Thursday, October 20, 2016

Apple to announce new Macs at a special event October 27


Journalists will gather in Cupertino next Thursday for the "Hello again" special event, where Apple is expected to announce a redesigned MacBook Pro.


It’s official—the wait for new Macs shouldn’t be much longer. Apple just sent out invites to journalists to a product unveiling at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. The event will take place next Thursday, October 27, at 10 a.m. Pacific.
Naturally, the invitation doesn’t specify what Apple will announce—the tagline is simply “Hello again.” Smart money is on updated Macs, since nothing but the 12-inch MacBook has been updated this year. Rumors have been swirling that Apple is prepping an update to the MacBook Pro line, which will include a set of touch-sensitive OLED keys to replace the function row along the top of the keyboard, allowing those keys to change based on the application you’re using.
The other rumor is new ports: Apple may be ditching standard USB-A ports for USB-C. This would match Apple’s approach for the MacBook, which has a single USB-C port for charging and connectivity—although we hope the MacBook Pro would have three or four, and it should get Thunderbolt 3 (which uses the same port type) too. The lack of USB-C peripherals and docks was a problem when the MacBook first launched in 2015, but since then the ecosystem has matured, and finding adapters and docks is easier. (And it better have a headphone jack!)
macbookpro ports left
The MacBook Pro design hasn’t changed in years. 
As with any redesign, we expect Apple to go thinner and lighter. The trackpad will probably get bigger, and we wouldn’t be surprised if the new MacBook Pro got the lower-travel butterfly-mechanism keyboard found on the MacBook line. Apple has never included Touch ID in a Mac before, but now that Sierra supports Apple Pay on the Web, adding a Touch ID button could let you authorize payments without needing an iPhone or Apple Watch handy—as well as let you log in more securely, of course.
What about the rest of the Mac lineup, though? According to the very handyMacRumors Buyers Guide, all of Apple’s computers could use a refresh. The MacBook Air lineup was last refreshed in March of 2015, although Apple did bump the base-model MacBook Air to 8GB of RAM this past April. The Mac mini got its most recent upgrade, to a Haswell processor, way back in October 2014. The long-neglected Mac Pro (last updated December 2013) might be headed for the history books, but Apple’s other desktop option, the iMac, has gone a full year without an update too. Apple has been rumored to be working on a 5K display with its own GPU to replace the discontinued Thunderbolt Display, as well as new iMacs, so if those are ready, perhaps we’ll see them on stage next week.
We’ll be in Cupertino next Thursday to bring you the news as it happens, and Apple also plans to live stream it. Have you been holding out for a new Mac? Let us know what you’re hoping to see in the comments.

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How switching to Macs is paying off for IBM

IBM employees prefer Macs, which is actually saving IBM about $543 per computer.

imac stock

Last year, IBM made a bold decision. The company let its employees choose between a Windows PC or a Mac for their own work machines. IBM staffers prefer Macs, so the company bought up 30,000 of them. This year, IBM has 90,000 Macs in use. But Macs are expensive, as we all know, so IBM must be spending a fortune on making the switch…right? Apparently not.
IBM said Wednesday at the Jamf Nation User Conference that it’s actually saving money on each Mac: $273 to $543 per Mac over four years, compared to a Windows PC over the same time period. And no, that’s not because Microsoft is charging more. Fletcher Previn, IBM’s vice president of workplace as a service (yeah, that’s a real title), said Microsoft is giving IBM its best pricing ever. But Macs are still cheaper over their lifetime, and using them results in fewer service calls.
This is just one company’s data, but IBM expects to have more than 100,000 Macs in use by the end of this year, so that’s a pretty significant sample size. The company is rolling out 1,300 Macs a week, and only five IT administrators are supporting all of those computers.
This shift is huge for Apple, which has struggled to find footing in enterprise computing. In 2014, the company inked a deal with IBM to develop mobile-first enterprise apps for a variety of industries, a move that has been incredibly successful. The alliance may seem like a strange one to those who remember the early PC era when IBM and Apple were rivals, but IBM doesn’t make Windows PCs anymore and has bolstered Apple’s enterprise presence. Clearly that move is paying off for IBM, too.
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Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Reports: Apple has big plans to turn the MacBook keyboard into a display


Imagine an endlessly customizable keyboard that changes its keys based on the app or language you're using.

eink display
Credit: MartinPrague


Apple is reportedly planning to swap out the MacBook Pro’s row of function keys with a touchscreen OLED strip to make the keyboard more contextually relevant. This change heralds a much bigger one: a Kindle-esque e-ink display to replace the QWERTY keyboard.
That means the entire bottom half of the MacBook would be responsive to the app or language you’re using and change according to your needs. This would be incredibly useful for software developers, gamers, and people who communicate in multiple languages—basically anyone who needs special keys, including emoji lovers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the new keyboard is coming in 2018.
The technology Apple plans to use comes from Australian startup Sonder Design, which is selling its own e-ink keyboard later this year for $200. Sonder is backed by Foxconn, a major Apple supplier, which would make it easier for Apple to quickly produce the new MacBooks with Sonder’s keyboards baked in. Rumors began swirling last week that Apple might actually buy Sonder, but it’s unclear if that will happen.
The new keyboard will be standard across all MacBooks, the WSJ reports, not a specialized upgrade. The feature is still a ways off, but we’ll get a sense of how it might work if the OLED screen expected to replace the function keys actually comes into being. We could find out as soon as next week—Apple is reportedly unveiling new MacBooks on Oct. 27.
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