Articles about Apple

Consumer Reports -- well-respected for its appraisals of products and services -- has decided not to give the new MacBook Pro its coveted 'recommended' status. This is the first time Apple's laptop has failed to gain the accolade.

While tests showed that the laptop's performance was good, it was the MacBook Pro's battery that let it down. Consumer Reports warns that battery life "varied dramatically from one trial to another". The report will make for difficult reading for Apple.

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When Apple first announced the AirPods, I was intrigued. The technology looked incredible -- for those that own Apple devices, that is. Unfortunately, I sort of had a feeling that I would not like them as soon as I saw them. Why? They are the same shape as Apple's wired EarPods. This is a problem, as those headphones hurt my ears. I pretty much decided on day one that I would not buy them.

But then I went ahead and bought them anyway. Because they were delayed so often, and because stock was so limited, I bought them as soon as they went on sale as I knew they would sell out. Since Apple makes it easy to return products, I figured I'd buy them, try them, and make a decision. Well folks, I am returning them. Here's why.

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Nokia just announced that it is suing Apple in the US and Germany because the iPhone maker is allegedly infringing some of its patents. According to the Finnish company, Apple rejected any licensing offers that would have allowed it to legally take advantage of the infringed patents.

"Through our sustained investment in research and development, Nokia has created or contributed to many of the fundamental technologies used in today's mobile devices, including Apple products. After several years of negotiations trying to reach agreement to cover Apple's use of these patents, we are now taking action to defend our rights", says Nokia's head of Patent Business, Ilkka Rahnasto.

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Apple sure knows how to keep its store stocked for the holidays. Ho, ho, ho, bah humbug. The shelves are bare, and you can get your must-have pretty thing some time next year. If you're lucky. Let's start with the delayed AirPods, which went on sale online last week. They arrived in stores on Monday, and whoosh were gone before the waiting line ended. My local shop had about 30 pairs. If you want them, first available retail pickup date is—cough, cough—February 8th. That is 2017. I had to confirm not 2018, because you never know with these dumbfounding delays. Straight-to-ship orders move your way in six weeks. Donald Trump will be president sooner!

Perhaps you're pining for one of those pricey MacBook Pros—you know, the ones with Touch Bar that no sane person knows what to do with. Apple will miss Christmas, but you can still beat Martin Luther King's birthday, with orders made today delivering sometime between January 4-10 or available for in-store pickup on the tenth. God Bless America and Made in China!

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USB-C is proving to be quite the wonderful connector. It is being used on many devices, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones. This means you can often charge multiple devices using a single power adapter -- very convenient for those that like to pack light. You can also connect things like flash drives to both PCs and mobile devices -- very cool.

Apple recently released its newest MacBook Pro, and it only has USB-C ports for connectivity; it even charges using these ports. The power brick is surprisingly chunky, however, meaning it can take up a good amount of room in a bag. If you desire a smaller charger for your MacBook or other USB-C devices, I have good news. Today, FINsix announces the DART-C, which it claims is the 'world’s smallest' USB-C laptop charger.

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At $159.99, Apple's new AirPods are super expensive. But there is a very good reason why. According to an iFixit teardown, there is a lot of technology crammed into this pair of wireless earphones. As it turns out, the old "you get what you pay for" saying is true.

In the AirPods, which weigh four grams (0.14 ounces) each, Apple has packed its own W1 chip to provide wireless connectivity, IR sensors, microphones, an accelerometer and a battery, on top of the usual speaker. The IR sensors, microphones and accelerometer are there so that the AirPods can detect when they're in your ear -- and work accordingly.

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If you want a thin and light laptop, Apple is usually the way to go. Its computers are designed to be both durable and beautiful while also being very svelte. Windows laptops, however, have historically been more heavy and made of cheap plastic with a focus on affordability -- beauty and skinniness be damned.

Lately, computers running Microsoft's operating system have been much nicer -- sometimes giving Apple a run for its money. The Surface Book, for instance, is a work of art. Today, Samsung refreshes its Notebook 9 laptops with a focus on being extremely portable -- very thin and light. In fact, it is lighter than the 2016 MacBook Pro -- holy cow. Unlike Apple's newest laptops -- which run the older 6th generation Skylake processors -- Samsung's machines have the latest-and-greatest 7th gen Kaby Lake Core i5 and i7 processors.

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We knew that Mojang would bring Minecraft to Apple TV before the year's end, as the seriously popular game was previewed by Tim Cook during the MacBook Pro event earlier this year. And now, days before Christmas, it's finally here.

Minecraft launches on Apple TV with nearly all of its features intact. The game lacks support for Realms and Xbox Live, but includes seven DLCs "for a limited time".

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Many educators won't agree, but perhaps students will: The PC, whether desktop or notebook, is obsolete in the classroom. This reality, if accepted for what it is, presents Apple opportunity to retake the K-12 market from Alphabet-subsidiary Google's incursion and sudden success with Chromebook among U.S. schools. If the fruit-logo company doesn't seize the moment, a competitor will—and almost certainly selling devices running Android.

Chromebook's educational appeal is three-fold: low cost, manageability, and easy access to Google informational services. For buy-in price, and TCO, no Apple laptop or tablet running macOS or iOS, respectively, can compete. Think differently! Providing students any kind of computer is shortsighted, by narrowly presuming that schools, or their parents, must buy something. I suggest, in this time of budgetary constraints, that educators instead use what the kids already possess (or want to) and what they use easily and quickly: The smartphone.

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As much as I tried not to spill anything on my beloved MacBook Air, last month I knocked over a cup of coffee, getting almost all of it over the keyboard. I feared this would happen, but I did not think it would happen to me. I'm super careful with any coffee, soda or water that I bring to my desk. But, the thing I dreaded the most happened.

There was coffee all over the keyboard, touchpad and the left side of my Mac. It is not a pretty sight, unless you are dying to get a new laptop -- which, really, wasn't the case. Knowing that liquid damage can be the end of it, I quickly powered it off, turned it upside down, and the coffee started to drain from it. With a bit of luck, I knew that I could fix it. And I did. Here is how I did it and what I learned from it.

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A jury in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has ruled against Apple in a lawsuit about wireless patent infringement. Core Wireless was awarded $7.3 million in damages after Apple was found to have violated two patents owned by the company.

Apple was found to have infringed upon Core Wireless' patents in iPhones and iPads, taking advantage of technology that "provide innovations that improve battery life and signal quality in mobile phones". The company is expected to appeal against the ruling, but this is not the only case it has lost.

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In the three years of using my MacBook Air, I have never had any major problems with it. It was totally reliable, even after I accidentally spilled coffee on it. However, updates in the macOS Sierra 10.12 and macOS High Sierra 10.13 families ruined its streak, leaving me with a blank screen that only displayed the cursor.

I initially blamed the update for this, but after I saw no similar reports from other users I started doing some digging. As it turns out, this problem predates Sierra and High Sierra by a couple of years. Apple has not addressed it yet, but, don't panic: it is pretty easy to fix it yourself.

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Water smacked the windshield -- a torrent of heavy droplets -- as my wife struggled to feed money into the tollbooth machine. Pelting rain is uncommon during November in San Diego, but we had purpose for driving 36 km through the downpour to Chula Vista and the Otay Ranch Apple Store, where I had never been before. The shop was the only one around that had the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar in stock.

Eleven days earlier, Nov. 15, 2016, I received the 13.3-inch model that was ordered on October 27th. While first impressions were wow, the laptop felt slow compared to my previous MBP, and the battery drained in about half the time as specs stated. I worried that Apple produced a defective unit. No store in the area had the smaller laptop in stock, should I want to take advantage of the 14-day return policy. Deadline approached, so I considered as alternative my first 15-incher in more than a decade, tempted in part by quad-core processor and discreet graphics.

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Christmas is a time that sees many people getting new phones -- and for Google this is the perfect opportunity to try to steal a few iPhone users. But the problem with switching from one mobile platform to another is making sure data migrates across. Thanks to Google Drive, this is now easier than ever.

Google has had a guide to switching from iOS to Android on the Android website for some time, but it has now been updated to reflect important changes that have been made to the iOS version of Google Drive.

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A day after introducing iOS 10.2, Apple releases macOS Sierra 10.12.2. The update promises to resolve the graphics problems affecting the 2016 MacBook Pro line, adds some improvements, and fixes lots of bugs.

Another highlight of macOS Sierra 10.12.2 is that it now supports new installations of Windows 7 and Windows 8 in Boot Camp. The previous version limited users to Windows 10, but the older versions of Windows are still very popular -- and in high demand, apparently with Mac users.

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