I will start with the iPhone. A new iPhone was announced. The iPhone 4. There were some key new features that were announced. Here they are. The first one and a very cool one at that is the new Retina Screen. This is the same size as the older models of the iPhone 3.5 inches but it has a much higher density of pixels. The exact number is 960 x 640. That is the highest resolution ever found on a camera at the time it was announced. It also much brighter and clearer than the other models. The best way to see this is by looking at the text. You can clearly see that on the older phone it was pixelated on the edges and a little bit blurry but with the new screen the letter are crisp and clear. All around this new screen is just breath taking. Another new feature that was found in the new phone has to do with the camera. First lets start out with the rear camera. This camera has been on all the iPhones but has some new features. It now has a 5 megapixel sensor. This may seem a bit low compared to some of the other new phones that have been coming out but it takes some of the best pictures that any phone takes. It also records full HD video as 720p and up to 30 frames per second. The video it takes is great and it is hard to tell that it was taken on a phone and not a really video camera. Now for the brand new camera. This is a front facing camera. It can be used to record video, take pictures, and do video chat. First the camera takes VGA quality pictures. As with the rear camera it takes video at 30 frames per second. Both have tap to focus. The rear camera also has a brand new LED flash for taking pictures in low light. The camera also uses geotagging in both pictures and video for use in iPhoto and other photo software to see where the picture was taken. That is all for the camera. The phone also has a new sensor. This a a 3- axis gyro. This will be a great use in games where you have to run around and walk places because you will be able to tilt up and down and around for looking. This will give the games a more real life effect. Now the nest changes are all in the looks department. First the phone got a whole new look. The new look is that instead of the plastic backing that is curved the phone now has a glass back. This gives the phone a much nicer and refined look. The phone also lost the arched back because the back is flat and the sides are flat but the corners are arched. The sides is now not connected to the back it is now a strip of aluminum. The cool thing about this strip is the actual 3G radio is built right in in an attempt to get better reception. Overall in my eyes the look of the new iPhone is great. Now I said earlier that there was a front facing camera for video calling. This service uses a program from Apple called FaceTime. This allows for iPhone to iPhone video calling only on wifi because 3G does not support it. Now for the pricing. The prices stay at the same of the old 3GS starting at $199 for 16 gigs and $299 for 32 gigs. The old 3GS now takes the spot of the 3G at $99 for 8 gigs. That is the new iPhone 4. For more info on the iPhone 4 go to http://www.apple.com/iphone/.
Now later on in the summer Apple didn't have a press conference but updated some of their desktop mac line up and their external monitor. First I will start with the Mac Pro. I can not seem to find the specs to the old Mac Pro so I will just go over the specs of the new 12 core model but there are still both the Quad- Core and 8- Core models for sale. The 4 and 8 core models are sold both online and in stores while the 12 core model is only available online. First and the biggest updated is that it now has 12 cores. There are also 4 wire free bays for hard drives both standard spinning ones or Solid State Drive. In total you can have 8TB of space because each bay holds up 2TB. It comes equipped with two 2.66GHz Intel Xeon "westmere" processor chips. There is also 12MB fully shared L3 cache per processor. It is also stocked with 6GB of DDR3 SDRAM. For monitors it has an ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory. It has two Mini Display Ports outputs and one dual- link DVI output. It comes standard with a 1TB SErial ATA 7200 RPM drive. It comes stocked with a 18x SuperDrive with double layer support. For wireless internet it has built in 802.11n wireless and 2.1 Bluetooth. It also has 3 full length PCI Express 2.0 ports. You can opt to have it shipped with either a trackpad or mighty mouse. You can also go between having a wired or wireless keyboard. You can also go between having a fiber channel card. Either Dual or Quad. For graphics card if you want to get a better one you can choose to go with the ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of GDDR5 ram. If you do a lot with disc both CD's or DVD's you can choose to get two 18x Super Drive optical drives. Now for memory you have lots of options. The highest amount of ram you can get is 32GB. That is most of the new features in the Mac Pro. For more information go to http://www.apple.com/macpro/.
Now for the new iMac. The two screen size options are 27in and 21.1in. The biggest part of the new upgrades are the new processors. You can get either an i3 an i5 or an i7 chip. These are all made by intel.There are also other updates to the video cards. The nicest graphics card available in the 27in iMac is a ATI Radeon HD 5750 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and in the 21in iMac the best graphics card is and ATI Radeon 5760 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory. Both have built in web cams and mics. They both also have slot disc drives. The iMacs also have 802.11n wireless and 2.1 Bluetooth. For the connections they have four USB 2.0 ports and one firewire 800 port with 7 watts of power. There is also a SDXC card slot. Both are also very customizable when it comes to storage. With the option of standard spinning drives and solid state drives. For more information on the iMacs go to http://www.apple.com/imac/.
Now for the Mac Mini. The Mac Mini got some spec bumps and a small change to the look. First we will start off with the new look. All that I know of that changed in the look is that there is now a black disk on the bottom. This not only makes a spot where you can access your internal hardware but it also makes the computer raised up by just a very small amount but it just enough to help keep the unit cooler and make it not as easy to scratch up the bottom. That was the only change for the Mac Mini to my understanding. Now the specs for the device are it has and NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics with 265MB of DDR3 memory. That is shared memory. For outputs it has both an HDMI and Mini Display port. For a processor it has an intel 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo for the base line but can be bumped up to a 2.66GHz chip. For memory it has 2GB of DDR3. It can in total support 8GB. For a hard drive it comes standard with a 320GB drive but can be upgraded to a 500GB. It has a 8x slot drive. For ports the device has one fire wire 800 port and 4 USB 2.0 ports. It also has an SD card slot. There are both audio in and audio out ports. For wireless connections it has 802.11n wireless and 2.1 bluetooth. For more information on the Mac Mini and costs go to http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html.
They have also updated the LED Cinema Display. Instead of the display being 30 inches it is now only 27. The design may or may not have changed but it now has a black bezel. The highest pixel resolution of the display is 2560 by 1440 pixels. As you can tell from the name of it, it is a LED back lit screen. It has both a built in iSight which is Apple's webcam and it also has a built in mic. It also has built in speakers. The display also has some ports of it's own. It comes with three powered USB 2.0 ports. It also comes with a very cool cable. This is the cable that plugs into the back of your iMac or the side of you MacBook Pro or MacBook. It could also be used with the Mac Mini. This cable splits into three different ends that get plugged into your computer. One of them is only for the MacBook and MacBook Pros. This is the MagSafe power adapter. This lets you charge your laptop through the power of the display. Another one of the ends is a USB port. This plugs in and then makes the three other ports on the monitor able to be used. The last cable is kind of obvious. It is the Mini Display port. This plugs into the output on your computer and makes the external monitor work. The monitor is extremely power efficient at while charging both a MacBook Pro and giving it self power only using 250 watts. It also only uses 1 watt or less while in energy saver mode. That is all about the LED Cinema Display by Apple. For more details or buying go to http://www.apple.com/displays/.
The brand new Magic Trackpad. This is a new product that Apple came out with along with it's battery charger which will be gone over in the next paragraph. This trackpad it just like the one found on both the MacBooks and MacBook Pros. It is a little bit larger and it has a slight slant like on the wireless keyboard they have. This trackpad will let you do all the multi finger gestures on a desktop computer or just externally on a laptop. It is connect over bluetooth just like the Magic Mouse and Wireless keyboard they have. The range of connectivity is 33 feet letting you walk about a room and still work your computer. It fits right in with the keyboard because it has the same aluminum look and slant. You can use this device instead of or with a mouse. There are numerous amounts of gestures you can make like two finger scrolling or 3 finger swiping and many more. The device is also very customizable like a mouse. You can adjust the sensitivity of moving the mouse or you can change what fingers do what if you find one feature more helpful over another. That is the brand new Magic Trackpad for you. For more details on it or what gestures perform what action go to http://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/.
Last but not least of Apple's work over the summer is the Apple Battery Charger. Yes, I just said Apple Battery Charger. Now you may be thinking why on earth did apple come out with a batter charger. Well I have an idea of why. The reason may be because they have so many devices that use batteries like the magic trackpad, might mouse, and wireless keyboard. This way you can charge your batteries and reuse them because the cost of them is a little high. Now because every device takes two batteries apple ships the chargers with six batteries. This way you can have two in your mouse or trackpad and two in your keyboard while the other two stay charging. This way if one set dies you will already have two fully charged and just switch them out. This is a great ides. Now you may be like well what makes this better than all the other battery charges. Well apple claims to have made this one with better features. One of the features is that once your batteries are fully charged the charger will stop drawing as much energy from the wall and only enough to keep the batteries at full. This is a great way to save on power because most battery chargers even once a battery it at full charge will continue to draw a bunch of unneeded power from the wall. Apple says that once the batteries are charged it will only use 30mW while other charges will continue to use 315mW. They also claim that the batteries will last up to ten years of use. That is really good. The batteries are also made by apple and even after sitting in your desk drawer or any other place for a year will still have 80 percent of the original charge. These batteries are double a because that is what all their devices use. That is all the information about the new Apple Battery Charger. For other information or price go to http://www.apple.com/battery-charger/.
That is all that happened with Apple since my last blog post before WWDC. Sorry about the long wait but I just got really busy and didn't have much time to write. I am planning on doing a better job at posting and have at least two more that will be out in hopefully under a week.
No comments:
Post a Comment