iMac

The move to the smaller, app-centric iPads makes sense for kids as much as it makes for Apple. While the applications that were available on the iMacs were educational and kid-friendly, there is just something about Apple's iPad that kids simply "get."

Since getting my iPad, it has become a favorite request when visiting my nephews (2 and 4). Of course it makes my job as babysitter easier, but watching them handle iOS has been fascinating. My brother and his wife do not have any Apple products, yet my nephews seem to automatically understand the concept of … Read more

Jeff and I find ourselves in a conversation about candy in this morning's preshow that bleeds over into today's recorded episode. Why? Well, we heard a story about Steve Jobs proposing a Willy Wonka style contest to celebrate the sale of the millionth original Apple iMac.

It comes from a book coming out soon called "Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success," and it talks about how Steve wanted to put a custom gold ticket inside a single iMac box that would land the winner a trip to Cupertino, Calif., for a tour of … Read more

When it comes to packing more storage into Mac systems, the only model that Apple supports adding more internal hard drives to is the Mac Pro, where you have four drive bays to use for new hard drives. While drives on other Mac systems may be user serviceable, the only supported options for adding more drives to them is to use external storage options.

External storage options are relatively fast and easy to set up, however, they do offer a bit of an inconvenience as they can clutter your workspace, or be a burden to lug around with a portable … Read more

If you own an iMac with an ATI Radeon graphics card and have been experiencing system hangs (where the computer stops responding), Apple has a firmware update that might help your situation out.

In the past week Apple has issued a number of firmware updates for various Mac systems, including updates for the onboard EFI firmware on its systems to address various problems with network booting and use of HDCP compliant monitor devices, among other issues.

This firmware release is for the graphics card on some iMac systems, and is a small download that includes a ROM flasher for Radeon … Read more

Apple has released new firmware updates for a number of its early- and mid-2011 Mac systems. The updates, which require OS X 10.7.3 or later to install, address problems with NetBoot features, and fix problems with HDCP authentication after rebooting (which may prevent HD content from being displayed on certain monitors). The updates also fix a problem with the selection of the boot drive when a USB drive is plugged into the system.

The updates should be available via Software Update for iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air systems released in early to mid-2011, but you … Read more

If you're an Apple fan feeling nostalgic for the days of your old iMac or classic iPod, you might want to snatch up one of these retro cases for your iPhone.

Schreer Delights offers a set of iPhones designed to look like old Apple products, including the iMac G3, Power Mac G4, and first-gen iPod. We particularly like the old-school Macintosh model, which includes such details as vent grooves and an SCSI port. … Read more

New Mac systems support the ability to boot to Apple's Internet recovery service that provides Lion users with an option to reinstall OS X over the Internet, instead of using a local boot disk to reinstall OS X.

In an effort to bring this ability to some earlier-model systems, Apple recently released EFI firmware updates for 2010-model MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini systems that enable this option.

In a new round of EFI updates released yesterday, Apple appears to be filling out support for this feature in all of its 2010 models, now bringing this feature to the … Read more

Apple's iMac captured the biggest slice of all-in-one computer sales in the third quarter, according to data out this week from NPD DisplaySearch.

For the quarter, the iMac scooped up 32.9 percent of all sales of all-in-one (AIO) PCs, loosely defined as computers with their inside components squeezed into the monitor chassis.

Taking second place behind Apple in the third quarter was Lenovo, with 22.7 percent of all AIO sales, followed by HP with a 21.4 percent share.

Other PC players, including NEC, Sony, and Fujitsu, managed to eke out only 2 or 3 percent of … Read more

Apple's product line is set to get some big makeovers next year, if a new report is to be believed.

Citing sources in "the upstream supply chain," tech news site Digitimes says that Apple plans to "overhaul" its iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air and iMac during the course of next year.

Presumably that means brand new designs of those products, whereas most of the company's additions during the past year could be classified as tweaks to existing models.

As far as timing goes, Digitimes offers that Apple will roll out a new iPad in March, … Read more