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December 2014
If you wanted an external drive for booting a PowerPC Mac, you officially needed a FireWire one. But it seems some PowerPC Macs can boot from USB.
Changing the hard drive in a Clamshell iBook G3 requires a complete strip down. I look at modding it to make it easier.
I love Macs, and I’ve been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I haven’t had much time to write lately, but that’s finally changing.
It’s debatable whether the Mac IIsi is really a Second Class Mac. The IIsi was a bit of an odd duck. On the one hand, it was the only Mac II to ship without a NuBus slot. On the other hand, it could be seen as a monitor-less SE/30.
I’ve been getting email since Remy Davison published The 10 Worst Macs Ever Built on Insanely Great Mac. Shouldn’t I add the Mac Classic to the Second Class Macs list?
When it was introduced in February 2006, the Core Duo Mac mini was the smallest desktop computer on the market – and the second-least expensive Macintosh Apple had ever built. As with other first-generation Intel Macs, the price was $100 higher than the model it replaced.
When it was introduced in January 2005, the G4 Mac mini was the smallest desktop computer on the market – and the least expensive Mac Apple had ever built. Measuring 6.5″ square and 2″ tall, the Mac mini was dwarved by almost any desktop computer built before it.
The Yikes! Power Mac G4 is essentially a Blue & White Power Mac G3 with a better CPU and no ADB port. If the Blue & White G3 is a Best Buy, why is the Yikes! G4 a Road Apple?
We try to avoid calling any Mac a Road Apple while it’s in production, so we conducted our post mortem after the Cube was “put on ice”.
The iMac was a positively brilliant departure from conventional computer design, but the USB mouse and keyboard were less than brilliant departures from the norm.
In the history of mouse design, none have earned more scorn than the round USB mouse that Apple shipped with early iMacs and Power Macs with USB.
SCSI isn’t the black art it sometimes seems to be, but the various terms different people use for the same thing makes it tough to sort out. I hope the following lessens the confusion.
2014 – If you were on the Mac Web in July 2007, you probably saw Fudder’s article, The Very First iPhone – or at least stories about the article or links to it. The mock-up (below) was created by Frog Design, built by Hertmut Esslinger, and bears more than a passing resemblance to the Apple IIc.
In 2006 or so, Dan Warne published his list of the top 30 mistakes made by new Mac users. We want to revisit them.
Apple made the biggest change in Macintosh history with the introduction of the Macintosh II and SE in 1987.
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November 2014
If you follow Low End Mac on Facebook, you’ve probably seen a link to an article from Redmond Pi claiming that upgrading from iOS 8.1 to iOS 8.1.1 may free up to 500 MB of space on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. As the owner of an 8 GB iPhone 4S, I had to test […]
We live in a society obsessed with cable-free technology, but just how much do we rely on chargeable devices?
iOS 5 and 6 brought quick posting to social media, which was removed in iOS 7. TapToShare app brings back those shortcuts for iOS 8.
The gory classic controversial splat fest racing game comes to a mobile phone near you.
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October 2014
With a recent upgrade to an iPhone 5, I take a look at the Mophie Juice Pack Air.
The Mac mini has always been the runt of the Mac litter, and not just in size. When Apple upgraded the G4 model, it never announced it. The Mini ran a Core Duo CPU long after everything else had migrated to Core 2 Duo. And now it’s been almost two years since the Mini was last […]
Is your iPhone battery not lasting as long as you would like? Here are a few tips on how to extend your battery.
Since its introduction in 2007, the iPhone has only had one button on the front of it, the home button. What can it do?
Last week, I decided to switch to Bing. It all started with wanting to add two-factor authentication to my accounts. One of the websites I was using wasn’t playing nicely with Chrome, so I was using Internet Explorer. I ended up completing a Bing search, and then it was love at first sight.
The iPhone 5 might be two years old now, but this is Low End Mac. I take a look at the hardware and how it handles iOS 8.
Apple released OS X 10.10 Yosemite yesterday, and I take a look at their latest offering.
You really have to wonder what Apple was thinking by releasing an iMac with a 5120 x 2880 pixel Retina Display. After all, the regular 27″ iMac already has a 2560 x 1440 pixel display, which goes well beyond HD TV quality. That said, 4K resolution (4096 x 2160 pixels) is the extra high definition […]
It’s been almost two years since the Mac mini was last updated, and while a 1.4 GHz Core i5 CPU may not sound very powerful, the new US$499 price tag is sure to get your attention. Also, iFixit has a confirmed that the Late 2014 Mac mini ships with memory soldered to the logic board, so RAM […]
In October 2014, Apple made the iPad Air thinner and gave it a more powerful processor, Apple’s A8X chip – the same chip found in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. This was also the first time an iPad was available in gold. The heart of the iPad Air 2 is Apple’s first triple-core CPU, the […]
The big difference between the iPad mini 2 and iPad mini 3 is the addition of Apple’s fingerprint sensor in the Home button of the Mini 3. The small difference is the addition of gold to space gray and silver finishes. As with the iPad Air 2, which was introduced at the same time, Apple […]
I’m always up for something free, and if that is a piece of music, then I’ll give it a fair listen too. So when Apple ‘gave’ me the latest U2 album, Songs Of Innocence, I thought I would give it a go.
Microsoft are set to launch their new version of Windows in 2015. I take a quick look at the recently released Windows 10 Technical Preview.
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September 2014
Do you have a passion for Apple equipment? Do you like older kit? Would you like to write for a long running Mac website?
I have an 8 GB iPhone 4S, and the only way I was able to install iOS 8 without using iTunes was by wiping it back to its original state. No matter how many apps and files I removed, I could not create enough free space for the iOS 8 installer otherwise. Apple brags about […]
Apple dropped and buried the iPhone 5 in 2013, keeping the iPhone 4s as their budget model. What does the future hold for the iPhone 5?
One of the new additions in iOS 8 is the ability to turn the screen colours off and make the iDevice run in monochrome. I check it out.
iOS 8 has one steep requirement for those who want to upgrade to it directly on their iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. You need 5.6 GB of free space to load and run the installer – even though the core iOS 8 installation is under 1 GB. That can be a real problem with 8 GB iDevices.
I purchased a badly abused 17” Aluminum PowerBook G4 in the summer of 2012. It had a badly smashed lower case assembly, missing Enter key, a nonfunctional LCD, a bum battery, and not very many screws holding her together. I’ve always liked the design of the 17” PowerBook and felt the Aluminum PowerBooks have the best […]
I just vacationed in Myrtle Beach, SC with the wife and kids, and like many other tech savvy media fanatics with children who visit hotels and resorts, I was well aware that you just don’t know for sure what kind of WiFi, data connectivity, or display/HDTV you are going to have at your disposal to […]
Low-end Mac and iOS users have a love-hate relationship with Apple. We love new hardware and new operating systems and new features. We hate old hardware and operating systems being left behind.
I test iOS 8 on my iPhone 4s out in the wild, my first day with the new OS. How does it go?
iOS 8 has just been released, and I take a quick initial look at it on my iPhone 4s.
I love the original iPhone, but it’s lack of 3G mobile speed can be a big problem when out and about. There is a workaround.
Skype used to work on just about any system, but recent changes has seen system requirements increased and lots of devices cut.
The Centris series of Macs only included three models: the 20 MHz Centris 610, the 25 MHz Centris 650, and the Centris 660av, which is identical to the Quadra 660av. The 660av is covered on Overclocking the Quadra AV Models.
The AV Quadras stand apart from the rest of the Quadra line with their AT&T Hobbit coprocessors and GeoPort serial ports. both the 660av and 840av can be overclocked.
Only two Mac LC models can be overclocked to improve performance. The LC II and LC III can be chipped; the original LC and LC III+ cannot be overclocked. You can also upgrade LC models using third-party accelerators the plug into the LC processor direct slot (PDS), which will bring more performance at a higher […]
Not all Macs can be over clocked, but three models in the Mac II lines can – the IIsi, Iivx, and “wicked fast” IIfx. These pages provide information on the maximum reliable speed, which may vary from one machine to the next.
Where were you on 9/9/1999?
Do you have more than one iDevice with different versions of iOS? Syncing them on the same Mac can be difficult, but here is a simple trick.
As widely rumored in recent months, Apple unveiled the iPhone 6 this week – and in the two sizes expected. The smaller model, with a 4.7″ display, is called the iPhone 6. The larger one, with a phablet-sized 5.5″ screen is the iPhone 6 Plus.
My attempts to revive an old iPhone have finally come to an end. I say good-bye to this beat up beast, but it’s not all bad news.
After months of rumors, Apple finally announced the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. Is it what we expected?
While the world was busy saying hello to the new Apple Watch and iPhone 6, Apple quietly said farewell to one of its most iconic products, the iPod classic. Indeed, after nearly 13 years on the market, the device that defined and dominated the portable music player industry is no more.
With its 5.5″ display, the iPhone 6 Plus was very competitive with the largest Android smartphones and phablets, which had helped Android cut into into iPhone sales. The iPhone 6 Plus is even bigger and heavier than the iPhone 6, and it was the first iPhone to provide a full 1920 x 1080 resolution display – the same […]
The iPhone 6 broke with Apple’s traditionally small displays to keep the iPhone competitive with the larger Android smartphones that dominated the market and were cutting into iPhone sales. The iPhone 6 moved to a 4.7″ display from the 4.0″ of the iPhone 5 family, while the 6 Plus was a substantial 5.5″. The iPhone 6 is […]
I am a huge fan of Mophie products and picked up a Juice Pack Air for the older iPhone 3G/3GS. This is a mini review.
Unlocking an iPhone in the UK isn’t always as easy you might think. Sometimes it’s impossible. Here’s why.
Have no mobile data? Here is the third and final instalment in my using only free WiFi on your smartphone.
Last year, I was excited to review a manual typewriter from Royal. Yes, you heard right – a manual typewriter. In 2012, the manual typewriter was declared dead. The death of the manual typewriter had been greatly exaggerated, as was proven when I reviewed the Royal Scrittore from Hammacher-Schlemmer. Unfortunately, my excitement turned to disappointment as I […]
If you’ve been on Facebook this weekend, chances are you’ve seen a link to a Cult of Mac article entitled See How Mac Magically Decluttered Our Desks Over Past 35 Years. And if you saw it, you probably clicked on it and saw the animation showing how that took place.
Road Apples. That’s our category for the worst products Apple ever made. Products such as the Apple III and the Performa 5200 that just had to many compromises or reliability issues for us to ever recommend using them. We think it’s fitting to name them after horse droppings.
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August 2014
Dropbox for your mobile offers a superb over-the-air Photo Stream alternative for older iPhones, Androids, and other platforms.
I’ve been using Classic Mode on G4 Power Macs for years, but now I have a 2.3 GHz Power Mac G5 with dual processors. It can’t boot Mac OS 9 natively, but it can run Classic Mode. How fast is it?
When Apple introduced the Power Mac G5 in June 2003, it made a big deal of the G5 being a 64-bit CPU. It even mentioned that on the box. But what does that mean to Mac users?
PowerBooks don’t look or feel like “regular” Macs, but they are just as powerful as desktop Macs, sound like desktop Macs, and even smell like desktop Macs.
Someone in our Facebook group asked an interesting question: “Anyone know the maximum size flash drive that can be used in OS 9.2 on a 300 MHz iBook G3?”
Second Class Macs are Macs you should buy with your eyes wide open – if you buy them at all. The only ones I would put on the “avoid at all costs” list are those with three or four apples. The Macs with only one or two apples can be very nice computers as long as […]
This is the fourth in a series of articles showing how Adam Rosen uses four vintage Macs to read, recover, convert, transfer, and return files to his clients. Today he shares how he uses his Power Mac G4 Cube running OS X 10.4 Tiger.
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July 2014
This is the third in a series of articles showing how Adam Rosen uses four vintage Macs to read, recover, convert, transfer, and return files to his clients. Today he looks at his PowerBook G3 WallStreet running Mac OS 9.2.2.
The Mid 2014 Retina MacBooks is essentially a speed bumped version of the Late 2013 model with the base model also boosted from 4 GB of system memory to 8 GB. As with all Retina MacBook Pros, this one is built around SSD technology for enhanced speed and ruggedness, not to mention allowing for a slimmer, cooler running […]
Nine months after the Late 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina Display, Apple moved forward with more power and twice-as-fast Thunderbolt 2 technology in July 2014. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display (a.k.a. Retina MacBook Pro) remains the thinnest MacBook Pro at 0.71″. That’s MacBook Air thin, but unlike the Air, this model doesn’t have a wedge design. Also […]
Hi, Low End Mac readers. My name is Robert Bryant, and I am a computer tech in Central California just south of San Jose. As a daily Mac Pro user, I wanted to provide the Low End Mac community with the necessary steps to take a base model 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 or 2007 2,1 […]
This is the second in a series of articles showing how Adam Rosen uses four vintage Macs to read, recover, convert, transfer, and return files to his clients. Today we look at how he uses his Quadra 840av running Mac OS 8.1.
This is the first in a series of articles showing how Adam Rosen uses four vintage Macs to read, recover, convert, transfer, and return files to his clients. Today’s installment covers the Mac Plus.
The ongoing saga of my iPhone restoration project hit a snag, but I am not giving up on it. Read my latest instalment.
Remember when ergonomic keyboards were all the rage in fighting carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive stress injuries? Remember how incredibly huge most of those keyboards were? Well, I’d forgotten about them until I received this monstrosity with a recently acquired Power Mac G5.
High-end phones are great, but if your budget doesn’t stretch or your needs are minimal, a low-end Android can give you the smartphone experience with little expense. Today I look at the Samsung Galaxy Y.
The power supply in my Power Mac G5 fried itself. What G5 Power Macs can I use for a donor power supply?
Microsoft PowerPoint began its life as Presenter and was published for exclusively Macintosh by Forethought, Inc. Microsoft acquired Forethought in 1987 and renamed the app PowerPoint.
After years with DirecTV, we’ve decided to cut back as much as possible on the cost of watching TV. We’ve cut back to the lowest cost DirecTV package until we can put up a good antenna, and we’re using Netflix and Hulu Plus for the bulk of our viewing.
As a fan of the Mophie Juice Pack Plus – a case with built in rechargeable battery -I wanted to see how the Juice Pack Air compared.
Mobile phones might have advanced in the past few years, but the batteries powering them haven’t. The biggest complaint from smartphone owners is battery life. Smartphones today can do just about everything, but to get some of them to last a whole day without running out of battery you have to turn most of the […]
Have you ever picked up a very cheap PC and brought it home – only to find that it was far more than you had imagined?
What’s 12″ long, consumes up to 10 amps of 5-volt power, and is without equal in Macintosh history? If you were thinking the World’s Noisiest Hard Drive, you’re close, but the real answer is the amazing Radius Rocket series of NuBus cards.
We’re going to give you a different take on tech news. No rumors. No press releases. No news based on a third-hand report. We’re going to give you real tech news with a low-end twist.
We’re trying to do something different with tech news: no rumors, no reprinted press releases, no minor software update notices, and nothing based solely on a third-hand report. We take our tech news seriously.
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June 2014
Original article by: Daniel Jansen Arthur, legendary King of England, became the code-name for the third generation PowerPC (PPC) processor, eventually named the 740 and 750. The successor of the 603e, these third-generation CPUs were optimized to run real software, not for some theoretical ideal. Early benchmarks show the 750 outperforming the 604e, making it look like […]
Original article by: Daniel Jansen First available in the Power Mac G4 in late 1999, the G4 processor is to the G3 as the 604 was to the 603 – and then some! Like the 604, and unlike the G3, G4 is designed for multiprocessor operation. It also runs about 25% faster for basic floating point math […]
Mac OS 8 introduced several modern features while still supporting Quadras and 68040-based PowerBooks and Performas.
I’m a sucker for novelty gadgets, and when I saw a tiny speaker called the Mighty Boom Ball promising big sound, I could resist trying it.
If you are a fan of racing games, you should check out the latest mobile high speed instalment of the Asphalt range. Step up Asphault 8 Airborne.
The choice of System software for a 68k Mac* is not so simple as deciding what software to run on a modern computer. While it’s very difficult to ignore the hum of newer, faster, better in the modern computing world, the vintage Mac user really has the option to choose.
System 7.5 and Mac OS 7.6 introduced many new features and greater modernity while staying within reach of most early Macintosh models.
After a recommendation from a friend, I took a look at Xubuntu 14.04 – the latest LTS version.
The early versions of System 7 provide broader capability for modern tasks than System 6 while still being practical for even the lowliest Macs.
Original article by: Daniel Jansen The biggest change in the Apple product line prior to 2006 was the transition from Motorola 680×0 CPUs to the PowerPC (PPC) family of CPUs. Designed by a consortium of Apple, IBM, and Motorola (a.k.a. the AIM Alliance) and based on IBM’s POWER architecture, PowerPC became the most widely used RISC […]
Original article by: Daniel Jansen The second generation split the PowerPC (PPC) line into entry level 603 and power user 604 chips. The 603 has only 1.6 million transistors, draws about half as much power as the 601, has two smaller caches (8 KB for instructions, 8 KB for data vs. a 32 KB unified […]
Original article by: Daniel Jansen The “power user” second generation PowerPC (PPC) CPU was the 604, unveiled in December 1994 along with the 603. Containing 3.6 million transistors, drawing twice the power of the 601, and with a dual L1 cache (16 KB for instructions, 16 KB for data), this workhorse could deal with four […]
We’ve published our first article on the Mid 2014 21.5″ iMac with its 1.4 GHz low-power dual-core i5 CPU, and Chris Carson was not impressed with its value. I want to treat is as fairly and unemotionally as possible, so let’s take a closer look.
What happens when you take a MacBook Air’s logic board, a 2012 MacBook Pro’s hard drive, and shove them into an iMac’s case? You have a modern day Mac Classic without the charm and without the sub-$1,000 price. You’d also get a lot of people like me asking, Why?
I spent a couple of weeks in sunny Italy in May – lucky me! Before going, I probably spent as much time trying to figure out what gear to take as I did researching hotels and the like.
LibreOffice is a free alternative to the not-inexpensive Microsoft Office suite. I’m using it to replace AppleWorks, which I’ve been using since ClarisWorks 1.0 shipped back in the System 7.0 era. Unfortunately, AppleWorks is incompatible with OS X 10.7 Lion and later, so I’ve had to find an alternative since installing OS X 10.9 Mavericks […]
Ding! Welcome to Macintosh. Whirr whirr whirr. A scant few seconds later, you’re clicking on Microsoft Word 5.1a and beginning to type.
Low End Mac has had a presence on Facebook for quite a while, and we’ve been adding more Low End communities using Facebook groups for some time.
As Low End Android’s new writer, I figure I should introduce myself. My name is Zach Elliott, and I’ve been a Low End Mac viewer since 2006 when I started collecting vintage Macs while in high school. After I graduated, I attended the University of Oklahoma and graduated in May 2013 with a Bachelors of […]
You may know that Apple’s original networking protocol was LocalTalk, which was replaced by Ethernet in the early 1990s. What you may not know about is Farallon’s clever EtherWave networking solution that bridged the two technologies.
In what appears to be a step backward, Apple has added a new, lower cost, entry-level 21″ iMac as the least expensive model added to the Late 2013 line. The new model uses an ultra-low-power 1.4 GHz dual-core Intel i5 CPU with Turbo Boost to 2.7 GHz – the rated clock speed of the previous entry-level […]
Apple’s first generation of Intel-based Macs (not counting the pro-oriented 2006 Mac Pro and Xservv), is build around Intel’s first generation Core technology. Except for the seriously underpowered Core Solo Mac mini, they all use the Core Duo CPU and are thus unable to run the OS X 10.7 Lion installer – or anything newer. In fact, Apple won’t […]
The earliest personal computers used 8-bitCPUs (central processing units). Apple, Commodore, Rockwell, and Atari designed their computers around the MOS Tech 6502; Radio Shack’s Color Computer used the Motorola 6809; and most others, including the Radio ShackTRS-80 and all CP/M computers, used the Zilog Z-80 or Intel 8080. All ran in the 1-4 MHz range and […]
Apple took a big step when it introduced the 68020-based Mac II in March 1987. The new computer was modular, not an all-in-one design like the first four Macs. In addition to 6 expansion slots, a huge power supply, color support, and room for two floppy drives and an internal hard drive, the Mac II runs its […]
Apple introduced the Mac IIx, which has a 16 MHz 68030 CPU, in September 1988. The 68030 incorporates the memory management unit (MMU), which was a separate chip for the 68020, giving the ‘030 the ability to use virtual memory (VM) with third-party software, although Apple didn’t include VM as part of the Mac OS until System 7 in […]
The Quadra 700 and 900 introduced the 68040 in 1991. In great part due to a much larger L1 cache (4 KB for data and 4 KB for instructions vs. 256 bytes in the 68030) and parts of the CPU running at twice clock speed, the 68040 provides 2.5-3 times the performance of the 68030 at […]
Mobile phones and smartphones might have progressed rapidly over the years, but are we just a slave to having the newest must-have feature? Could you break free?
It’s my birthday, and I realized I’ve been using Macs for half my life. I was 28 years old when I first used a Mac Plus way back in 1986, along with PageMaker 1.0 and the original LaserWriter printer. And 28 years later, I know a lot more about Macs – and myself.
Following on from my previous two articles, I ran further tests on my MacBook to see how it performs under different RAM and different versions of OS X and against an original Intel iMac.
In this comparison I look at how OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard compares when running my Early 2009 MacBook with 2 GB vs. 4 GB RAM, and I see how Snow Leopard compares to OS X 10.9 Mavericks.
Two machines and one operating system – which one performs better? I test them out with surprising results.
With the Motorola 680×0 architecture running out of steam and Motorola’s 88000 making haste slowly, Apple had to look a bit further afield for its next processor architecture. Here’s how IBM’s RISC project became the heart of the Mac.
This is part two of an epic saga about one man and his Macintosh SE. If you missed the first part or maybe you just need to get a quick refresh about part one, feel free to go back and enjoy it again.
Alex Schure founded the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) in 1955 to take advantage of the wave of students studying under the GI Bill. NYIT was initially a correspondence school awarding technical certificates. It distinguished itself from the other technical schools by sending graduates a mess of electronics parts supposedly taken from Soviet warehouses […]
John Sculley, who had once been hailed as Apple’s savior for huge sales increases and good PR (like Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and Steve Jobs rolled in one) had presided over the splintering of the product line and a sharp decline in market share. The same trends continued after Sculley was forced out, and the […]
2005.11.15 From the day of his appointment as Apple CEO in February 1996, Gil Amelio presided over an ailing company. After the near-disastrous reign of Michael Spindler, Amelio promised to change the corporate ethos of Apple.
Low End Mac has just launched its YouTube channel, showcasing videos of repairs, upgrades, and mods of Apple kit, as well as general news and product videos.
Put simply, you can’t. With the introduction of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in August 2009, Apple removed all support for PowerPC Macs from its operating system. You cannot run OS X 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, or 10.10 on G5 Macs or anything earlier. They will only run on Intel x86 hardware.
Apple previewed OS X 10.10 Yosemite on June 2, 2014, at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). In addition to a lot of new features and a whole new level of integration with iOS devices, Yosemite looks like the most beautiful version of the Mac OS to date. Redesigned Interface Just as Apple overhauled the look […]
Apple’s 2014 World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) brought much anticipated news of the next versions of Mac OS X and iOS. I sum up their main features.
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May 2014
There are frankly crazy rumors going about that Apple is ready to launch MacBooks, Mac minis, and perhaps even iMacs with up to four 4-core ARM-based CPUs. The next generation iPhone/iPad CPU will almost certainly be a 4-core 64-bit Apple chip named the A8. But in Macs?
I recently brought an original iPhone back from the brink, but it had audio issues. This article shows how to fix the reversed audio issue.
Changes to my writing content expanding to cover a variety of subjects, sees my column name change to Tech Spectrum.
I recently installed the lightweight Linux distro LXLE on a netbook and then on an aging laptop. Now I compare the two machines.
Apple really overhauled iOS when it released version 7 last year with better multitasking, improved background processing, scheduled connectivity, optimized memory use, and a cleaner, lighter looking interface. What can we expect from iOS 8?
I really dislike throwing out any tech kit. If it can be saved, I will do my best to revive it and reuse it. Recently I saved an original iPhone from certain doom.
With another “well duh” headline, Cult of Mac told us yesterday, Survey Finds Battery Life Is Most Important for iPhone Owners. Didn’t the fact that we use 3.5″ and 4″ smartphones while the Android world has gone bigger kind of make that obvious?
Apple is notoriously tight-lipped about upcoming OS versions and hardware. We fully expect OS X 10.10 to ship sometime this year, probably after a preview at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) held June 2-6, 2014.
Last July I looked at the then-current Facebook app, compared it with using Safari to view Facebook, and found the app lacking. Today I’m looking at the latest version, 5.0, and comparing it with three different browsers using my iPhone 4S running iOS 7.1.1.
Could the iPhone 3G be the ultimate basic iPhone for those who aren’t interested in keeping up with the latest versions?
How do you prevent unwanted email from showing up in your in box? If you’re a Yahoo! Mail user, it’s really quite easy.
White, blue, green, pink, or yellow? I take a look at Apple’s colourful addition to the iPhone range.
The inventor of the compact disc (CD), the most popular medium in the world for playing back and storing music, is often disputed, as one individual did not invent every part of the compact disc.
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April 2014
In my previous Low End Mac article, I wrote that I was planning a trip for later this spring. I wrote about options for take-along tech gadgets: digital cameras (small is good), mobile phones (get a local SIM at your destination), tablets (bigger than a mobile phone, less capable than a laptop, but good enough for […]
The Early 2014 MacBook Air (MBA) gets a speed bump and is rated at 12 hours in the field – and if you don’t use your MBA regularly, it has 30 days of standby power. Built around 4th-generation low-power Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, the Early 2014 MBA has Intel HD Graphics 5000. And with Power […]
Once again the MacBook Air (MBA) takes a step forward with more processing power and improved battery life. The 11″ model is rated at 9 hours in the field, and if you don’t use your MBA regularly, it has 30 days of standby power. Built around 4th-generation low-power Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, the Early 2014 MBA […]
Over the weekend we updated to WordPress version 3.9, and there are some real changes writers should know about. Most of the changes show up in the Ultimate TinyMCE plugin we use for WYSIWYG editing.
Adobe Photoshop™ was, for a time, the killer app for the Macintosh. During the mid-90s, publishing and graphic design had supplanted consumers as the most important market to target, at least in the eyes of former Apple CEOs Gil Amelio and Michael Spindler.
Apple Corps was founded as a tax haven for the Beatles’ considerable cash reserves in January 1968. Apple Corps would finance a record label and other pet projects of the band members while also providing a “front” for their financial activities to reduce personal liability and taxes.
Apple had transformed from a small three man venture in the late 1970s into a huge, multinational corporation in the late 1980s. With these changes came troubles.
The first Apple proposal to move the Macintosh to Intel hardware did not begin with Mac OS X. It began in 1985, shortly after Steve Jobs’ departure from Apple. The project was quickly nixed by Apple’s management, but it would be revived several years later in a joint effort by Novell and Apple to port the […]
Cable and satellite TV are growing more expensive all the time. If you’re looking to reduce your entertainment costs, an older laptop can be an easy way to do so.
Steve Jobs’ career at Apple was unique. His unconventional leadership helped create Apple’s two most important products of the 70s and 80s: the Apple II and the Macintosh. Unfortunately for Jobs, the CEO he had recruited, John Sculley, was not happy with the risks Jobs was willing to take. After a short power struggle that […]
Personal computer history doesn’t begin with IBM or Microsoft, although Microsoft was an early participant in the fledgling PC industry.
Way back in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was rare enough to have a personal computer in the home, classroom, or office. Today it’s common to have several computers, tablets, and/or smartphones in the workplace, school, or home.
From nearly the beginning, Macs have supported built-in networking using a protocol known as AppleTalk. While networking is common today, outside of large businesses and institutions, networked computers were the exception in the mid 1980s. Out-of-the-box networking was a major selling point for the Mac.
With Windows XP support officially ended, switching to Linux could be a way of saving low-end hardware. I compare two identical machines, one running XP, the other running LXLE. Let the fun begin.
I put my MacBook out of the way and installed LXLE on a 10” netbook. Find out what I think after an entire day of use.
This weekend, Linda relayed a question from a colleague who wondered what sort of tech gear to take travelling. As with most simple to ask tech questions, my best short answer is. “It depends.” So let’s expand on it a bit.
As Mac OS X was starting out in 2001, Jonathan Ploudre looked back at BeOS, which Apple had considered as a potential replacement for the Classic Mac OS when it gave up on its Copland project. BeOS had much to commend itself, including a whole different kind of system architecture that made even older Macs […]
In this series of articles from 2001, Jonathan Ploudre looks at the unfulfilled promises of PowerBooks – and where they really come through.
In early 2001, just as the first version of iTunes was coming to market, Jonathan Ploudre wrote a short series of articles on home networking and setting up an old Mac as a network appliance.
In 2000, Jonathan Ploudre did a lengthy series of articles explaining where work bottlenecks are and provided tips on how to best work around them. Speed Reconsidered points out the real world performance isn’t always related to hardware speed. Bottlenecks: What Is Your Mac’s Slowest Component? explains that the thing that most holds back your […]
Back in 2000, Jonathan Ploudre wrote a 4-part series on Macs and font technologies. Over a dozen years later, they still have some helpful insights. A History of Font Technologies looks at the way the Macintosh changed everything by displaying regular, bold, italic, outline, and different sized fonts on your screen. Macintosh System Fonts looks at the […]
I have a friend who has so far survived while living a smartphone- and tablet-free life. He is thinking of getting some small device to give him Internet access of the go. He quoted a mutual friend – an iPhone owner – who said that he got an iPad “because the apps are better”.
On January 24, 1984, Apple announced the Macintosh to its Board of Directors and to the world – and the computer world has never been the same.
LEM Swap is Low End Mac’s Google Group for buying and selling Mac OS computers and related goods. We also have Facebook LEM Swap groups for Mac and iOS users in Canada and the UK.
If you’ve watched the news or been on the Internet this week, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the Heartbleed bug, which allows hackers to access data that is otherwise securely encoded. How? By hijacking the SSL encoding software itself!
LibreOffice is a competent, free alternative to Microsoft Office. Like Office, it’s kind of bloated and slow to load. I’m using it to replace AppleWorks, which is incompatible with OS X 10.7 Lion and later – and I’ve discovered that LibreOffice is no speed demon.
Hard drive capacity is limited not only by how densely bits can be packed on a magnetic platter, but also by the number of sectors and tracks and drive surfaces in the drive itself and the number the computer’s operating system is designed to handle.
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March 2014
First we had emoticons, those smiles, winks, and other usually sideways image created using standard keyboard keys. 🙂 And then came emoji, those tiny colorful expressive faces, animals, modes of transportation, food, buildings, and so much more. And now they have come under attack.
WordPress is a great, powerful, extensible content management system (CMS), but it can take a while to really figure things out. Tags fall into that category.
This years WWDC should see an announcement regarding the next version of Mac OS X, but will you be able to run it?
Apple are not the only ones updating their mobile OS with a massive ‘point one’ update; the whited00r team have just released 7.1 – and I check it out.
MacPaint was one of two applications bundled with the original Macintosh; it and was the Mac’s default paint program. It was written by Bill Atkinson, and its user interface was designed by Susan Kare. It continued as freeware through version 2.0. MacPaint images could be copied to the clipboard and pasted into MacWrite documents.
MacDraw was the Mac’s first drawing program. The vector-based drawing program was based on LisaDraw, which had been created for Apple’s Lisa computer – both applications were produced by Mark Cutter. MacDraw was especially useful for technical drawing, such as floorplans and flowcharts.
Second Class Macs are Apple’s somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not really bad – simply designs that didn’t meet their full potential. The Macintosh LC is the oldest Compromised Mac, one of four models sharing the same problems.
Second Class Macs are Apple’s somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not really bad – simply designs that didn’t meet their full potential. The LC II (a.k.a. Performa 400-430) was a slightly less crippled version of the LC.
Second Class Macs are Apple’s somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not really bad – simply designs that didn’t meet their full potential. Take the 16-bit motherboard of the LC, replace the 68020 CPU with a 68030, strip out the expansion slot, and put it into a Classic case – and you have […]
Second Class Macs are Apple’s somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not really bad – simply designs that didn’t meet their full potential. The first color compact Mac, the Color Classic, was full of compromises.
Second Class Macs are Apple’s somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not really bad – simply designs that didn’t meet their full potential. The PowerBook G3 Series was a trio of very capable models replacing the 250 MHz Kanga PowerBook G3. The 250 MHz and 292 MHz models were lightning fast, but the […]
ClarisWorks 1.0 redefined the software category pioneered by Microsoft Works. Where Microsoft’s package was a software suite containing separate word processor, spreadsheet, and database programs, ClarisWorks was a single program.
Road Apples are Apple’s most compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not completely bad – simply designs that couldn’t meet their potential. The first desktop Mac finished in an attractive black color, the Mac TV was pretty much a crippled LC 520 with a TV tuner instead of an expansion slot.
Second Class Macs are Apple’s somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not really bad – simply designs that didn’t meet their full potential, such as the PowerBook 5300, Apple’s first PowerPC-based PowerBook.
Since I have made the Dual 1.8 MHz Power Mac G5 my primary machine, I have been on the hunt looking for an alternative to Safari 5.0.6 . This has lead me to Stainless 0.8, a Chrome influenced browser that, while no longer in active development, is still available for download. (Source code is available […]
Road Apples are Apple’s most compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not completely bad – simply designs that couldn’t meet their potential. The Performa 600 is more deserving of the Road Apple title than any Mac before it, as is it’s nearly identical twin, the Mac IIvx.
Road Apples are Apple’s most compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not completely bad – simply designs that couldn’t meet their potential. However, the x200 series is the worst family of Macs ever built.
It sat in the closet in the spare bedroom, a 2013 impulse buy at a good price on Craigslist. It was something I really wanted, a Mid 2004 Dual 1.8 GHz PowerMac G5. I was so excited to bring it home, so excited to turn it on. The satisfying “bong” sound and hearing the hard drive start […]
With careful use, you may two years out of your vintage PowerBook battery, but with improper care, it could give out in less than a year. It’s worth the time and effort to take proper care of your PowerBook battery.
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February 2014
Second Class Macs are Apple’s somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they’re not really bad – simply designs that didn’t meet their full potential. When it was introduced on February 28, 2006, the Core Solo Mac mini was the smallest desktop computer on the market – and the second-least expensive Macintosh Apple had […]
This article contains frequently asked questions (FAQ) regarding the PowerBook 2400c, with answers to those questions. An archived version of this article is available on Apple’s website. We have added corrections and updates.
Late last week, Apple delivered iOS 7.0.6 and iOS 6.1.6 to address the “goto fail” bug in iOS and Apple TV OS 6.0.2 as well. This week it released OS X 10.9.2, Security Update 2014-001 for OS X 10.7 and newer, Safari 6.1.2 and 7.0.2 so everyone running OS X 10.7 Lion and newer will […]
Moving to a new OS can be a steep learning curve, and you may have to leave behind your beloved Windows apps. What if you could run Windows apps without using Windows? Step up ReactOS.
The dual USB iBook form factor was in production for five years – the longest-running laptop design in Apple portable history. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since its only major shortcoming (albeit a significant one) is that it is relatively difficult to open up and work on – even for routine stuff like hard […]
Linux is an awesome operating system, but perhaps a little too different for Windows users. But what if there was a distro that looked like Windows? Step up Q4OS.
When Apple introduced it MacBook Pro line, it discontinued the PowerBook series, and when the first MacBook models arrived in mid-May 2006, it discontinued the iBook line. These were the first two Mac brands to disappear in the Intel transition, followed by the Power Mac, which gave way to the Mac Pro later in 2006.
Windows 9 might go some way to fix the mess that Windows 8 is, but could Windows 10 – or whatever they decide to call it – bring a whole new era for Microsoft, or just more of the same?
The 17″ MacBook Pro has seen its time come and go, as sad as that reality may be. Apple stopped making its largest sized flagship portables after 2011 in favor of smaller 15″ class Retina Display units that pack more pixels along with more graphics and processing power into a smaller package.
In this modern age of multicore processors and gigabytes of RAM, I began wondering how low-end of a computer I could get away with using in 2014.
The PowerBook 2000 (FireWire), a.k.a. Pismo, is the Energizer Bunny of Apple notebooks. It just goes on and on and on, with many owners of these now machines still using them as their main workhorse computers.
The Lombard PowerBook G3 (officially the PowerBook G3 Bronze Keyboard) was rolled out on May 10, 1999 – exactly a year after the first WallStreet iteration of Apple’s PowerBook G3 Series laptop line debuted, also at the Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC). While the Lombard superficially looks similar to the WallStreet family, it had taken a […]
Apple got a lot of mileage out of the PowerBook G3 nomenclature – some might argue more than they should have attempted to.
This Compleat Guide installment might well be named the Short and Sweet Guide to the Original PowerBook G3, since it only covers one model with a single revision that was in production for less than six months.
Back in 2003, the 12″ Little Al PowerBook represented one of the most convincing smash-hit model introductions in Apple history. Sharing much of the general layout, engineering, and the 12″ display of the 12″ iBook, the baby PowerBook added an aluminum housing and G4 power – plus most (but not all) of the usual slate of […]
Apple’s 17″ PowerBook G4, announced at Macworld Expo in January 2003, essentially eliminated any reason other than lower cost for owning a desktop computer for most of Mac users. With that big screen, plenty of speed, and an inventory of features undreamed of even in high-end desktops only a handful of years prior, this PowerBook […]
In early 2013, I reviewed the Mophie Juice Pack Plus for the iPhone 4 and 4s. I take another look at it and this time see how it performs under iOS 7.
The 15″ PowerBook (or AlBook) was rolled out by Steve Jobs at Macworld Paris in September 2003. After eight months of anticipation following the release of the 17″ and 12″ aluminum PowerBooks in January of 2003, it turned out to be pretty much what PowerBook fans had been hoping for and expecting.
In its day, the Titanium PowerBook G4 (or TiBook) was the most successful PowerBook sales-wise Apple had ever offered. Built from January 2001 to September 2003 in the same form factor, at the time it was the longest-running PowerBook model. Or was it?
I very much enjoyed reading Carl Nygren’s 2008 column, Graphite Clamshell iMac Still a Real Eye Catcher and Useful Tool about his Graphite clamshell iBook SE. Wow! A cherry clamshell complete with built-in DVD drive, manuals, and CD for fifty bucks. I’m envious.
Way back in the earliest days of the Macintosh, Apple did something very clever. In addition to standard OS calls for disk access and standard graphic routines every programmer could use, Apple adopted standard keyboard commands and recommended they be used in every app.
Looking ahead at what 2014 and 2015 could bring for iPhone and iOS users, here are my thoughts.
Back in 1997, when Low End Mac was getting started, Apple’s future was anything but certain. Could it find a white knight to come in and rescue the brand? Would Steve Jobs be able to keep the “beleaguered” company afloat?
Microsoft is to end extended support for Windows XP in April 2014, but with so many people still hanging on to the decade old OS, what are their options?
I’m not a fan of Windows, and after a lot of headaches with the computer my children use over the past few months, I decided to switch them to Ubuntu and see how they get on. Good-bye, Microsoft?
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January 2014
As Mac popularity grows so does the interest in developing threats for the platform, and while it is far more secure than Windows, it’s not 100% safe. Do we need to think about Mac anti-virus?
MacWrite was bundled with the original Macintosh and was the Mac’s default word processing program. MacWrite was developed by Randy Wigginton, Ed Ruder, and Don Breuner of Encore Systems. It defined the WYSIWYG word processing category and continued as freeware through version 5.0.
We all get nostalgic about certain things. For some, it’s the first car. And sometimes, it’s the first Macintosh.
When Apple released the iPhone 5, it came with a new design of earphones called EarPods. I recently bought a pair – but are they worth their money?
I had a friend, Michael. We’d played music together in a local band, but by day he was a camera-person at a Vancouver TV station. He’d gotten a Mac early in 1984, pretty much as soon as they became available in Canada. He’d demo’ed it to me, and while I thought it was pretty neat, […]
Over the summer of 1997, Apple brought the era of authorized Macintosh clones to an end to keep Apple solvent.*
Apple became a household name in the third quarter of SuperBowl XVIII when it aired the enormously popular 1984 ad promoting the upcoming release of the Macintosh.
This article was originally published on 2001.05.29 and is adapted from a series of articles and sidebars in the February 1984 issue of Byte magazine. Although some of the details included in this article are specific to the original Mac, many also apply to other compact Macs, such as the Plus, SE, SE/30, Classic, and Classic II.
My road to the Mac has been a long one. While some of my earliest experiences with computers were on a Macintosh, it would take another 15 years before I would come to own one myself. Along the way I would discover a passion for computers and technology that continues to this day.
Almost everyone complains about the cost of cable and satellite TV, but few actually takes the steps necessary to ditch those overpriced services and use their internet connection to fill the void. That’s our goal in this series of articles.
A lot of people go on and on about how “great” their PS4 is or their Xbox one, and many of these people missed the start of it all! The Commodore, the Sinclair Spectrum, the Atari, etc. It’s when computers started becoming more interesting and fun to use, when you were eager to actually get […]
Many people describe their first experience of using an Apple computer as “uplifting”, “simple”, and “straightforward”, but despite being a die-hard Mac user now, I found it very different.
Sending files back and forth via Bluetooth has been common for over 10 years, but it has always been missing from the iPhone despite supporting Bluetooth for audio headsets. AirBlue offers a superb solution.
In 2008 I wrote a short article for Low End Mac; little did I know it would spark a regular column, over 100 more articles, and strengthen my love of all things Apple. In 2014 I am still hooked on Macs and reminisce about my first Mac.
In iOS 7 Apple decided to remove one of the most handy features of iOS 5 and 6, the Tap to option for quick posting to Twitter/Facebook. But a jailbreak tweak brings it back.
Cutting the cable (or ditching the dish) can be a great way to save money. A lot of great content is accessible via the Internet, from sources like YouTube, Netflix, iTunes, and others. But there may be times when you’ll miss your local channels, whether for emergency news and notifications or just local programming. If […]
Apple introduced its first G4 notebook, the Titanium PowerBook (TiBook), in January 2001; the last one was discontinued in Sept. 2003 and replaced by the 15″ aluminum PowerBook G4. All titanium models have 15.2″ displays, two USB 1.1 ports, FireWire 400, one CardBus slot, room for an 802.11b AirPort Card (not the newer 802.11g AirPort […]
The Power Mac G4 offers a lot of power, expandability (3-4 PCI slots and several drive bays), and upgradability (1.5 to 2.0 GB maximum RAM) with prices starting as low as $60.
Your best bet G4 iMacs are the last generation models (1 GHz 15″, 1.25 GHz 17″ and 20″ models), which have better video, support 2 GB of memory, and are the only G4 iMacs to include USB 2.0 ports. (Whether you’re looking at flash drives, scanners, printers, iPods, iPhones, or almost anything but keyboards and […]
G4 iBooks are a good option with prices starting below $100 including AirPort Extreme – well under half the cost of a refurbished 13″ MacBook. The biggest drawback to the iBook design is the tedious process involved in disassembling and reassembling it to upgrade the hard drive.
