Imac2012
Latest
Apple to replace broken 3TB hard drives in some older iMacs
If you have a 27-inch iMac with a 3TB hard drive that conked out on you recently, check your receipt. Apple might be able to fix it for you, so long as it's a late 2012 model and was purchased between December 2012 and September 2013. Cupertino has issued a bulletin warning buyers that "a very small number of 3TB hard drives" in the system "may fail under certain conditions," and is offering to replace affected ones for free. The company didn't elaborate, but commenters on the MacRumors forum believe some of the model's HDDs came from a batch of faulty drives Seagate released sometime ago. In fact, Apple has conducted similar programs in the past to replace 1TB Seagate drives.
Jimi: A brilliant little innovation for iMac owners
The late great rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix was an innovator, doing things with amplifier feedback that had never been done before and changing the sound of rock music forever. Now design firm Bluelounge has given Jimi's name to a nifty little innovation that makes life easier for owners of the newer slim unibody iMacs. While it won't have as lasting an impact on history of the world as Jimi Hendrix's music did, the Jimi USB Port Extension (US$14.95) at least gives iMac users something to be thankful for every time they want to plug in a USB cable. Jimi is cleverly designed to transition the vertical USB port on the back of the iMac to a horizontal USB port that pokes out from the bottom of your computer. Rather than blindly fumbling around trying to plug something into a port on the iMac, it's right at your fingertips at the bottom of the display. Jimi is unobtrusive and works on all four USB 3.0 ports on the 21.5" iMac slim unibody and the three leftmost (as viewed from the back of the computer) USB 3.0 ports on the 27" iMac slim unibody. There's really not much more to be said about this little J-shaped port extender, other than if you have one of the late 2012 or newer iMacs, you need to buy at least one Jimi. The first time that you use it and don't have to grope the back of your iMac trying to find a port, you'll thank me. Rating: 4 stars out of 4 stars possible
Daily Update for March 4, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Apple iMac review (2012)
Better, faster, stronger. The new iMac claims to be better in all the ways you'd expect a refreshed product to be better: it steps up to Ivy Bridge, and packs NVIDIA Kepler chips for stronger graphics performance. It sports an improved display that cuts down on glare by 75 percent. But thinner? For the first time in the product's history, the iMac is missing a built-in optical drive, which allows it to measure just 5mm thick around the edges. We can't say we've been waiting for a desktop quite that skinny, but if the new iMac delivers substantive improvements over the last-gen model, we won't begrudge Apple a little eye candy. So, does the iMac do more than just sit pretty? Are the performance and display as good as we've been led to believe? In a word, yes. Here's why.
New iMacs on sale now starting at $1,299, we unbox both of them
This is more of a PSA than anything else: just like Apple said they'd be, the new iMacs are on sale today, with the 21.5-inch model available right away and the 27-inch version shipping in December. The smaller guy starts at $1,299, though there's also a more tricked-out $1,499 version; the 27-incher starts at $1,799 and goes up to $1,999. Whichever the model, a few key design principles apply. For staters, both measure just 5mm thick at the edges, and neither has a built-in optical drive. Both promise a 15 to 20 percent performance boost fueled partly by Ivy Bridge, and partly by Apple's new FusionDrive, which combines an HDD with a 128GB solid-state drive, with everything stored on the SSD by default until you run out of space. Finally, both promise 75 percent less screen glare, thanks to a manufacturing process that eliminates the gap between the LCD and the glass. (Apple and other OEMs already use a similar technique on smartphones; we've just never seen it done on a screen quite this large.) So what separates the two, then, aside from screen size? Specs, mostly. And also, resolution. The 21-inch version has a 1,920 x 1,080 pixel count, while the 27-incher steps up to 2,560 x 1,440. (In other words, the same resolution as last year's offerings.) While both pack quad-core Core i5 processors, the 21.5-inch model starts with a 2.7GHz clock speed, compared with 2.9GHz for the bigger guy. As you might have guessed, the graphics are slightly better on the larger version: NVIDIA's GTX 660M is standard there, versus GT 640M on the 21-incher. Both offer 1TB of storage, but the smaller machine uses a 5,400RPM drive while the bigger one has a 7,200RPM disk. The 27-incher can also be configured with a 3TB drive or 768GB SSD. As for RAM, both come with eight gigs standard, but the 21.5-inch model goes up to 16GB, while the 27-inch version goes up to 32GB and has user-accessible memory slots. As it happens, we have two new iMacs here in house (one in each size, natch) and you can expect a full review very soon. For now, though, we've got some unboxing shots and first impressions just past the break.
Redesigned Apple iMacs available from November 30th, 27-inch model shipping next month
Apple's announced that its updated 21.5-inch iMac range will be in stores and online on November 30th. The bigger 27-inch version will arrive later and start shipping next month. This year's refresh manages to cram a 1TB Fusion Drive, quad-core Core i5 processor and NVIDIA graphics into that oh-so-slim redesigned chassis. The 21.5-inch version is available with a 2.7GHz processor and NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M, priced at $1,299. However, bump the processor up to the 2.9GHz variant and NVIDIA's GeForce GT 650M and you can expect to pay $1,499. If you're willing to wait for the 27-incher, build options start with a 2.9GHz processor and a GeForce GTX 660M at $1,799, moving up to $1,999 for the top-of-the-range 3.2GHz Core i5 model with GeForce GTX 675MX graphics. A shame it missed those Black Friday sales, though.
Apple's Oct. 23rd event roundup: iPad mini, 4th gen iPad, new iMac, 13-inch Retina MBP and more
Apple teased that it had "a little more to show" us prior to today's San Francisco event, but it's clear now that the phrasing was humble at best. Not only has the much-anticipated, rumored and leaked 7.9-inch iPad mini been officially revealed, but so has a smattering of new and refreshed offerings across its range of gizmos. The standard iPad is seeing its fastest refresh yet (about six months) to a Lighting port and A6X-packing fourth-generation model, and the iMac has ditched its optical drive to go Air-thin in its Ivy Bridge-driven seventh-generation. Mobile power users should be especially be pleased, too, as a 13-inch variant of the MacBook Pro with a 2,560 x 1,600 Retina Display is now a reality. Lest we forgot that the iBooks app and iBooks Author have both been updated -- right on cue with that book-like iPad Mini. Hop past the break for a full listing of all the news and all of our on-scene coverage that came out of today's event.
