Apple has certainly been hoping its long-anticipated Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” would be a big hit with users when it hit the streets October 26th, and early indications are that the Apple faithful have been putting their money where their hearts are: Apple announced today that more than 2 million copies of Leopard were sold during the operating systems’ first weekend of availability.
“Early indications are that Leopard will be a huge hit with customers,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in a statement. “Leopard’s innovative features are getting great reviews and making more people than ever think about switching to the Mac.”
The signature feature of Leopard seems to be Time Machine, a built-in backup system that enables users to “go back in time” to retrieve previous versions of documents or even to restore their computers to previous states. Reviews of Mac OS X 10.5 are praising Time Machine for making backups seem cool: although some tech-savvy users of pooh-poohed the system as being too simplistic and filled with eye-candy, others have pointed out that flashy, cool, and simple are exactly what’s needed to get ordinary computer users backing up their data in the first place. Leopard also includes a raft of new features, including Quick Look (which enabled users to view common file types without launching an application), a revamped Finder that can show files in an iTunes-like “Cover Flow” view, a virtual desktop utility called Spaces, and enhancement to standard Apple programs like iChat and Mail.
Leopard is available for $129 (there is no upgrade pricing from previous versions), with a five-license family pack available for $199.
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.