Challenges with high-res displays

Apple would have to address significant challenges in order to bring a 2880×1800 resolution display to a MacBook Pro, which DigiTimes reports is in the works. Currently, the max screen res on the biggest MBP is 1920×1200, so a bump up to the reported resolution wouldn’t require a doubling of vertical and horizontal pixels, but it would be a considerable step up.

And taking that step would come with a cost in terms of requiring more processor power, and in terms of battery life, too. Also, producing high-res displays at scale is a tricky thing; the higher the resolution, the more difficult it would be for Apple to produce screens in THE numbers they require. But, next-generation chips from Intel could address some of these problems, especially as Intel says it’s investing more on graphics and media.

What Apple stands to gain

Some might think that Apple stands to add relatively little to its MacBook Pro with the introduction of a much higher-resolution display; Apple’s notebook market share has steadily risen for many years, after all, and the last time it changed its max resolution at the top end of its laptop offerings was in 2008. Do users really need higher resolution in a notebook?

The short answer is yes. Digital graphics and video pros invest in larger-screened MacBook Pros precisely because of their real estate advantage relative to other computers. Advancements in this area mean that Apple can continue to maintain a competitive advantage with pro users who still seek portability as well as power, and don’t want to depend on connecting to an external display to accomplish certain tasks. And with HD resolution offerings set to become more common among PC laptops, any measures Apple can take to stay ahead of the game will go a long way in terms of consumer perception.

OS X Lion also suggests that this is something Apple has been working toward for a while now, since it contains resolution independent features that allow developers to include “2X” graphics resources just like those found in apps compatible with the iPhone’s Retina Display. That the system is basically ready to go in Lion suggests the introduction of Macs that can take advantage of it during the lifetime of that OS.

Less of a leap than you might think

A jump up in resolution is actually something Apple is just about due for in its MacBook Pro line anyway. And the proposed change isn’t about something as dramatic as doubling res, as it is with the rumored iPad 3. It’ll no doubt be a big step up, but one in a key area that consumers will easily be able to see and experience, which is crucial in a market where big, visible feature changes are now relatively few are far between.

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• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• What Google’s Honeycomb Means for Apple and Microsoft

A MacBook Pro cooling stand that doesn’t compromise style

Cooling stands that prop your MacBook Pro and provide a little more room for air circulation than you get from the thin elevation of the rubber pads are generally just frames without much attention paid to aesthetics. A cooler laptop theoretically means longer device life, since you can run it for longer while keeping the internal temperature down, and, as most dedicated computer users know, heat is the enemy of fragile internal components.

The TILT is designed to be a cooling stand you’d be proud to put on your MacBook Pro, and even leave on. It clips directly to the bottom of your Apple notebook, and uses polycarbonate ABS made to look like your MacBook’s aluminum casing to blend in with Apple’s beautiful industrial design. Unlike most notebook stands, it features a closed bottom, which makes it easier to use on your lap, and it only adds less than an inch of height to the Mac as well as a light 8 ounces of weight.

It also features a built-in fan system that’s powered via USB if you think you need even more heat-saving power than the added elevation provides. But the best part actually might be the tripod mount built in to the TILT. I can think of plenty of situations where having a MacBook Pro mounted on a tripod would come in handy, especially at photo or video shoots, or for an impromptu small group video or slide show viewing party.

TILT has already met its Kickstarter funding goal, so it’ll become a reality. For now, only the model designed for the 15-inch MacBook Pro is going into production, but a 13-inch model is in the work. A pledge of $45 or more nabs you a pre-order.

Touch typing, via a sleek featherweight device on the iPad

I like my iPad, but I’ve never really been able to use it as a laptop replacement, at least not when it comes to writing. The touchscreen keyboard is fine for banging out a quick Twitter update, but for longer posts, it’s downright unpleasant, especially for someone as used to touch typing as I am. The TouchFire is a project that aims to bring touch typing to the iPad, in the least obtrusive way possible.

The TouchFire is a thin, flexible keyboard overlay that can actually live within the iPad’s smart cover, so you can roll it up and away when not in use. Despite its thickness, it offers real force resistance when typing, so that you actually feel like you’re hitting keys, thanks to a series of micro-structures within each key designed by project co-founder Brad Melmon, a product designer and engineer with a strong resume.

I can’t wait to get my hands on a TouchFire, because it looks like the perfect way to make creating written content on the iPad as easy as possible, without the need for Bluetooth accessories or elaborate add-ons. Like the TILT, it has already met its funding goal, so your pledge of $45 (the level at which you start qualifying for preorders) will definitely bear fruit.

Got an exciting Kickstarter project? Send it to us for consideration in our regular roundup of promising accessories.

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• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015

PlugBug is a simple adapter that connects easily to your existing MacBook power adapter, adding a 10 W USB charger (the same wattage as the one that ships with the iPad) for charging your iOS devices. The 10 W capacity means that it will charge your iPad faster than the standard iPhone and iPod charger, and it will still also be able to charge those devices just as easily, too.

This innovative but oh-so-simple design from Twelve South will really come in handy for travelers, since it means you can use the often-scant hotel power outlets to maximum efficiency: Just one outlet is needed to charge both your MacBook and a USB-connected device, and the design keeps the top outlet in a two-socket wall panel free for other uses.

Even if you aren’t taking your MacBook with you, PlugBug stands on its own as a very noticeable (it’s red) solo iPad and iPhone charger, thanks to a bottom attachment that covers the power brick plug component when it’s not in use. At $34.99, it’s actually only $5 more than the standard Apple iPad 10 W power adapter, too, so it really seems like a no-brainer for multiple Apple device owners.

This is the first iPad and MacBook accessory in a while that feels like a necessity to me. Anyone else blown away by the design?

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• The future of notebooks: Following in the footsteps of the MacBook Air
• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution

Macs retain higher overall resale values than many other PCs, but they don’t last forever. But how do you know when to act? What are the symptoms of impeding Mac death or obsolescence, and when is a good time to consider replacing an old Mac with a new one?  The following seven points should help you make an educated decision about whether or not to invest in one of the new MacBook Pros unveiled Monday, or any other new Mac for that matter.

1. Will not run OS X Lion (or Snow Leopard). In the past, if you had a Mac running an older version of OS X, you could keep it running for a long time without much issue. But iCloud’s minimum specs have changed that. Your Mac must have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor to run Lion 10.7.2 which is required to use iCloud on a Mac. If you’re not certain your Mac meets these requirements, you can easily identify exactly what Mac you have and get the specs from there. Users hoping to update to iCloud from MobileMe will need a newer Mac, and those hoping to stay on top of what could become the core of Apple’s business will also want to upgrade.

Not everyone needs the convenience features of iCloud, but you should note that Apple has also stopped releasing security updates for older Macs as well.  To play it safe, you may need to have a Mac that can at least run Snow Leopard.

2. Battery no longer keeps its charge. While certainly not the primary reason to get rid of a MacBook that still works when plugged in, it’s a sign that you may be getting near the end of your machine’s useful life.  Apple does have a battery replacement program, even for MacBooks that do not user-accessible batteries, but the cost of replacing a battery can run anywhere from $130 to $180, and if your battery is past its prime, other system components might be nearing their end, too. It may be time to consider turning that laptop into a desktop, and get a new MacBook.

3. Most-used apps are sluggish. New software tends to get bigger and more demanding with time. With each new update comes a lot more features. These may not be features you need or care about, but sometimes they’re required in order to maintain compatibility with a particular file format. You can always try sliding back to an earlier version to preserver performance, but if apps you use time and time again are making your computer slow or unusable, it’s probably time to look for something new.

4. An iPad outperforms your Mac. It may surprise you to learn that the current iPad 2′s geek bench scores are about as high as the Mac mini G4′s scores from 2005. You could try to clean out your Mac, free up some hard drive space, or even add some memory or a solid state drive to help and improve performance. But at the end of the day, there is a limit to the gains in performance you can squeeze out of older hardware, and the cost of doing so might outweigh the benefit.

5. Difficult-to-replace component has failed. If you’re not comfortable replacing the internal components of you Mac yourself, service prices can become cost-prohibitive when compared to buying a new Mac.  You may also end up being very disappointed following a major upgrade when something else goes wrong, like a hard drive failure.  With MacBooks especially, when one part starts to fail, the rest are likely not too far from failing as well.

6. The Mac you want was just updated. Following the rumors about possible Apple product updates can become more obsession than hobby.  I have looked toward’s MacRumor’s Buyer’s Guide for years now in an effort to track down when a particular product is going to be updated.  The simplest rule to follow, however, is that if you need a new Mac, buy a new Mac. But if your need happens to coincide with a fresh product update, don’t hesitate.

7. You own a PC, but all your mobile devices are Apple. Like works best with like, and that’s particularly true of Apple products. Apple has a great guide to help with the transition from a PC to a Mac.  And with Apple’s Boot Camp, VMware Fusion or Parallels, you can keep on using Windows on a Mac if you like.

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• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• The future of notebooks: Following in the footsteps of the MacBook Air
• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues

Entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pros now have 2.4 GHz and 2.8 GHz Intel Core i5 or i7 processors, depending on which base configuration you choose, and each have more storage by default, with 500 GB in the entry-level model and 750 in the higher-end version, vs 320 and 500 before the update.

The 15-inch Pros have faster versions of the quad-core Intel Core i7 chips that power them, and the option to upgrade to a 2.5 GHz option has been added to the computer’s customization selections. Apple has also upgraded the graphics card options, making the more powerful Radeon HD 6750M standard for the base 15-inch, with 512 MB of dedicated memory, and introduced the Radeon HD 6770M with 1 GB of dedicated memory for the more expensive option.

Finally, the 17-inch MBP now has a 2.4 GHz, quad-core i7 processor, with an option to upgrade to a 2.5 GHz chip. The Radeon 6770M is now the standard graphics card option, with 1 GB of dedicated memory. Also, you can now upgrade your custom drive on the 17-inch to a 750 GB 7200-rpm model.

This is actually a very modest update overall, and Apple clearly thinks so too, since there’s no mention of the changes on the company landing page, and no “new” badge on the MacBook Pro category in the Apple Store home page, either. Still, if you were holding out on a MacBook Pro purchase pending updates, this is probably the best you can expect for at least another four to six months. We’ll likely see benchmarks soon that show just how much the under-the-hood changes affect performance.

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Kickstarter-backed iPhone, iPod and iPad accessories

The PadPivot is a versatile iPad (or any other tablet or e-reader) stand that folds up for easy storage, and works both on hard surfaces like a table or desk, or on your thigh for holding your iPad steady while browsing or watching video on the couch. In my review, I wasn’t shy about calling the PadPivot the most practical stand I’d ever come across, and that remains true after a couple more weeks of usage.

PadPivot easily exceeded its funding goal of $10,000, raising $190,352 on Kickstarter, where anyone can pledge small amounts to see the project become a reality. Another project that blew past its initial funding target, the iPod nano watchbands called LunaTik and TikTok, also went on to pick up a prize retail distribution deal, and are now available on Apple retail store shelves.

Kickstarter’s advantage is its ability to act as a focus group (designers will change their product based on feedback during the funding period), test market (pledges act as pre-orders, so retailers have a ready-made sample of prospective buyer interest) and funding round. Thanks to that triple-pronged approach, consumers get to select from some unique accessories that might not have made it through the design-by-committee process that churns out relatively interchangeable designs at established accessory-makers.

When the PadPivot arrives on Best Buy and Future Shop (which is owned by Best Buy) shelves, it’ll bear in-house RocketFish branding. The device will still retain the same design that makes it so handy, and the PadPivot name, however, and should retail for around $39.99. Check it out in action below.

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
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The Blackbox Bamboo was originally designed based on creator Lance Atkins’ experiences travelling with a MacBook Pro on an African backpack safari, during which time the neoprene sleeve he was using provided inadequate protection, resulting in a broken Mac. He created the first Blackbox Case out of oak in 2010 to provide a heartier alternative to traditional soft sleeves. Now, the company wants to expand their business and provide an entire, new line of cases made out of the more sustainable bamboo.

The Blackbox Bamboo will come in a choice of two colors, either with a carbonized brown stain or in natural bamboo finish. It will also come in a variety of sizes, including one that fits the iPad 2 with or without the official Apple Smart Cover attached, one for both the 11 and 13-inch MacBook Air, and one each for 13, 15 and 17-inch MacBook Pro models. All varieties come with a leather strap with a snap closure for securing your device in the Blackbox Bamboo.

Kickstarter backers qualify for pre-orders starting at $79, which gets you the iPad 2 version, and range up from there depending on which model you’re interested in. It’s a pretty cool product that appeals to the outdoor adventurer in me, though I’m not sure I wear that mantle often enough to qualify. Anyone else’s fancy tickled by the Blackbox Bamboo? Be sure to check out the video below before you answer.

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
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It turns out that Mac Intel chips have a built-in feature called THERMTRIP that will temporarily suspend the CPU when things get hot, and shut down the CPU altogether when things get too hot. Speculation is that this temperature is somewhere in the neighborhood of 120-130ºC. While my Macs did not reach three digit temperatures, the increase did alarm me. Luckily, as you can see, the temperatures settled down to a normal range after a few days. This is likely due to the machines running a lot of initial tasks like Spotlight indexing of your entire drive just after the Lion upgrade.

Still, if you, like me, are concerned and want to do something a little more proactive than just waiting, here are a few precautionary measures you can take:

iStat Pro Dashboard Widget. One of the first (and lately the only dashboard widgets) I installed is iSlayer’s iStat Pro. This widget will allow you to monitor several of your Mac’s vital statistics, and with the optional companion iOS app, you can monitor your Mac from your iPhone when you’re attached to the same Wi-Fi network. Information reported includes systems various temperatures, and the speed of your Mac’s internal fans. The problem is that as your Mac keeps getting hotter, your fans aren’t spinning faster, something for which we turn to the next tool.

smcFanControl Menu utility for Mac. To manually modify the speed of your internal fans, you can install Hendrik Holtmann’s smcFanControl. For some of the older Macs that are still technically capable of running OS X 10.7 Lion, you may find that they are having some difficulty keeping up at times, and the default fan speed just will not provide the relief required. This menu bar item will allow you to change the minimum fan speed and effectively take control of just how fast your fan will blow. I created two custom settings: a midrange setting at 4000 RPM, and a high setting at 6000 RPM and will turn them on when I see things get a little too hot. I then set things back to Apple’s default levels once things cool down.

Purchase a laptop stand. Proper ventilation is key to allowing your Mac to cool down under normal conditions. Placing your laptop on a pillow or blanket because it is running hot may do more harm than good, especially if you end up blocking the vents that are trying to expel all that hot air. My personal favorite is the Cooling Bar from Just Mobile for $39.95US.  I find it convenient to carry with me and easy to set up.  Just Mobile has other stands for your MacBook as well. And if you tend to keep your Macbook closed when at a desk, consider Twelve South’s BookArc Pro for $49.99 U.S.

Let us know if you have other tips for keeping your Mac cool under pressure, or if you’re seeing temperature spikes under Lion that last beyond the first few days.

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• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide

Here at TheAppleBlog, we spend all day working on how-tos and tutorials to help you get the most out of your Apple products. But then we thought: Maybe we should ask you what you need to know.

We’ve come up with a new idea that we’re calling Ask TAB. Once a month, we’re going to run a post asking you for ideas. If there’s something Apple-related you wish you knew how to do, or do more easily — from the basics like rearranging your Mac’s Dock to advanced topics such as setting up file sharing between a Mac and a PC — leave a comment below. We’ll go through all the suggestions, assign a bunch to writers and post the articles throughout August.

The more of you who get involved and ask questions, the better this will work. Since Lion has just been released, why not ask a question about the latest version of OS X? Post anything that comes to mind. If we’ve run an article on it, we’ll point you in the right direction with a link to something from our huge archive of content.

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• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• The Future of Workplaces

Apple tested the waters for an ultraslim notebook with the original MacBook Air, and at the time, it came with a lot of trade-offs. Back in early 2008, not including an optical disc drive seemed like a very bizarre move. And while the laptop’s price ($1,799) meant that it was out of range for most consumers, it still didn’t offer the muscle necessary to appeal to professionals.

But it did accomplish three important things: It put the idea of an Apple ultraportable into the minds of the notebook-buying public; it got Apple engineers to build upon the best elements from that first design, translating it into something everyone would want and many more could buy; and it kick-started Apple’s ability to negotiate for better prices on the specialized components required to make an ultrathin MacBook.

If Apple’s ultimate goal wasn’t to emulate the Air form factor across its notebook line (even if the “Pro” designation remains for 15- and 17-inch models, as TUAW says will happen), that would be a shock. Since the Air’s original introduction, optical media has become much less necessary to consumer and professional computing. And Apple’s recent decision to go with a digital-only distribution model for OS X Lion, the major update it released last week, suggests that it wants to wean users off CDs and DVDs sooner rather than later. In fact, the Mac App Store in general strongly suggests this, as did the iTunes Store before it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple had road-mapped the death of the optical drive since it figured out with the iPod that physical media is antithetical to true portability.

Apple has also shown with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that it knows thinner and lighter are of key importance to consumers when it comes to portable devices. That approach has served it well on the mobile side, so why not apply it to notebooks as well?

Based on conversations I’ve had with Mac users, the limitations that many professionals cite when explaining why they didn’t buy an Air are few: Small screen size, lack of ports, limited storage and discrete graphics are among them. If Apple can deliver those (and space freed up from removing the optical drive should help), then an ultrathin MacBook Pro is sure to be a hit. At this stage, the only barriers to 15- and 17-inch ultraportable Mac powerhouses are technical, and those are not barriers that prevent Apple from doing anything for very long.

Consider that the 128 GB SSD option, when it was first introduced in 2008, was a $700 upgrade, along with a faster processor on the second-gen MacBook Air. The 256 GB upgrade, along with a faster processor, now costs only an extra $450 for the new 11.6-inch MacBook Air; that’s double the storage for nearly half the price of just three years ago. Apple seems much better able to manage the cost of solid-state storage, due either to smart sourcing or falling flash prices in general, and that should translate to higher-capacity options in ultraportable Pros. Plus, if Apple decides to not go quite as slim as the Air, fitting a 2.5-inch drive shouldn’t be too difficult alongside SSD customization options. Such a compromise would likely allow Apple to stay within the current price range of the larger-screened MacBook Pros, if SSD prices make that otherwise difficult.

TUAW says we’ll see these new machines possibly before Christmas. Apple doesn’t usually release new Mac hardware past October in terms of its yearly cycle, but October actually could be the perfect time for an update to the Pro line. The Pro went longer than usual without an update last time around, but in 2008 it got an update in February and then again in October. This year we saw an update in February that introduced Thunderbolt and new processors, so an October update wouldn’t be unprecedented.

I think Apple is probably quite far along in the development of these machines, and it may only be that the company is waiting and watching to see how the updated MacBook Air fares to decide whether or not the market is ready for it to embrace a similar form factor across its entire lineup. If that’s the case, then I think chances are good that we’ll see a larger, Pro-level ultraportable before 2012.

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Try this first

There are some good best practices to perform before running off and resetting your Mac at the first sign of strange behavior. This isn’t a step-by-step list; try each and all of the below separately when you’re having trouble:

• Quit (Command+Q) or even Force Quit (Command+Option+Esc) any and all running applications.
• Log off and then log back on to any and all logged on user accounts.
• Put the Mac to sleep and wake it up again.
• Restart the Mac.
• Shut down and unplug the Mac (and remove any battery if you have access) for at least thirty seconds before powering back on.

You may even have to press and hold the power button several seconds in extreme cases when your Mac is truly not responding or refuses to shut down and power off. But if you have tried all of this to no avail, then perhaps you do need to either reset your PRAM or your SMC.

Parameter random access memory

PRAM is used by OS X to store certain information that the system can access quickly. Macs will store settings like which startup drive to boot from, various display and video settings, startup speaker volume and even the DVD’s region settings. If you feel that you need to reset your Mac’s PRAM because of the issues you’re having, do the following:

1. Turn off your Mac. Don’t worry about disconnecting the power or removing the battery.
2. Turn on your Mac and hold down the Command, Option, P, and R keys all at the same time (all four keys).
3. Keep holding down all four keys until you hear the startup sound for a second time.

If you do not hear the startup sound twice, then you most likely have not reset the PRAM.  If you find that your Mac is not retaining the information that is stored in PRAM when you perform a shutdown, then it might be time to replace your Mac’s main logic board battery.  This is sometimes referred to as the PRAM or Clock Battery. I hardly ever fully shut down and power off any of my Macs, and have yet to replace this battery on any Mac I have owned, so that should only be the culprit in very extreme cases.

System management controller

The SMC is an Intel-only feature.  There are so many symptoms that can potentially be solved by resetting the SMC that you’d think you would need to do this sort of reset all of the time. These include fans running out of control, lights not displaying correctly, the Mac does not sleep or wake properly, and just generally poor performance and high CPU cycles for no good reason. There are three ways to reset your SMC, based on what sort of Intel-based Mac you have:
Portable Macs with removable batteries

1. Shut down the Mac, unplug and remove the battery.
2. Press and hold the power button for five seconds before releasing.
3. Replace the battery (just put it back in), plug in the Mac and turn it back on.

Portable Macs without removable batteries

• Shut down the Mac.
• Ensure that the Mac is plugged into a power source.
• While the Mac is turned off, press and hold the Shift, Control and Option keys, as well as the Power button.
• Release all four keys at the same time (note: the Mac should not power on when performing this task).
• Press the power button to turn the Mac back on.

Desktop Mac Pros, iMacs and Mac minis

• Shut down and unplug the Mac.
• Keep the Mac unplugged for at least fifteen seconds.
• Plug the Mac back in and do not turn it back on for at least five seconds.
• Press the power button to turn the Mac back on.

This shouldn’t be considered a routine operation, like fixing file permissions in Disk Utility. It’s just something to keep in mind as a possible last resort solution to weird behaviors that your Mac starts to develop, which can often happen when you perform upgrades like installing OS X Lion, especially on older hardware.

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Until today, it wasn’t clear whether users could boot from an OS X install on an external drive attached via the new high-speed Thunderbolt data transfer specification, as is possible using FireWire. AnandTech (via MacRumors) has already got a new Promise Pegasus 12 TB RAID system with Thunderbolt, however, and they’ve found that booting over Thunderbolt is indeed supported.

That means that you could run an entire OS X install, complete with your apps, files and preferences, on an external Thunderbolt drive, and then unplug said drive and take it with you wherever you can find another Thunderbolt-equipped Mac. In theory, working with an SSD drive attached via Thunderbolt should feel much faster than working with even a 7200 RPM HDD installed inside your MacBook, for example. Depending on how pricing of third-party external Thunderbolt drives goes, you might even see users buying the minimum onboard storage for Macs and just booting every time from a much speedier or more capacious desktop drive.

This will probably have the biggest impact for mobile workers and Macs in the enterprise. Employers could use Thunderbolt storage to make workstations hot-swappable, allowing them to shift around staff to different machines in different offices or departments as needed. Mobile workers might be enticed to use coworking temporary office facilities that rent Thunderbolt-equipped Macs by the hour, day or month instead of buying high-end gear that they only use sporadically.

Consider also that adding a RAID card and 8 TB of storage to a Mac Pro costs $1750 before tax using Apple’s customization options at the time of purchase. An external Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID system boasting the same storage costs only $1500, and that price will likely drop as Thunderbolt costs drop and more competitors enter the market. Thunderbolt could help make professional-caliber rigs more affordable for prosumers and consumers.

If you thought $50 was expensive for a single cable, this feature alone makes it worthwhile in my opinion. What do you think?

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Admittedly there aren’t many peripherals that use Thunderbolt, or many Macs that have Thunderbolt ports, but as Apple gears up for a whole slew of new Thunderbolt-enabled computers, a bunch of new peripherals are also in the pipeline. And in order to tap that opportunity, Apple introduced a new Thunderbolt cable today, available in the online store for $49.

In the product description for the new cable, Apple talks about the Thunderbolt’s ability to transfer data using two channels of 10Gbit/s each, and how it lets you use peripherals like hard drives. But the $999 Promise Pegasus 4×1 TB RAID drive, also now available for sale in the Apple online store, is currently the cheapest way to start using Thunderbolt storage. Other Pegasus RAID arrays are available in configurations ranging from 6×1 TB to 6×2 TB, costing up to $2,000.

It’s no surprise that both the cable itself and the Pegasus drives have such a high starting price point. Thunderbolt always seemed destined to appeal to professional users first, since the new technology will require more time on the market and a wider reach before it can bring production costs down. Apple seems to be working on expanding the potential pool of Thunderbolt users, however, as reports suggest that we’ll see new Mac minis, Mac Pros and MacBook Airs with Thunderbolt in the very near future.

With all those Thunderbolt Macs around, the new cable will become even more useful, as it also provides users a simple way to establish a very high-speed connection between computers using Target Disk Mode. Plus, you can use the cable to connect a Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pro to the latest iMac in order to use the iMac’s screen as a second display. Those features alone might be worth $50 to some multi-Mac consumer households.

If you own Thunderbolt-equipped Mac, are you planning on getting one of these cables, or will you wait until there’s more third-party gear available to use it with?

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The model I got my hands on is for the 17-in MacBook Pro. Inside the box, you will find the plastic base along with the following cables: Ethernet, FireWire 800, USB Extenders (3) and audio (2). Not included are a MagSafe power adapter or a DisplayPort cable. You can order DisplayPort extenders and adapters from the Henge Docks site that are guaranteed to have enough slack for the dock. I would recommend buying another power adapter since removing the one used in the dock becomes rather tedious if you do it frequently. Assembly is a little tricky, but the ability to choose which ports you want to extend is worth it. It took about a half hour to assemble everything and the end result seems pretty secure.

I started by feeding the wires through with the dock laying on its side. After about half the connectors were hooked up, I flipped everything up to its normal position and hooked up the remaining connectors.

One thing that was confusing is why the audio connectors are shaped to fit into a particular slot on the dock but the other end of the cables aren’t marked as to which is headphone or line-in. Just remember which you feed through which hole.

The hardest part was getting the DisplayPort to VGA adapter to fit. I would recommend purchasing one of the official Henge Docks adapters or at least their DisplayPort extender, it will save you some trouble.

When it’s all put together, it works rather well. The manual states that you should never rock or carry the dock around with a MacBook docked. You’ll notice right away that it can be top-heavy, so place it on secure surface that doesn’t wobble to avoid accidents.

The only real drawbacks to the Henge Docks system are that you can’t access the power button or the FaceTime camera. If you accidentally shutdown the MacBook, you’ll have to un-dock the computer to open it up and power it back on. Since running the MacBook in clamshell mode is the whole point of a dock, you’ll have to get yourself an external USB webcam if you want to be able to do video chat.

With limited options for docking stations, the Henge Dock does everything it claims to. If you want to pretty up your desk, and you frequently switch between desktop and portable configurations with your MacBook, the Henge Dock is an idea companion that will save you many unpleasant plugging and unplugging rituals.

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Could this be a WWDC Keynote sent from 2012?

Tech blog SemiAccurate sped up a slow news Friday with a so-crazy-it-might-be-true rumor that Apple will be switching CPU architecture. Again. According to SemiAccurate “moles,” Apple is planning to transition its laptops to ARM architecture in “2-3 years,” and “presumably” desktops, too, though without a time frame. The plan is a “done deal” according to the site.

This seems hard to believe. While it’s arguable the Apple A5, derived from the ARM Cortex-A9, can keep up with Intel’s Atom in a netbook, there’s simply no comparison between ARM chips and the Intel Core CPUs used in Mac laptops. Of course, in 2013 it wouldn’t be the A5 in a hypothetical ARM-based MacBook Air, but a CPU derived from the ARM Cortex-A15.  Based on a 32nm fabrication process, with up to 8 cores and clock speeds up to 2.5 GHz, as well features like virtualization and access to the 64-bit ARM instruction set, the A15 certainly packs enough keywords to qualify for a Keynote presentation on paper. Unfortunately, the most salient benefit of ARM architecture, power efficiency, will diminish as computing potential increases. Is the diminishing difference worth another major architectural transition for Apple, one that would undoubtedly require a vast amount of engineering effort?

Even should the computing potential of the A15 be sufficient for mainstream use in 2013, software written for current x86 Macs would either have to be rewritten or run in some kind of emulation mode. It’s hard to imagine Rosetta 2 running x86 applications on ARM being the engineering miracle the original was when running PPC applications on Intel Macs. That would leave Mac users waiting months, possibly years, for ARM versions of applications like Office for Mac or Adobe Photoshop. Considering the incredible success Macs have enjoyed since transitioning from PPC to x86 architecture, this rumor seems ridiculous.

And yet one can’t discount the possibility of ARM extending beyond mobile; certainly Microsoft isn’t. As much as Apple has grown in traditional computing over the last five years, x86 PCs running Microsoft Windows sell about 19 times as many computers in aggregate. That’s why Microsoft announcing Windows 8 will be available for ARM-based systems matters. If Microsoft sees value in the platform, then Apple, with its growing mobile focus, no doubt does as well.

Also important, if true, is the rumor reported by EE Times that Intel is seeking to become a foundry for Apple fabricating ARM chips. One could argue that Intel doesn’t care what kind of chips it sells Apple, as long as they come from Intel.

Regarding the problem of applications, while current Mac apps wouldn’t run on an ARM MacBook, it could open the library of apps that run on the iPhone and iPad. Imagine a touch-screen MacBook running Angry Birds. Considering iOS devices outsell Macs by a ratio of six to one and growing, there’s a good argument that iOS developers could quickly take up the app slack for ARM-based Macs. Apple is reportedly making the Mac App Store the “preferred” method of distribution for OS X software beginning with Lion, so that could give it greater control when it comes to handling a chip architecture transition with developers.

Finally, there’s something to be said for Apple’s desire to control its own destiny. It banned Flash from iOS, for example. Rants about security and power management aside, Apple doesn’t want Adobe controlling any part of their mobile operating system. Considering Apple’s painful CPU history with Motorola (now Freescale) and IBM, and most recently the GPU spat between Intel and Nvidia impacting Macs, underestimating Apple’s corporate obsession with controlling the “whole widget” would be a mistake. A transition to Apple CPUs would give the company much more control over its own product, in the same way the A4 and A5 chips have done for its mobile devices.

SemiAccurate has proven itself fairly reliable with similar reports in the past, including the prediction that Nvidia would eventually disappear from Mac computers, and that Light Peak would make its way to Apple products. TUAW points out the original story on SemiAccurate is tagged “humor,” but a quick look at how that tag is used in other stories doesn’t indicate that site isn’t serious about the claims made regarding Apple’s intended use of ARM. We contacted Apple for comment, but have yet to receive a response back.

What do you think? Is this latest rumor crazy or conceivable?

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The tool Apple uses to determine whether or not a defective Nvidia GPU is responsible for your MacBook Pro’s problems might not be accurate in a number of cases, according to Mobile Magazine. Apple evaluates machines for the problem using a USB stick running Nvidia’s diagnostic software. Once the drive is inserted, it runs tests and provides printed reports on the nature of the problem. However, the test may not be returning accurate reports in every instance.

In some cases, according to Mobile Magazine, the faulty GPUs can overheat, leading to a short in your logic board when heat-transfer material ends up on parts of your computer’s internals where it shouldn’t be. That would lead to a diagnostic result indicating the logic board had failed, not the GPU. Logic board failures entail a non-warranty repair that can cost more than $1,000.

Mobile Magazine describes one specific case in detail where this occurred, but a call to Hi-Tech Electronics, the shop which performed the diagnostic and repair in question (it replaced the faulty GPU and cleaned the logic board for $260 including shipping, instead of the $1,000 Apple was asking) confirmed it has seen many similar cases, and continues to repair multiple MacBook Pros with problems stemming from the same issue each week.

Apple couldn’t be reached for comment as of this writing. If these reports are accurate, a simple fix would be to open up and inspect the internals of any MacBook Pros potentially affected by faulty Nvidia GPUs, rather than simply performing a software diagnostic test using a USB drive. It would be more costly and time-consuming, but also probably better for customer loyalty in the long run.

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