The 13-inch MacBook Pro Joins The Retina Team

Rumors have been running rampant and spreading like wild fire when it comes to Apple products, and the latest 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro was no exception. The day the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro was announced, many people were disappointed that there wasn't a 13-inch model, considering how the little brother of the Macbook Pro lineup is the most sought after. As of today, people looking for the 13-inch to go Retina can bathe in its glory soon enough. 

Coming in at a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution, the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro will join in the race to become thinnest and fastest laptop on the market. While there have been no significant changes to the internal specs of the machine, other than the choice of up to 768GB of flash storage and flash storage only, the 13-inch Retina will stun you with its exterior design. Weighing only 3.57 pounds due to it being 20% thinner than the old MacBook Pro, fans of the Pro lineup can finally be satisfied. If you recall, the 13-inch MacBook Pros had speakers placed underneath the keyboard itself, rendering the audio quality and volume to be less than impressive, but now, Apple has changed the placement of the speakers to fire besides the uniquely designed ventilation ports, which should drastically improve audio quality. 

The base model 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro will begin at $1,699 and will come with a 128GB flash storage, 8GB of RAM, an Intel dual-core Ivy Bridge processor, and Intel HD Graphics 4000. These are available right now on the Apple Online Store. 

Tweetbot For Mac Is Finally Here

All of your Twitter woes has finally been solved, and it comes packed inside a cute metal bird. The developers over at Tapbot has got everything ready to go and finally let their little metal egg hatch into something very exciting. Tweetbot For Mac went live earlier today on the Mac App Store and has risen through the ranks to land right next to OS X Mountain Lion on the Top Paid category. 

The app will support Retina displays and also iCloud syncing capabilities with your Tweetbot for iOS app. Now before you guys head over to the Mac App Store and pick yours up, let me warn you, the price tag isn't pretty. It'll knock you down $20. Instead of me wasting my time jabbering on about how Tweetbot is worth it, I'll let Mark Jardine, a developer of Tweetbot, give you the inside scope: 

If you think about it, it’s not that expensive. Twenty dollars for a quality piece of software that you use every day? That has been the price point for quality utility apps on the Mac for years. However, it’s not just the development time and attention we put into the app that commands the higher price.

Because of Twitter’s recent enforcement of token limits, we only have a limited number of tokens available for Tweetbot for Mac. These tokens dictate how many users Tweetbot for Mac can have. The app’s limit is separate from, but much smaller than, the limit for Tweetbot for iOS. Once we use up the tokens granted to us by Twitter, we will no longer be able to sell the app to new users. Tapbots will continue to support Tweetbot for Mac for existing customers at that time.

This limit and our desire to continue to support the app once we sell out is why we’ve priced Tweetbot for Mac a little higher than we’d like. It’s the best thing we can do for the long term viability of the product. We know some will not be happy about Tweetbot for Mac’s pricing, but the bottom line is Twitter needs to provide us with more tokens for us to be able to sell at a lower the price. We spent a year developing this app and it’s the only way for us to be able to make our money back and continue supporting it with updates in the future. Feel free to let Twitter know how you feel about it.

13-Inch Retina Display Macbook Pro Is Finally Coming

I'm sure by now, just about everyone is aware of the long-rumored iPad Mini announcement coming up on October 23rd. What if you don't care for a miniature version of your favorite tablet you say? Good thing Apple is also announcing a 13-inch Retina Macbook Pro then. 

There has been multiple reports from a number of reliable sources pointing towards the latest Retina upgrade for the most popular Macbook Pro. It is reported that the 13-inch models will come with a brand new never before seen battery design as well as ports replicating that of the 15-inch Retina Macbook Pro. Coming with a MagSafe 2, two Thunderbolt ports, USB 3.0 port, and a headphone jack on the left, while rocking another USB 3.0 port, a HDMI port, and a SD slot on the left. If you were hoping for an extra boost in GPU power, then you're out of luck. It seems that it is still designed for Intel's integrated graphics. 

Look forward to the announcement on the 23rd as we'll have the full report to keep you guys updated. 

Clean Your iPhone 4S Screen With Swipe

We take our smartphones wherever we go and take them out whenever we want. Everything is literally at our fingertips, our dirty and oily fingertips at that. Everytime I have something awesome to show my friends or just want to enjoy my Retina display to the fullest, my shirt is my go-to cleaning cloth. It has become so common for us to use our shirts to wipe our iPhone screens that Swipe, an innovative approach to this problem, was created. 

Created out of aircraft aluminum, Swipe is a case that will last. Integrated directly onto the case is a Micro-Fiber covered swiper that will easily glide up and down your screen, taking all the smudges along with it, leaving your iPhone feeling as it did when it just came out of the box. Cleaning your iPhone screen has never been so effortless. 

Not only does Swipe clean your screen, it also features a tripod mount that will attach to your dashboard, your bike, or anything with a compatible mount. On top of that, as cellular signals tend to decrease with metallic cases such as the Swipe, they have touted optimal signal strength using their "Wide Open Hybrid Design." Swipe just has it all.

Swipe's Kickstarter campaign is still in its early stages with 29 days to go. Head on over to their page and support this great idea to permanently get rid of your dirty iPhone screen. You can preorder one with a $79 pledge or higher if the campaign becomes successful.

Macbook Airs To Come With Retina Display

Following up on yesterday’s MacBook Pro rumors, 9to5mac reports that the next generation MacBook Airs will include Retina Displays. The current tapered design of the MacBook Air will not be seeing any imminent upgrades. Without any external upgrades, Apple looks to focus on the internals of the MacBook Air lineup instead. According to various supply chain sources, Apple plans to implement the newly released Ivy Bridge processors and improved graphics; these upgrades will greatly improve performance and be able to support the high-pixel-density Retina Displays.

It appears that Apple is planning to slowly revamp their entire product line with Retina Displays. While this news is very exciting, it is unrealistic to hypothesize on a launch date for their Air line up. It is common for Apple to slowly announce each of their new products; we will have to wait and see what happens at this year's WWDC. 

Rumored “Ultra-Thin” 15-Inch MacBook Pro

 

Follow up rumors have hinted at the long-awaited “Macbook Air”-esque MacBook Pro being near its launch date. 9to5mac reports of a new 15-inch Macbook Pro’s design sporting a thinner body without both an optical drive and Ethernet port. Both of these features have been excluded in the MacBook Air line and would make sense for the Pro line to follow suit as Apple is aiming for a thin notebook standard.

The report hints at possible USB 3.0 capabilities as well as Thunderbolt connectivity. With the new design, the layout will consist of the MagSafe power connector, two USB ports, with an audio in/out jacks and battery indicator on the left side. Along the right side, it is said to consist of two Thunderbolt ports, one more USB port, an SD card slot, and a Kensington lock slot. Another very exciting feature is Apple’s Retina display that will most likely be taking advantage of OS X’s “HiDPI” option. 

While an exact launch date has yet to be released, we can only guess at possible release dates. Apple’s WWDC which is in just four weeks have been in the past one of the major events where Apple introduces their major products. Digitimes suggests that Apple may be pushing for a possible June release. 

Update on 2012-05-15 04:58 by Bobby Zhang

Bloomberg has come out to confirm reports of the 15-inch MacBook Pro being announced at this year's WWDC. They have also suggested the revealing of Apple's new OS, Mountain Lion sometime this late summer.

Samsung Releases Its Newest iPhone Competitor

Samsung revealed their Samsung Galaxy III today to a lot of anticipation. With the success of its predecessor, the Galaxy II, you can expect the bar to be set extremely high for the new and improved version. It seems that it has gained the approval of the masses and Samsung will once again challenge Apple's dominance in the market.

Sporting a crisp and clear 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED display capable of 720 x 1280 resolution, it comes close to Apple's Retina Display. Taking advantage of this display is a 8MP camera capable of 1080p video recording and a 1.9MP front-facing camera capable of 720p. Opening up the internals of Samsung's superphone, you will find a quad-chip with 1GB of RAM that will improve its overall performance, providing you with a lag-free experience. The large 2100 mAh battery will allow you to spend much more time using the phone while you're on the move without having to worry about battery life. 

With all of these upgrades to hardware, the Galaxy III's software updates and tweaks to Android's Ice Cream Sandwich are just as thrilling. With innovative functions such as :

"Smart Stay, which uses the forward-facing camera to determine if you're looking at the phone. You can set time intervals from as little as 15 seconds, which result in a small flashing eye logo in the Android notification bar. If it recognises that your eyes aren't focused on the phone anymore, the screen dims.

Direct Call, which will auto-dial a contact if you have their contact details or a message open. By moving the phone to your ear, the proximity sensor; accelerometer and gyroscope all kick into use, and automatically dial the contact's number.

Smart Alert, which will make the phone vibrate in your hand and flash an LED if you pick the phone up after a missed call.

S Voice, which is a Siri-like voice recognition feature, that you can use to enquire about the weather; take a photo ("Hi Galaxy, please take a photo" to open the camera app, or "cheese" to snap it), and other tasks such as locking the phone, or controlling music. Each demand can be configured by the user.

Social Tag, which links photos of friends in your photo gallery to their Facebook or Google+ accounts, using facial recognition.

S Beam, which pairs other Galaxy S III phones (and only them, for now) via NFC, shares photos, videos, files or even albums of media over Wi-Fi. If your friend's S III doesn't have Wi-Fi enabled, S Beam will automatically turn that user's Wi-Fi on, and then off.

AllShare Cast, which pairs to TVs, laptops or tablets over Wi-Fi, mirroring whatever's on the S III. You can also use the S III as a game controller.

PopUp Play, which will literally pop a video out of its rendering it in a small thumbnail so you can continue watching while surfing the web or doing other functions on the phone. The thumbnail is movable around the display, even if it's pretty small."

Samsung definitely hopes to continue to dominate the Android market and to gain a stronger foothold in the overall smartphone market with its latest upgrade of the Galaxy line. With the new features and smoother user experience, the refined Galaxy III is set for US release this summer.