Buying the best display for your Mac has never been easy, unless you wanted to pay for Apple-branded products. In the old days, Mac video ports were different from those used in the PC world, and today you need to research whether the display you’re interested in has VGA or DVI input.
2005 – While Apple is busy suing AppleInsider and others over leaks regarding their “Asteroid” project, our unusually reliable source – an illegal immigrant subcontracted to clean Apple’s research labs when she couldn’t get the same kind of work at Walmart – has helped The Rumor Mill scoop all the legitimate rumor sites.
Apple updated the compact iPod mini in February 2005, dropping the gold color and adding a 6 GB model. Visually the 2G iPod mini is distinguished by colored printing on the clickwheel. To protect its minuscule 1.0″ hard drive, the iPod mini was built of aluminum. The 2G iPod mini was available in four colors – silver, blue, pink, and green – […]
What’s the fastest Mac browser? And how do Mac browsers compare to those on Windows and Linux, the other leading operating systems?
In the mid 1990s, Apple’s products were less than up to par. The Performa line had constant problems (such as the 5200, which had a recall on the display cable), and PowerBooks were rather slow and also problematic (like the 5300, which had recalls on the battery, logic board, and various plastic case parts).
Apple did a great job designing, marketing, and branding the iMac, but they also created a big problem – knowing which iMac you own or are looking to buy on the used market.
Four years after the first PowerBook G4s reached users, Apple announced the fourth generation of aluminum PowerBooks, each model faster, more feature laden, and no more expensive than the one it replaced.
After nine months at 1.33 GHz, Apple bumped the little AlBook from 1.33 GHz to 1.5 GHz, a 13% increase. Standard memory has been raised to 512 MB, graphics now uses the Nvidia GeForce FX Go5200 processor, and the SuperDrive can burn DVDs at up to 8x. All this at $100 less than the retail […]
The same size and weight its 2004 predecessor, the Early 2005 edition runs a bit faster (at 1.5 and 1.67 GHz). The entry-level 15″ PowerBook now has 512 MB of memory, and 5400 rpm hard drives are standard. Both versions of the 15″ PowerBook now include Apple’s backlit keyboard. The 1.67 GHz SuperDrive model supports […]
If you know anything at all about the history of keyboards, you probably know that the QWERTY design – so named after the first six alphabetical keys – was deliberately designed to avoid jamming typewriters. Ideal or not, it’s been the standard keyboard layout in the English-speaking world for 130 years.
Never before had Apple sold a $500 Macintosh. Never before had Apple been poised to grow its market share like it hoped to with the Mac mini. The tiny Mac mini (6.5″ square, 2″ high, 2.9 lb.) has incredibly minimalist design. On the front, there’s just a slot-loading optical drive and a power light. On […]
When most MP3 players were based on flash memory, Apple built the original iPod around a tiny 1.8″ hard drive. And on January 11, 2005, Apple introduced the first iPod built using flash memory, the original iPod shuffle. Unlike competing flash-based MP3 players, the Shuffle has no menu system. You load it with the songs […]
There are a number of myths surrounding the Macintosh: It’s only for artists. There aren’t enough programs. It’s slow compared to Windows PCs. It’s terrible for gaming. And it’s always been overpriced.
It’s that time of year again when lazy journalists trundle out lists instead of sitting down and writing articles. Never one to break an honorable tradition, Jason Walsh adds Low End Mac to the list of publications that includes just about every magazine, website, and newspaper in the world.
One of the best things Apple ever did for Power Mac users was design the CPU daughter card introduced with the Power Mac 9500. Apple, Power Computing, and SuperMac all used it in their PCI models running PowerPC 601 and 604 CPUs.
Apple began selling its first computer in July 1976. Apple Before the Mac looks at the Apple II and Apple III era that predate the Mac.
Many Mac users from way back in the legacy era consider the old ADB Apple Extended Keyboard II to be the best keyboard Apple ever made. Others of us might debate that, but the Extended Keyboard II was certainly the biggest, heaviest keyboard Apple ever made, covering a vast expanse of desktop and weighing in […]
A year after introducing the Xserve G5, Apple boosted its top speed from 2.0 to 2.3 GHz while making dual processors standard. That’s a bit slower than the fastest Power Mac G5, which runs at 2.5 GHz, but there’s much less room for a cooling system in the compact Xserve. Although clock speed is only 15% […]
PC Magazine’s Jim Louderback calls the eMac one of the ten worst products of the year. You know, the computer Mac site after site calls Apple’s best computing value ever. The machine we use at Low End Mac.
Jason Walsh examines Scribus, an intriguing alternative to the overpriced behemoths of Quark XPress and Adobe InDesign.
Back in November, we took a quick peek at Scribus running on Linux and promised to give it a go on the Mac. That’s what we’re doing today.
Lauded by some, despised by others, ThinkFree Office has clearly made an impression among Mac users – but what exactly does free mean? And do you get what you pay for?
2004 – Backup is one of those things most computer users fail to do on a regular basis, and there are several reasons for it.
Another alternative to the big boys of design – and this one is free. This week The Low End Designer is taking a break from the beloved Macintosh to have a quick squint at what the open-source world of Linux has to offer designers.
Richard Hunt is a London-based freelance graphic designer. He’s been working freelance for five years and has refused to upgrade to a new Mac since then, when he bought a secondhand Mac. Jason Walsh investigates.
This article incorporates the Low End Mac Designer survey results and some interesting comments, so without further ado, let’s get to it.
On October 26, 2004, Apple released a special edition of the 4G iPod to coincide with U2’s album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The U2 Special Edition is black with a red clickwheel and the signatures of the band members engraved on the back. The special edition iPod included a $50 discount coupon for purchasing The […]
This week the low-end designer tackles more typographic woes, including leading, kerning, tracking, and justification.
Spec for spec, the 1.2 GHz 12″ iBook G4 matches the 1 GHz 12″ model it replaces with one change: a nominally 20% faster CPU, although in reality the Early 2004 model runs at 1.07 GHz, making the Late 2004 model only 12% faster. AirPort Extreme 802.11g WiFi is now standard, and the retail price is $100 […]
Apple simplified the iBook line in October 2004 with two basic models, a slower 12″ and a faster 14″. Replacing a 1.0 GHz Combo drive model and a 1.2 GHz SuperDrive model introduced just six months earlier, the 14″ 1.33 GHz iBook G4 offers 24% more power than the 1.07 GHz (nominally 1.0 GHz) model at […]
Has Apple heard our pleas for a lower-cost modular Mac? The single processor 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5 knocks US$500 from the price of it’s dual-processor sibling while matching it in almost every specification. The only significant difference, besides a single CPU, is the use of a 600 MHz memory bus vs. 900 MHz on […]
Last week’s Low End Designer article was the most popular piece in the series so far. Clearly word processing is something that Low End Mac readers are interested in, but what about what happens with the text afterwards? This week, The Low End Designer looks a basic typography.
Text processing is the least glamorous aspect of design work – and probably the most important. This week, The Low End Designer looks at some alternatives to Microsoft Word, the 800-pound gorilla of the document processing market – and perhaps deservedly so.
Last week, the Low End Designer took a look at a few supplemental applications that can be used in conjunction with the major design and layout programs. This week we’re looking at drop-in replacements, and it’s Quark XPress that’s getting the chop.
2004 – One of the advantages of using a Mac is the wealth of software available for the platform. Of course, this runs contrary to common wisdom – the Mac is thought to be a poor cousin to Windows in terms of the number of applications available. This is literally true – there are many […]
