Tag Archives: Macs

By Staff | Published: March 3, 2009

Why the Mini has 2 different video ports


Since the introduction of the Mini in 2005, one of Apples main pushes for the machine was to be your first Mac, the one that swept you away from the PC world without breaking the bank. To that end one of the marketing slogans for the mini was BYODKM: bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse. The mini includes none of these things in the box, it is simply the machine, with a power cord, and in the past a DVI to VGA adapter to enable connection to the monitor a user already has. In the past that monitor was probably VGA, however now with the introduction of the new Mini, not only is Apple moving half way to Mini Display port as all the rumors predicted, they are shrinking the remaining DVI port to Mini DVI. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware, Articles | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Responses
By Staff | Published: March 3, 2009

Apple updates iMac, Mini today with nVIDIA chipsets instead of Intel

In a move that surprised even some of our sources and was in several key ways quite (but not entirely) contrary to our published projections as to the iMac’s specs, Apple announced new iMacs and Mac Minis today.

Although we are quite confident that Core i7 (“Nehalem” and “Gainestown” for desktop and Xeon products respectively) will indeed make its way into the Mac platform over the rest of the year, clearly the issues we’ve previously reported with Intel’s chipsets and the outstanding issues with some of the prototypes we’ve had the chance to examine (bugs, largely — though supply and timing were also reportedly issues; we had some internal debates over whether March 24th was really a remotely realistic announcement date, no less ship date) convinced the company’s decision makers to go with a Core 2 Duo based lineup using basically identical processors to previous models….merely adding more powerful memory, graphics, and nVIDIA chipsets. Read more

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Posted in Apple Events, Apple Hardware, Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Responses
By Staff | Published: March 2, 2009

iMac and possibly Mini to be updated at March 24th Apple Event

The grapevine has been set on fire this weekend by a breaking rumor, strongly suggesting from multiple quarters/sources that the much awaited “Nehalem” Core i7 iMac, and perhaps also a revamped Mac Mini, will be announced at an Apple Event on the 24th of this month.

Although there is less certainty about whether or not the Mini, despite being quite long in the tooth, will be updated at the event….a consensus is rapidly forming across the entire Grapevine to the effect that this event is confirmed (though not yet officially announced; that will most likely take place later this week or early in the next) and that the new iMacs as we have envisioned them here on Rumors will indeed be introduced there. Read more

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Posted in Apple Events, Apple Hardware | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Responses
By Staff | Published: February 27, 2009

Mac OS X 10.5.7 enters beta; broadly seeded to devs

As Rumors has recently reported, the development of Mac OS X 10.5.7 has been proceeding at a slow but steady pace…and in the past few days, has crossed over into “beta” status with a new build that has been seeded to the full developer community.

Seeded to devs in a full distribution Apple Developer Connection (ADC) release earlier this week, Mac OS X 10.5.7 build 9J22 weighs in at a hefty 400MB (770MB for “Combo” version) and continues to grow in size at a blistering pace — particularly given the relatively small number of builds that have been made of 10.5.7 to date (a mere 22, apparently).

As usual, the OS X Server variant of the 10.5.7 package will be significantly larger and is expected to end up close to a full gigabyte in its Combo version. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Response
By Staff | Published: February 22, 2009

Real or fake, the case of the 5 (USB) port Mini

Now that Macworld 2009 has come and gone with no Mini, rumor sites and Mini lovers have been waiting patiently (or not) for some news on the new Mini. What will it look like? Will it adopt a new style to match the iMac and Unibody Macbook lines? Previous rumors about the Mini included talk of dual monitor ports (one Mini DVI and one Mini DisplayPort), a removed optical drive, no firewire (ala Unibody Macbook), 2 internal hard drives, and a complete merging of the Mini with the AppleTV. We previously covered these details and speculation on Apples plans.

In the past few days some details, a picture and a short video have surfaced that appear to show a Mini with the old style, the aluminum sides with the plastic top, sporting 5 USB ports, 2 video ports, Firewire 800, and an optical drive slot, but otherwise no major changes. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Also tagged , , , , , | 3 Responses
By Staff | Published: February 11, 2009

Will my GPU be fully supported by Snow Leopard’s OpenCL?

According to reliable sources, if you own an Intel Mac other than the Mini or an original Macbook — either of which shipped with Intel’s GMA950 integrated GPU — then you are already good to go for support of the full range of OpenCL acceleration features.

If you have a Mac with the Intel GMA950, then you will get most of the benefits of OpenCL though the performance level of those functions will be significantly lessened due to the lack of dedicated graphics RAM and absence of support for many programmable GPU features that exist in other chips/cards going back to the ATi X1000 series.

To get that full support, GPUs as “old” as the ATi X1600, X1800 and X1900 (the latter of which was available for PowerMac G5s with PCI Express slots, based on the PowerPC 970MP dual-core processor while the former shipped in early Intel iMacs and its X1600M cousins in Macbook Pros) will do the job….but certain nVIDIA cards from the GeForce 7000 series, which shipped in iMacs and PowerMacs during the G5 era, most likely will not. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware, Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Responses
By Staff | Published: February 4, 2009

OS X 10.5.7 nearing beta phase; supports new macs, bug fixes

Despite somewhat less hands-on time that we usually like to have in our first sneak-peeks of developmental Apple software — particularly system updates — we are taking a look under the hood of Mac OS X 10.5.7 which is fast approaching the ‘beta’ phase when it will be seeded to third-party developers for testing & feedback. Interestingly, our examinations turned up not just software dirt, but hints of what’s to come for the iMac, Mac Pro & even Macbook Air.

As the introduction and subject-line suggest, the late-alpha builds of Mac OS X 10.5.7 that Rumors has been able to explore through source reports, “batphone” streams, and limited direct hands-on usage by our Silicon Valley team thus far have all brought us to one conclusion. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 30, 2009

Upcoming new iMacs to go quad-core; what else will be new?

In recent weeks, the grapevine has moved from speculating about new iMacs based on quad-core “Nehalem” Intel Core i7 processors to having near-total confidence in the broad strokes of the rumor, merely seeking confirmation of the details. Well, some of the finer details are still embargoed….but we have been able to confirm once & for all that the new iMacs will indeed have four-core Nehalem processors with the associated improved motherboards.

At this point our sources have asked us to withhold precise benchmark numbers (we don’t like reporting third party numbers anyway unless they’re ballpark; it stakes our reputation on too many variables that are out of our hands — even with well-established sources)…but we should be able to report those in the near future once team members are able to put their hands directly on a prototype — and there can be little doubt that these new iMacs will be amazing, incredibly fast performers. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 28, 2009

Impressive new details of next-gen Mac Pro emerge

As we reported previously, the forthcoming 2009 Mac Pro lineup will be based around powerful new technology from Intel code-named Nehalem; better known through great public anticipation in the lead-up to its release as “Core i7.”

We reported on a mid-stream prototype, placed inside an existing-generation “cheesegrater” tower enclosure, in that article which was built on early desktop Nehalem reference board chips including a pair of quad-core, 2.93GHz Core i7 desktop CPUs.

Since then, we’ve had the opportunity to look under the hood of far more recent prototypes and a much clearer picture of the final Mac Pro has begun to emerge.

One of the first questions readers asked after the initial article was posted was whether the Nehalem Mac Pro will employ those standard desktop CPUs which currently tap out just below 3GHz and have been on the market for a few weeks now….or if it will sport Xeon-class i7 chips that offer higher clock rates, more cores, and numerous other advantages over their standard desktop cousins. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | 9 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 28, 2009

iStat for iPhone review

App Store link

To start off, we would like to thank Bjango for making such a nice application and for allowing us to take it for a test drive. We think they have a real winner here that could be of use to many people for different purposes. Those who manage servers day to day will be glad to have a nicely presented and easy to use view of their servers statistics on the device they already carry around every day (you DO carry an iPhone everywhere you go just like us, right?). While the server daemon is OS X only right now, Bjango tells us that a Windows and Linux server daemon are a definite possibility for the future, and we think their success with this app will skyrocket once a Linux daemon is available since many IT admins use Linux on the back end. Read more

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Posted in 3rd Party Software, App Store, Articles | Also tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
By Staff | Published: January 26, 2009

The Mac’s 25th Anniversary — Founder’s Column, Part 1

25 years ago this past weekend, an upstart development team within Apple Computer brought to market a cheaper, faster, better alternative to Steve Jobs’ pet project the “Lisa” (named after his daughter).

Though Jobs’ own feelings about the Macintosh were mixed, he undertook a famous event to introduce it to the world with a unique, historic advertisement (“1984”) and a demonstration that blew away the crowd: the very first Mac 128K seen in public spoke to the crowd that day, using a first-of-its-kind speech synthesizer technology developed specifically for that first Mac — a technology that has been a unique strength of the Mac platform ever since.

This weekend, even as the moment of the announcement event’s anniversary passed us by, the Rumors team was watching an amazing film called Welcome to Mac. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware, Apple Inc., Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 19, 2009

Apple Web store(s) offline; rumblings of announcements build

As of Sunday morning Eastern time, reader and source reports have been coming in at a blistering pace as the online Apple Store reportedly went offline for most of the night. It came back later Sunday morning, and remained online throughout the remainder of the weekend.

Although the timing suggests it could be routine, the sheer volume of source reports and other reasons to suspect new hardware product announcements — almost certainly one or more new Macs — combined with the similarity between current speculation and long-standing rumors about new Mac Minis, price cuts, and/or a new Mac Pro….give us reason to suspect that such announcements could be imminent; if not in the next couple of days, then quite possibly before the week is out. Read more

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Posted in Apple Events, Apple Hardware, Apple Inc., Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Response
By Staff | Published: January 13, 2009

Latest WebKit nightly build includes built-in update functionality

As of the current nightly build (39852), WebKit — the developmental version of Safari, available for public testing — has added the capability to update to the latest build within Webkit.app itself, obviating the need for third party software like NightShift.

The Rumors team has been a very active part of WebKit development/testing since its very first day — just as we are known throughout the industry for being prolific beta testers of both hardware & software.

(If you are a hardware and/or software developer with a developmental, beta, or pre-release product you’d like us to help test — and with your explicit permission, review for our readers who are very interested in such technology — please contact us as soon as possible: rumors@macosrumors.com to make arrangements!)

We do of course use other browsers, notably Mozilla Firefox, for various purposes….but have always been passionate supporters of Safari/Webkit and its underlying technology. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 9, 2009

Conflicted over the lack of an Apple netbook while Sony announces one?

As we watch with a certain degree of envy the announcement at CES 2009 that Sony is introducing a new 8-inch display based “netbook” Vaio ‘lifestyle PC,’ many in the community are experiencing a duality of appreciation and frustration at Apple’s apparent disinterest in this space. But it may be with good reason.

Already, the iPhone and the Macbook Air nicely bracket the netbook product space.

Between the two, one really doesn’t have much need for such a device…..but nonetheless, when one looks over the specs of the new Vaio Lifestyle PC and its elegant little industrial design, it’s hard not to feel a little bit envious that Apple didn’t do it first.

Specs like these: 1.33GHz x86 processor, 1600×768 (!!!) pixel 8-inch 16:9 widescreen display, built-in micro webcam, two USB 2.0 ports, combined display/network breakout port, audio I/O ports, SD and Memory Stick slots, and a built-in 60GB hard drive or 128GB SSD drive. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 9, 2009

Next for Apple: Mac Pros and Xserves based on Intel Core i7

For quite a while now, the eyes of the Mac community’s high-end segment have been on Intel’s latest processor technology called Core i7.

Previously code-named Nehalem, a project which we have followed since its infancy and in fact back before Apple even confirmed the long-standing rumor of the Intel transition, Core i7 integrates key advantages of leading processor designs across the industry and solidifies gains made by Intel since the original “Core” chips (“Yonah”) first shipped, marking a firm break from previous x86 processors out of Intel that didn’t keep up with competitor AMD, nor leading third-party RISC platforms such as PowerPC, ARM, MIPS and SPARC.

Learning from its mistakes and the successes of those platforms, Nehalem is a triumph of the multi-core engineering era. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Responses