Upgrade

Today, aftermarket Mac upgrade specialists OWC announced that the long-awaited PCIe flash storage upgrades for late model Mac laptops are now available. MacBook Pro, as far back as the Late-2013 product cycle, and MacBook Air, as far back as the Mid-2013 product cycle, are eligible to upgrade. Upgrades include a 480GB or a 1TB PCIe-based flash storage solution.

Considering that many of these Macs shipped with anemic 128GB or 256GB SSDs, this can be considered a major upgrade. For instance, with MacBook Airs that featured 128GB of flash storage space, a 1TB upgrade equals 8x the storage space, a significant increase in eligible storage.
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You can get just about anything at the Shenzhen market in China, and that apparently includes an on-the-spot internal storage upgrade for your iPhone (in addition to a long list of counterfeit Apple products). It’s a service that, save for perhaps the most hardcore DIYers, is unheard of stateside.
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Apple’s Q1 2016 earnings results were historic in more ways than one. While Apple’s revenue during the holiday quarter was an all-time record for the company, Apple did indicate that iPhone unit sales would drop year-over-year for the first time next quarter. “We do think that iPhone units will decline in the quarter,” Cook told investors on this week’s call, though observers are quick to point out that this may not be a negative outcome. This simply raises the question: why?

Perhaps users are holding out for the iPhone 7 after the comparatively minor iPhone 6s launch was Apple’s sole-iPhone debut in 2015. Another possibility, however, is that people are holding on to their older devices longer because protective case accessories allow iPhones to last longer.

Indeed, Cook did tell investors on the call that the existing iPhone 5s “continues to do quite well” and that 60% of active iPhone users are using models older than the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which were launched in the fall of 2014. That means that only 40% of iPhone users are working with the latest form-factor found with the 6 and 6s lines.

With all that in mind, cases such as its the CandyShell Clear from Speck Products contribute to older models lasting longer, giving consumers a way to stretch their dollars until their next upgrade. Speck created a case packed with protective features and a slim design to help consumers get the most out of their iPhone. The following are the features of the CandyShell Clear that help it stand out from the competition:

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If Apple only includes one new standout feature on its second-generation Apple Watch next year, what should it be? We already asked you if you’re still wearing your Apple Watch eight months after the device’s launch, and now we want to know what features will get you to upgrade or purchase Apple’s upcoming next-gen smartwatch.

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Adding extra storage to a MacBook using an SD card is easy, but it works like a thumb drive or external hard drive and not like your permanent, built-in storage. That means you’ll have to manually manage the storage, dragging files to and from the drive. But TarDisk Pear lets you add extra flash storage to your MacBook using an SD card and 1-click setup to merge the storage with your internal drive. After a quick setup, the TarDisk SD card installed in your Mac will act as one fusion drive with your built-in storage. I’ve been testing the product to see if it works like it should…

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iFixit has performed its ritual teardown of Apple’s newly refreshed 21.5-inch iMac, and while the machine might be one of Apple’s best yet for specs on the low-end desktop, it gets its worst score ever when it comes to repairability.

Earlier this week Apple officially launched the refreshed entry-level 21.5-inch iMac alongside a new Retina 4K 21.5-inch iMac after upgrading its 27-inch model with the new display tech and refreshed internals last year.

While the previous generation iMacs had many of the same issues resulting in a low repairability score, iFixit notes that the new iMac has a number of the same downsides and then some…
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Ahead of the launch of the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus tomorrow, National Geographic today published a set of photos shot on the new device. Apple’s SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller pointed us to the article, which follows photographer Mark Leong reflecting on his history of shooting with various devices in China over the last 25 years. Head below for a look at the photos shot on Apple’s new flagship iPhone…
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In an effort to compete with Apple’s new iPhone Upgrade Program, T-Mobile today has announced a change to its Jump! On Demand upgrade program to make it even more affordable to get an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus this Friday. T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced the new plans in a series of tweets, taking the opportunity to also, of course, slam the upgrade offerings presented by other carriers…

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With iOS 9 launching later today, it’s worth taking a look at how you should prepare your device for the new operating system. Before installing the update, it is recommended that you have a backup of your data. This how-to is going to walk you through backing up your iOS 8 device and transitioning it over to iOS 9:

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Update: In the year since we posted this, we’ve decided to seek out the best partner and do the trade ins ourselves. After doing a lot of research, we’ve decided to work with Myphonesunlimited who consistently offer the best prices for iPhones, iPads and other Apple, Windows and Android devices. Go check them out.

Apple releases new iPhones every fall, guaranteeing that a massive number of old iPhones will be traded in or sold. The rush will dramatically change the market for used iPhones, so I wanted to help you stay ahead of the curve and get the best deal possible. Having just sold my own iPhone 6 Plus to upgrade to a newer model, I have some strong opinions about your smartest options.

Below, I’ve put together a guide to some of the iPhone selling and trade-in options you should consider. There’s no single “right” answer, since some options trade greater convenience for lower prices, and others have higher prices but greater risks or hassles. You can choose the one that’s best for your needs, but whatever you do, make your choice before iPhone values begin to fall…

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Every time Apple is expected to release an S-series iPhone — the 3GS, the 4S, the 5s, and now the 6S — pundits rush to discount the value of each anticipated new feature, claiming that it won’t be enough to boost iPhone sales. Yet historically, every prediction of iPhone sales peaks or declines has been wrong: each iPhone, whether a big “tick” or small “tock” on Apple’s upgrade schedule, has outsold its predecessors. Even without form factor or screen changes, speed sold the iPhone 3GS, Siri boosted the 4S, and Touch ID and camera improvements helped the 5s. (In S years, improved distribution, new color options, and price and capacity tweaks have made a big difference, too.)

This week, analysts and pundits have co-opted my colleague Mark Gurman’s scoop that Force Touch on the iPhone 6S will be used for shortcuts across iOS, suggesting that Force Touch isn’t going to be exciting enough to make people upgrade. That’s true, but also so obvious as to be ridiculous: Apple certainly won’t pitch a pressure-sensitive screen as the iPhone 6S’s marquee new feature. Force Touch debuted in the Apple Watch, but it’s not even mentioned on the first Apple Watch page on Apple.com, instead showing up in the fifth paragraph of the “Technology” page. It’s similarly found only paragraphs down on the page of the 12″ MacBook where it made its Mac debut.

With the notable exception of the iPad mini 3, Apple never releases new devices with only one new feature to hook customers. Even a month before it’s announced, it’s a virtual certainty that the iPhone 6S will arrive with camera improvements and faster processors, most likely a new color option, and Force Touch as one of many small but nice additions. So long as Apple gets distribution and international pricing right, the iPhone 6S is going to do just fine…

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When I wrote a series of How-To guides showing how easy it was to swap old Mac hard disks for new solid state drives (SSDs), I focused on raw upgrades — slow mechanical drives for fast chip-based ones. The reason was simple: put an SSD in your Mac instead of the old hard disk, and you’ll be blown away by the speed increases. But as several readers have noted, there is another way to add an SSD to your Mac: you can keep your old hard drive, and instead replace the Mac’s CD/DVD optical drive, also known as a SuperDrive.

Swapping a SuperDrive for an SSD has a mix of pros and cons. It’s typically a little easier and less expensive to replace the SuperDrive than a stock hard drive, and you’ll always wind up with more internal storage than you started with. But you also lose CD/DVD reading and writing abilities — things fewer people care about these days — and you’ll need to set up your Mac to properly take advantage of the SSD. Read on for the details…

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The iPhone 6 was the iPhone many had long been waiting for, offering a larger screen size and NFC support for Apple Pay. Unsurprisingly, it opened to record sales, and has continued to break sales records ever since.

But Apple’s ‘tick tock’ strategy –a major new iPhone one year and an updated model based on the same form factor the following year – means that the company has to work much harder to sell its S models. With little visual difference (and the average mass-market customer oblivious to processor upgrades), Apple has to rely on a headline new feature to persuade people that it’s worth the upgrade.

For the last couple of S models, Apple has offered pretty convincing reasons to buy: the 4S gave us Siri, and the 5s introduced Touch ID – both appealing features that were easy for non-tech customers to understand. But if the rumors are correct that Force Touch is the headline new feature of the iPhone 6S, this is one of five reasons I think the company’s rumored ambition to make 90M units by the end of the year could be a tough number to turn into sales … 
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For the month of June, Apple is giving a small boost to its trade-in price values for the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and iPhone 5S, according to Apple Store sources. Using the Reuse and Recycle program, a customer can bring in an older iPhone model and receive gift card credit toward the purchase of a newer iPhone. Likely in order to spur some new iPhone sales this month, Apple is offering the following improvements to its trade-in pricing:

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Over the past two weeks, I’ve written about the (surprisingly easy) process of adding solid state drives (SSDs) to radically speed up older iMacs, and the varied challenge levels of adding SSDs to older Mac Pros, Mac minis, and non-Retina MacBooks. Today’s guide looks at the easiest SSD installations of all: the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro. A new SSD in one of these machines could have two, four, eight, or sixteen times the original storage, plus two to four times faster speeds.

Apple shipped most MacBook Airs and all Retina MacBook Pros with solid state storage, so upgrading these machines for extra capacity and speed is generally as simple as picking a new drive, then using two special screwdrivers during the installation process. Assuming your MacBook is old enough to be out of warranty — except for a few specific models — you’ll find that pretty much anyone can handle this swap with the right tools. Below, I’m going to show those tools to you, as well as the MacBook-ready SSDs that are worth considering…

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After last month announcing its $70/month iPhone for Life plan that allows users to “rent” an iPhone and upgrade every two years, today Sprint announced that it will be launching a new 12-month lease option starting Nov. 14. That means that iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users signing up for the iPhone for Life Plan will now be able to upgrade every year, and the old 24-month plan will become available for the iPhone 5S.
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