting his expectations. If there were a better candidate in the world for being the COO and now CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs would have found him or her.
Cook has managed Apple’s employees, partners, vendors and everything else during its decade+ renaissance. Remember, Steve Jobs’ first round at Apple and subsequent venture at NeXT were mired in operational mis-steps. Sure, Jobs learned from his mistakes, but I think Jobs would be the first to give Tim Cook credit for turning Apple into the operations machine it is today.
If you aren’t interested in the $1000 Apple Thunderbolt display but still want to add some speedy data transfer to your new MacBook Air, Sonnet has a pretty good solution. Shipping in October, Sonnet’s Echo ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter
[ECHO-E34] will set you back $150 but give you access via ExpressCard to the faster data transfers including eSATA, USB 3, Firewire 800, Gig Ethernet or even speedier access to SDXC and CF cards.
There will be more of these “Thunderbolt docks” coming before the holidays.
Apple has released a pair of new updates meant to fix video-locking issues on iMacs that run Lion and improve hardware compatibility when running Windows in dual boot mode on your Mac. The iMac Graphic FW Update 3.0 is now available for download, weighing in at a paltry 482KB. Apple says the firmware update “fixes a graphics issue that may cause an iMac to hang under certain conditions”. You can also download this update by choosing Software Update from the Apple menu, in which case the update mechanism will determine whether your iMac’s graphics card needs updating and offer the refreshed software appropriately. Also, Boot Camp got a small update for Windows 7 (version 3.3). The 200MB download includes critical bug fixes and hardware support. It is recommended for all Boot Camp 3.2 users and requires Windows 7 plus an existing installation of Boot Camp 3.2 on your system.
We’ve received multiple complaints from readers that Apple isn’t honoring customers who purchased their Macs at Amazon as part of their Lion Up to Date program. Purchases were to have been made on or after July 21st 2011 and it stipulates that they include refurbished or new computers bought at an Apple Authorized Reseller. The above was sent to a customer who bought directly through Amazon on July 31th. Here’s another. We imagine this is a clerical error on Apple’s part. Expand Expanding Close
Today, Logitech announced that a Mac version is on the way. As a bonus, it is available in 5 colors including black, white and 3 different admittedly ugly pastels. Interestingly, Logitech is selling it for $20 less than the list price of the $79.99 PC version at $59.99. So much for the Mac Tax?
Besides the pastels, this product looks like a winner. Sign us up.
Additionally, Logitech launched a $50 back mounted iPad speaker earlier this week. It has batteries which last about as long as an iPad and also charges via USB. I’m not immediately sure if I like this idea or more importantly, the implementation but, there it is:
The update addresses a few issues including the Wifi issues we’ve been hearing much about. It also appears to incorporate the recent Migration Assistant update. It is available via Software Update and weighs in at a paltry 17.4MB on our rig.
The 10.7.1 update is recommended for all users running OS X Lion and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability and compatibility of your Mac, including fixes that:
– Address an issue that may cause the system to become unresponsive when playing a video in Safari – Resolve an issue that may cause system audio to stop working when using HDMI or optical audio out – Improve the reliability of Wi-Fi connections – Resolve an issue that prevents transfer of your data, settings, and compatible applications to a new Mac running OS X Lion
The Mac App store still lists Lion at 10.7 so it isn’t clear if new updaters will always have to do additional updates. We’re also left wondering if this update fixes the “video performance after a sleep” that new Lion Mac users have been reporting.
Update: Interesting there is a direct link (here) for New Mac Mini and MacBook Air users (68MB) which updates a few more issues (below):
Apple just passed Exxon in Market Cap to become the world’s most valuable company. Quite a turnaround for a company that was on its last legs just over a decade ago. AAPL passed the 400 mark last month on the back of monster earnings news but fell sharply as the US market plummeted over the last week. Luckily for Apple, it didn’t fall nearly as sharply as Exxon, in the face of lowered oil costs.
The markets are still open and volatile today but at this moment, 1:19PM EDT, Apple’s market cap is at $341.53B while Exxon Mobile’s is at $341.51B.
Congratulations Apple!
Update 2:00EDT: Apple is now on top by over $1B (image below)
Update2 4PM ET. AAPL closed at $346.74B, Exxon rallied at the end of the day to $348.32B
More patent fun today as a small Florida company that may or may not be an LG spinoff called OSS systems sues Apple according to Patently Apple. The Patent was originally filed by LG in 1999 and describes…
“A method for fast booting a computer system, comprising the steps of: A. performing a power on self test (POST) of basic input output system (BIOS) when the system is powered on or reset is requested; B. checking whether a boot configuration information including a system booting state which was created while executing a previous normal booting process exists or not; C. storing the boot configuration information from execution of the POST operation before loading a graphic interface (GUI) program, based on the checking result; and D. loading the graphic user interface (GUI) program.”
As far as Android competitors go, LG and Apple have a pretty cordial relationship having signed a $500 million display deal a few years ago. Displays in Apple’s popular devices, from 27-inch iMacs to retina iPhones are made by LG. LG could have spun the patent off as its own company, in an attempt to avoid locking horns with Apple in the courts. Apple has been suing what seems like every other Android manufacturer over patent disputes. Expand Expanding Close
We noted before the release of the new Apple products that it often pays to wait a week before buying Apple’s new products. Not only don’t you get “the first ones off the line”, but prices drop significantly over the first week.
A number of Apple Authorized Retailers/affiliates are new selling Apple’s new MacBook Airs and Minis at prices up to $100 lower than Apple. MacMall and Amazon appear to be the lowest.
MacMall has the MacBook Air for the following prices (note: $30 more is taken off at checkout):
1.60GHz 11″ MacBook Air 2GB/64GB $940.89 1.60GHz 11″ MacBook Air 4GB/128GB $1,129.07 1.70GHz 13″ MacBook Air 4GB/128GB $1,216.37 1.70GHz 13″ MacBook Air 4GB/256GB $1,502.52
There is also speculation that Apple has held discussions with LG Display the Company that makes display screens for MAC products, about the possibility of getting access to a new 55 LG OLED panel that will be used in a new Apple TV that will be capable of delivering music, Video & TV shows over an IP network.
On Friday LG said that they will launch a limited production OLED TV late in 2012.
There are no shortage of people advocating for an integrated Apple television, but certainly the leader is Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster who expects one next year.
As far as the big display makers are concerned, Apple’s relationship with LG is probably the strongest. LG makes iPod Touch and iPhone Retina Displays and Apple secured a $500 million dollar investment in LG displays in 2009. The net of that was a temporary exclusive on the panels for the 27-inch display that Apple’s iMacs and now Thunderbolt Displays now use. Sony makes OLEDs as well but doesn’t have a strong relationship with Apple, at least as far as displays are concerned. The other big OLED maker is Samsung, who is now tangled with Apple in patent disputes.
If Apple does do a TV, it will likely have some sort of game-changer tech innovation that Apple could exclusively own for a period of time. A 55-inch OLED would probably qualify even though yields will be low and prices will be astronomical during the ramp up.
We were just rummaging through our web logs today to see how many of you guys have been upgrading to Lion. Imagine our surprise when we saw that 53% of Mac users who visit 9to5mac have already done the update. Here is the breakdown:
Today’s MacOS breakdown on 9to5mac
While our readership isn’t necessarily indicative of the larger Mac community, it does show that you guys have jumped in the deep end in a big way. We should note that a full 10% of our readers were on Lion on Monday (below), having downloaded it ahead of time. Apple today announced that a million people had upgraded to Lion overall, making it the fastest MacOS update in history. Expand Expanding Close
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