After first going out of stock in the U.S. and later in every country in the world, people (and MacRumors) are beginning to assume the 16-year-old Apple SuperDrive isn’t coming back. The company hasn’t said anything about it officially, but many of its current customers probably don’t know or remember that it exists or is still sold.
When the first MacBook Air launched in 2008, its big selling point was the same as it is now — it’s superthin and light. Getting the size down to fit in a Manila envelope meant removing lots of ports, and that included the disc drive. It felt like a pretty bold move at the time. After all, how would you download software? Or what if you needed to burn a mix CD for your high school crush?
Well, to give people the option to still play CDs and DVDs on their Macs, Apple released a stand-alone disc drive called the SuperDrive. It uses a USB-A connector, which was fine at the time of release, but if you wanted to use one now, you’d have to buy a USB-C to USB-A adapter as well. It’s also too old to be compatible with Blu-ray discs, so it really is quite out of date.
Of course, USB ports aren’t the only thing that has changed over the past 16 years. Physical media like DVDs have become a bit of a niche in the age of streaming and digital downloads. This transition is likely why Apple never upgraded the SuperDrive to USB-C, and ultimately why it’s now disappeared from the Apple Store now.
So, let’s pour one out for the SuperDrive, a unique solution to an innovation that took us one step closer to where we are today.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.