Make Your MacBook Hibernate Instead of Sleep [Lion/Snow Leopard]
By default, MacBooks are configured to sleep when you close the lids. This means it shuts down everything but provides little bit of power to the RAM so that the state is maintained as is. Once you open the lid, everything is restored as is. In case you leave your laptop for long and the battery runs out fully, the Macbook automagically stores all the state to the hard disk so that nothing gets lost. Even if you connect it to power after a week everything just works, including open windows, typed text and running processes.
While this works very well if you use your MacBook all the time and charge it regularly, it makes things difficult if you take it out only once in a while. The reason is that this eats battery . So imagine you use your laptop for 15 minutes and close the lid. But the next time you open it battery would have almost run down and you need to charge it again. If it instead had a Windows like hibernate mode, the battery life would be maintained despite the amount of gap between usages.
Apple announces iPhone 4S
Allright. So Apple did release a new iPhone today. But to the disappointment of the many, it wasn’t an iPhone 5. Although, the specs bump totally qualify the new one as the next gen phone, Apple went with the “S” terminology this time again to signify that the primary benefit from the upgraded specs is gonna be increased speed. So here are the specs of the iPhone 4S (changes from iPhone 4 highlighted in bold):
Accessing The Hidden Dock from Full Screen Apps [OS X Lion]
I keep the Dock on my Macbook hidden towards the left side of my screen. It shows up whenever I take my mouse in the right (left?) place. It’s an almost essential trick to save screen space if you have one of the smaller laptops. But when I switched to Lion last week I realized that this approach didn’t work so well with Full Screen apps. The Dock doesn’t show up automatically when you take your cursor in the right spot. In practice, this meant that every time I wanted to bring up the Dock, I had to goto a normal Desktop or Mission Control. No doubt this irked me. (more…)
The new OS X Lion Dictionary [Tips]
Amongst the over 250 new features in Mac OS X Lion, one that I may end up using a lot is the new system-wide dictionary. So while Snow Leopard had a dictionary that could be called anytime anywhere but it was not really apparent. The shortcut was mostly unknown and sorta obscure and it just didn’t work flawlessly everywhere.
In Lion, that has been improved. Now the dictionary works across the OS, flaunts a much neater UI and has a cool new multitouch gesture that will eventually make more people use it.
New Mac Mini is faster and cheaper
In addition to launching OS X Lion & updating their Macbook air line of notebooks, Apple also updated their Mac Mini line of desktops. The best part is that they are cheaper now. Here is what the new minis pack in them:
Core i5 & i7 processors:
Just like the air, the mac minis also feature the latest Intel processors offering clock speed up to 2.7 Ghz on core i7.
New Macbook Airs arrive
With the launch of its OS X Lion operating system, Apple also updated their Macbook Air line of notebook computers. The thinnest and super powerful notebooks are now even faster. Here is a quick run down on the updated specs which matter most:
Intel core i5 & i7 processors:
The new airs come with Intel’s Sandy bridge based core i5 processors and also offer configuration options to upgrade to the more powerful core i7 processor. These processors are about 2 times more faster than their predecessors thus taking Macbook air’s performance to the next level.
Factory Unlocked iPhone coming soon to the US [Rumors]
According to @ChronicWire, it’s rumored that Apple Stores in the US will start selling Factory unlocked iPhone(s) from this Wednesday (15th June 2011). This is news to rejoice for iPhone lovers in the US as they no longer need to signup for 2 year contracts.
All iPhone4 models – Black and White (16 and 32GB) would be available.
Also MacBook Air is rumored to receive the SandyBridge refresh sometime in June-July.
Where’s the iPhone5 Apple?
[UPDATE 14th June 2011] – It’s official now, the iPhone4 is available on the Apple US Store. The prices are USD649 for the 16GB and USD749 for the 32GB version. These are approximately the same prices for the factory unlocked iPhone(s) selling in Canada, Singapore (except for India where it’s around 100$ expensive).
[via InfiniteApple]
iPhone 4 with iOS 4.3 working with Airtel 3G in India
As soon as Airtel launched their 3G services in Delhi/NCR, I got my number ported from MTNL to Airtel and got the 3G services activated. Since the iPhone 4 is not officially launched in India, it is still not in Airtel’s supported handset list for 3G in India. So, when I tried to activate 3G by sending 3G as sms to 121, I got a reply that my handset is not supported (duh).
I then called up 198 (Airtel’s complaint hotline) and went into the 3G technical help section. I spoke to an executive and told him that I have an iPhone 3GS (which is in their supported handset list). He then activated the 3G services on my number after a few verification questions. After a few minutes, I received the confirmation SMS saying that the services have been activated on my number. After this, I restarted my iPhone 4 and could connect to the Airtel’s 3G network. No APN settings were needed, however, you do need to enable cellular data, 3G and data roaming under Settings -> General -> Network.
Here are my first impressions of Airtel’s 3G network.
What Not To Expect From iPad 2?
Tomorrow Apple will announce the iPad 2. Everyone is busy predicting how it will improve upon the first generation model and how Apple will try to match the army of Android tablets that all feature cutting edge hardware. We also did our bit and compiled a rumor list sometime back.
But I’ve been thinking that for two categories of potential buyers it’s more important to know what the iPad 2 won’t do. The first category comprises of the people who are eyeing an Android (or WebOS) tablet but waiting for the iPad 2 announcement. The second comprises of the people who are not so sure about getting a tablet but may consider buying the iPad 2 because, they saw the iPad and it was so cool. So here is a list of things that you should not expect iPad 2 to have.
Apple Unveils the latest Macbook Pro – Faster, Thunderbolt and HD FaceTime
Apple unveiled upgrades to the Macbook Pro 13, 15 and 17 inch models to a better hardware. They now have better dual and quad core processors and a thunderbolt port.
