It’s been over 15 months since Apple rolled out the 2009 Mac Pro, and the 2010 Mac Pro is yet another big step forward: every configuration uses quad-core Intel Xeon Nehalem or quad-core and even hex-core Westmere CPUs for even more power. Each core has its own 256 KB Level 2 (L2) cache, each quad-core […]
Tag Archives: OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
For the first time since the G4 Mac mini was introduced in January 2005, Apple came up with a new form factor for its smallest desktop. Where all previous Minis had been 6.5″ square and 2.0″ tall, the new model measures 7.7″ square and just 1.4″ high. It also uses unibody construction like Apple’s notebooks. […]
This is the first and only update to the white unibody MacBook. The CPU speed gets a bump from 2.26 GHz to 2.4 GHz, it now has the same Nvidia GeForce 320M GPU as the current 13″ MacBook Pro, and its rated battery life jumps from a very good 7 hours to an impressive 10 […]
The 15″ and 17″ Mid 2010 MacBook Pro models have lower clock speeds than the models they replace. However, because they use the mobile Intel i5 and i7 CPUs instead of the older, less efficient Core 2 Duo chips, they are more powerful despite lower clock speeds. These CPUs brings something new to Apple’s portable […]
The 15″ and 17″ Mid 2010 MacBook Pro models have lower clock speeds than the models they replace. However, because they use mobile Intel i5 and i7 CPUs instead of the older, less efficient Core 2 Duo chips, they are more powerful despite lower clock speeds. These CPUs brings something new to Apple’s portable line, hyperthreading, […]
Apple introduced redesigned MacBook Pro models in April 2010. They all use new Nvidia GPUs and claim to increase battery life – in the case of the 13″ model, from 7 hours to an impressive 10.
The big news: Apple has introduced new screen sizes and a new display aspect ratio. The Late 2009 iMac comes in 21.5″ and 27″ sizes, and the displays have the same 16:9 aspect ratio as HDTV (the Early 2009 iMac had 20″ and 24″ 16:10 aspect ratio displays). The smaller iMac has the same 1920 […]
The big news: Apple has introduced new screen sizes and a new display aspect ratio. The Late 2009 iMac comes in 21.5″ and 27″ sizes, and the displays have the same 16:9 aspect ratio as HDTV (the Early 2009 iMac had 20″ and 24″ 16:10 aspect ratio displays). The 27″ beastie provides an incredible 2560 […]
The big news: Apple has introduced new screen sizes and a new display aspect ratio. The Late 2009 iMac comes in 21.5″ and 27″ sizes, and the displays have the same 16:9 aspect ratio as HDTV (the Early 2009 iMac had 20″ and 24″ 16:10 aspect ratio displays). The smaller iMac has the same 1920 […]
The original polycarbonate Mac notebook got a design overhaul, the first since the original MacBook was introduced in May 2006. Although it’s still white and appears to be made of plastic, the lower case uses a unibody design carved from aluminum – but covered with a rubbery white material.
Mac OS X is a brilliant operating system. But what about the “Classic” Mac OS in the Age of Snow Leopard?
Just seven months after overhauling the Mac mini, Apple made some small improvements: The base speed is now 2.26 GHz, 2 GB of RAM is the norm, and the 160 GB hard drive holds more data than the 120 GB drive found in the previous version. And for power users, there’s now a server version […]
I got around to installing the Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard update on my MacBook over the long weekend. I figured that with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard now on the prowl, I should at least bring Leopard up to spec on my production workhorse.
2009 – Apple is billing Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as its first fully 64-bit operating system, but this isn’t the first time the Mac OS has changed it bitness.
Apple has been promoting three key advantages of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard that are hardware dependent: Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) OpenCL 64-bit operation
2009 – Low End Mac colleague Simon Royal says he didn’t believe the rumors last year that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard would be Intel only. I have to say that at the early point when it was reported that alpha builds of Snow Leopard were being seeded to developers as Intel-only software, the proverbial […]
In late 2008, I wrote an article about the future of PowerPC Macs, The Future of PowerPC Macs and Software as Snow Leopard Approaches. Well, all the rumours have been put to bed: Apple have announced the next version of Mac OS X, and it isn’t looking good for PowerPC users.
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was billed as primarily under-the-hood changes to OS X 10.5 Leopard, but it was much more significant than that.
Just 5 months after introducing the first 17″ Unibody MacBook Pro, Apple improved it by moving to a 2.8 GHz CPU – and making a 3.06 GHz CPU a build-to-order option.
For the first time in a long time, the 15″ MacBook Pro has become more affordable while adding an SD Card slot. The entry-level 2.53 GHz model doesn’t have the GeForce 9600GT M graphics chip found in the previous generation of 15″ MacBook Pros – and in the faster models in the current generation. Prices […]
The long-awaited replacement for the 12″ PowerBook has finally been delivered. The 13″ MacBook Pro takes the successful Unibody Aluminum MacBook, ups the speed a bit, and adds an SD Card slot and FireWire, a feature the Unibody MacBook lost (in this case, it’s FireWire 800).
The June 2009 update of the MacBook Air (MBA) gets faster CPUs (1.86 GHz and 2.13 GHz) and lower prices ($1,499 and $1,799). It used the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics processor, which uses 256 MB of system memory, as its predecessor.
Completely unheralded, Apple quietly updated the MacBook White in late May. The updated model has a 6.5% faster CPU at 2.13 GHz, uses faster RAM (800 MHz vs. 667 MHz), and has a larger hard drive (160 GB) – and for the first time on a MacBook, a 500 GB build-to-order hard drive option.
Apple has finally replaced the last 17″ iMac, a holdover white model that has only been available to the education market at the same US$899 price as this new model. At 2.0 GHz, the new education iMac is 25% slower than the low-end consumer model and comes with half the RAM (1 GB) and half […]
It’s been 14 months since Apple introduced the 2008 Mac Pro, and the 2009 Mac Pro is a big step forward: every configuration uses quad-core Intel Xeon Nehalem CPUs for even more power. Each core has its own 256 KB Level 2 (L2) cache, and each quad-core CPU shares an 8 GB Level 3 (L3) […]
Apple has updated the iMac with Nvidia graphics as a standard feature (the Early 2008 iMac used Radeon graphics, although there was an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GS build-to-order option for the 24″ model). The low-end iMacs use the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU found in current MacBooks and the new Mac mini, while the high-end […]
Apple updated the iMac with Nvidia graphics as a standard feature (Early 2008 iMacs used Radeon graphics, although there was an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GS build-to-order option). The low-end iMacs use the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU found in the Early 2009 MacBook and the Early 2009 Mac mini, while the high-end iMacs use GeForce GT graphics. (ATI […]
Apple updated the iMac with Nvidia graphics as a standard feature (Late 2008 iMacs used Radeon graphics). The low-end Early 2009 iMacs use the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU found in Early 2009 MacBooks and the Early 2009 Mac mini.
After over a year and a half without a change, Apple finally updated the Mac mini in March 2009. As widely anticipated, the new Mac mini adopts Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics, the same GPU found in the MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro – and it finally gets 802.11n WiFi as well (and 802.11a for […]
In an unexpected development, Apple quietly changed the specs of the MacBook White in mid-January. The updated model has the same 2.0 GHz CPU as the entry-level Aluminum Unibody MacBook – and also the same Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics processor.
