Apple's Redesigned iMacs Are Now Available

You've waited long enough, and as promised Apple's new redesigned iMacs are now available for purchase after their first debut in October alongside the iPad mini and a bevy of refreshed Apple products. You get grab the incredibly thin edged, powerful new iMacs in either a 21-inch model starting at $1,299 with a 2.7GHZ quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M with 512MB of memory; or the 27-inch model starting at $1,799 which packs a 2.9GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M with 512MB. Apple's new Fusion Drive option will set you back an additional $250 for 1TB of storage, but it's only available to the $1,499 21-inch iMac and all the 27-inch models. 1TB of 5400RPM hard drive storage comes as standard on all models.

The Fusion Drive option features a combination of 128GB of solid stage storage and a 1TB mechanical 5400RPM hard drive for optimal SSD-like performance with the massive storage capacity of a regular hard drive. In this case a 1TB hard drive, or up to a 3TB premium.

Redesigned iTunes 11 Out Now

iTunes 11 has finally been released today and is now available to download on OS X and Windows. iTunes 11 features a dramatic redesign that's now much more simplified and quicker to use with an iOS-type look and feel. Apple got rid of the static menus with iTunes 11 which resulted in a much streamlined edge-to-edge design, less screen real estate being taken up by the app and a cleaner to navigate iTunes store and music library.

Completely Redesigned. iTunes makes it more fun to explore and enjoy your music, movies, and TV shows. You'll love the beautiful edge-to-edge design, custom designs for each album, movie, or TV show in your library, and getting personal recommendations any time you click in the Store. 

A New Store. The iTunes Store has been completely redesigned and now features a clean look that makes it simpler than ever to see what's hot and discover new favorites. 

Play purchases from iCloud. Your music, movie, and TV show purchases in iCloud now appear inside your library. Just sign-in with your Apple ID to see them. Double-click to play them directly from iCloud or download a copy you can sync to a device or play while offline. 

Up Next. It's now simple to see which songs are playing next, all from a single place. Just click the Up Next icon in the center display and they'll instantly appear. You can even reorder, add, or skip songs whenever you like. 

New MiniPlayer. You can now do a whole lot more with a lot less space. In addition to showing what's playing, MiniPlayer now includes album art, adds Up Next, and makes it easy to search for something new to play - all from a smaller and more elegant design. 

Improved search. It's never been easier to find what you're looking for in iTunes. Just type in the search field and you'll instantly see results from across your entire library. Select any result and iTunes takes you right to it. 

Playback syncing. iCloud now remembers your place in a movie or TV show for you. Whenever you play the same movie or episode from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple TV, it will continue right where you left off.

Scott Forstall Leaving Apple

 

It was revealed that Scott Forstall, Senior Vice President of iOS Software, will be leaving Apple as early as next year. Apple has confirmed the news thru a press release today, but hasn't mentioned the reason. We think it mostly has to do with the fail of iOS Maps, and/or the fact that Scott Forstall sold 95% of his Apple stock cashing around $38 million a few months ago. Here's for an exciting new iOS 7!

Apple Posts Samsung Judgement Notice In The UK

While Apple won a battle against Samsung on its home turf, the company lost the same case against Samsung in the UK where it accused Samsung of copying the iPad's design. As a result, Apple was ordered by the UK high court to inform consumers that Samsung did not infringe on its iPad design patents. Apple has put a footer link on its UK site that directs consumers to a page where they can read the final judgment made by the UK high court in which the judge points out Apple's sophisticated design calling the iPad a cool tablet compared to Samsung's Galaxy tablets which bare an unusual, cluttered design and are simply not as cool.

The extreme simplicity of the Apple design is striking. Overall it has undecorated flat surfaces with a plate of glass on the front all the way out to a very thin rim and a blank back. There is a crisp edge around the rim and a combination of curves, both at the corners and the sides. The design looks like an object the informed user would want to pick up and hold. It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design."

"The informed user's overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool.

Contrary to the UK judgement, in Germany, Apple points out that it has won the same case against Samsung which was found guilty of infringing on Apple's design and utility patents.

Apple Reports Q4 2012 Earning Results

Today, Apple has announced its Q4 earnings for 2012 of $8.2 billion in profit on $35.97 billion in revenue compared to last year's fourth quarter results of $6.6 billion in profit on $28.3 billion in revenue; just days after releasing the iPad mini, 4th generation iPad, redesigned iMacs, a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, and a refreshed Mac mini. Apple managed to sell a staggering 26.9 million iPhones, 14 million iPads, 5.3 million iPods and 4.9 million Macs this quarter alone. Apple’s has also revealed that it will grant a cash dividend of $2.65 per share to shareholders of the company's common stock as of November 12.

AAPL stocks isn't looking so good today plunging down near the $600 per share mark in after hour trading shortly after Apple reported its fourth quarter earning results. 

Fourth Generation iPad Strikes With Lightning And Then Some

The Internet is buzzing with Apple activity today, with just about everything Apple trending on Twitter. At the California Theatre in San Jose, CA, Tim Cook and his team announced a plethora of brand new products including the much anticipated iPad mini, that will leave a good number of us in a heap of credit card debt. The iPad 3 was "resolutionary" with its Retina display, but Apple wasn't satisfied with that just yet. They announced a number of upgrades that will be going into the new Big Daddy of iPads now dubbed the iPad 4, which is the 4th generation iPad Apple has released.

Getting rid of the old 30-pin connector, Apple is equipping the updated iPad 4 with the new Lightning connector that we first saw debut with the iPhone 5. Some people have been complaining about the responsiveness of their iPad and how the A5X processor just wasn't enough. If you're one of those people, there is good news coming. Apple's brand new A6X processor will give deliver twice as much CPU and graphics performance than its predecessor. Despite the huge boost in power, Apple claims to have maintained its amazing 10 hour battery life. To sweeten the deal, Apple has finally upgraded the front facing camera to the iSight camera, which is capable of 720p HD quality video chats. As for the back camera, it has not changed, but you shouldn't even be using it anyways... 

This new iPad was more of a "S" upgrade, which involved mainly updates to the internal specs. The 4th-generation iPad will be available in black and white with the same size configurations as the older iPad models, starting at $499 for the 16GB WiFi model and $629 for the 16GB cellular model. The new iPad is also compatible with international LTE carriers now as well. 

Get your credit cards ready on the 26th to preorder and expect the WiFi models to ship beginning November 2nd and the cellular models two weeks after. 

The New 2012 iMac Continues Apple's Revolutionary Design

To be honest, we were well aware of a lot of today's exciting announcements and what was in store from the never-ending flow of rumors that has been flying around. What was fairly well kept within Apple was the brand new iMac. I personally consider this as the most exciting portion of Apple's event today considering the surprise of it all. Not only did the entire exterior design transform into the sexiest piece of aluminum I've ever seen on a computer, but the internal specs have been boosted significantly, and as Steve Jobs would have said, "and one more thing…" the Fusion Drive. 

The current iMacs look like The Incredible Hulk when you compare it with the new updated versions. This all-in-one desktop computer has everything from the display, processor, graphics card, memory, and a bunch more crammed into a 5-mm edged display. That's half a centimeter. Think about it. Shedding 40% of its volume, the new iMac is the lightest and thinnest all-in-one computer Apple has ever seen. 

Remember how the old screen would reflect and glare like a mirror, rendering any work with direct sunlight shining through impossible? That's about to change. Apple has reduced 75% of the screen's reflectivity to instead display what you would want to see on such a gorgeous screen -- vibrant and true colors. 

The iMac isn't joking around, so it'll start off with Intel's quad-core Ivy Bridge processors and NVIDIA's high end graphics cards for amazing overall performance. Memory wise, 8GB come standard across all iMacs. As for ports and connectors, you get four USB 3.0 connectors, two Thunderbolt ports, a  Gigabit ethernet port, a headphone jack, and a SDXC card slot. 

As you're soaking all of this up, let me hit you with one last thing. Fusion Drive. The introduction of both traditional hard drives combined with the speedy solid-state drives, you can now have both lightning fast performance as well as high capacity storage. 1TB hard drives are now standard for every iMac but if you need more, Apple provides up to 3TB of storage or up to 768GB of flash storage. 

The 21.5-inch iMac will begin at $1299 and will start reaching doorsteps in November while the 27-inch will start at $1799 and will arrive sometime in December. This gives you some time to recuperate from buying all the other devices Apple announced recently. How thoughtful of them.