October 17, 2014

Apple's 27-inch 5K Retina iMac Has User Upgradeable RAM & CPU

October 17, 2014/ Nir Schneider

Apple's highest resolution iMac ever, the new 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display, was recently announced and went on sale yesterday starting at $2,499. But even though it features the highest resolution 5K IPS display on the market at a relatively reasonable price considering there's an entire powerful computer behind it, upgrading the stock 8GB of RAM when ordering from Apple to 16GB or 32GB will cost you an additional $200 and $600, respectively. I don't know about you, but paying $600 extra for 32GB is just unacceptable.

Fortunately, just like the 2013 non-Retina 27-inch iMac, Apple's iMac with 5K Retina display features user upgradeable memory that is easily accessible from the back of the machine without any tools required. Third party memory manufacturers like Crucial offer a compatible 16GB kit that is identical to the stock RAM that Apple puts into the 27-inch 5K Retina iMac, but costs way less. The Crucial 16GB upgrade kit will cost you less than $140, and it consists of two 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM modules - which is the same configuration that Apple uses. Two 16GB Crucial RAM kits will upgrade your iMac to 32GB for less than $280 compared to the absurd markup of $600 Apple charges for its RAM upgrade option.

September 22, 2012

iPhone 5 Tip: How To Maintain Your Battery Life

September 22, 2012/ Nir Schneider

The longevity of your iPhone 5's battery is determined by how well you treat it. Kind of like giving your car its maintenance check every now and then. A properly maintained iPhone 5 battery is said to retain up to 80% of its original capacity after around 400 charging cycles. That's pretty great for rechargeable smartphone batteries. But if and only if you properly follow Apple's suggested iPhone battery guidelines. Apple suggests that you completely charge your iPhone's battery and drain it down until it shuts off on its own with use, at least once per month. This insures that the lithium battery refreshens its juicy bits inside it and renews the electrons. But the same holds true to all of Apple's devices in case you didn't know. Do this and your iPhone will hold a charge for a long time to come.

October 30, 2011

Did You Know - Siri Works On All Current iOS 5 Devices

October 30, 2011/ Nir Schneider

Apple's decision to make Siri an exclusive feature that belongs to the recently released iPhone 4S has been question quite a lot ever since Siri was announced. At first we all thought it had to be the iPhone 4S' better, faster and improved hardware, but as it turns out, people have successfully ported Siri to fully and flawlessly (with some mic hiccups on the iPod's side) work on all current iOS 5 devices including the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2 and the iPod Touch 4G. Jailbreaking is still required though. Here's a handy guide on how to install Siri on the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch if you're feeling adventurous, or possibly betrayed. Just goes to show you that Apple did everything to entice users to jump ship and get the iPhone 4S with its voice assistant genie.

September 28, 2011

Thunderbolt Display Spills Its Guts For You To See

September 28, 2011/ Nir Schneider

iFixit always prove to be very helpful when it comes to taking apart your electronic gadgets to fix them up or just for fun peeking around. This time iFixit posted up their teardown of the Apple Thunderbolt Display to reveal some very interesting guts you would never have thought to find in a display. Head over to the teardown page for the full procedure filled with useful information and detailed step-by-step teardown of Apple's 27" Thunderbolt Display.