It's been an extremely busy week so far for Apple, with the announcement of the iPad mini, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, an all-new line-up of iMacs and Mac minis, and the surprising introduction of the fourth-generation iPad. Not wanting to take their foot off the gas, the company has now announced their Q4 earnings of 2012, and once again, it makes extremely pleasant reading for company executives and shareholders.
Apps on mobile platforms like iOS and Android that allow users to save content for viewing offline have proven to be extremely popular over the last few years, none more so than the fantastic Pocket app that started out life known as Read It Later. Pocket is an extremely well used and loved app for mobile devices, but things have been taken a step further with the introduction of the official Pocket app on the Mac App Store.
With scarcely 24 hours having passed since Apple announced a glut of product updates at its specially-arranged keynote event in San Jose, it was almost inevitable the knockoff makers wouldn't be too far behind. While the first plausible iPad mini knockoff has already reared its head, it's not so common for us to see bootleg Macs unveiled so soon after the official announcement.
Today's media event from Apple in San Jose has, by all accounts, gone pretty well. We anticipated an iPad mini, tweaked Mac mini, iMac, 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, along with alterations to the third-gen iPad and some sort of update to iBooks, and that's pretty much what we got.
In the days and weeks leading up to today's event, it was widely presumed Apple would, aside from announcing the iPad mini, also announce a refresh to its iMac and Mac mini computers. The rumor mill has proven itself to be on-point once again, and both desktops have been offered a substantial spec bump in line with the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro back in June.
After the critical success of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, Apple has announced a similarly spec’d 13-inch model at their event in Cupertino, CA. It’s one hell of a portable notebook and everything about it is awesome. We’ve got the most important specifications, pricing and availability ready for you to read after the jump!
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Apple media event set for October 23rd, invites for which were sent out four days ago. Although there is nothing in the invite image that suggests this (like it did with new iPad and iPhone 5), it is widely expected to be the event where Apple announces their entry to the small and economical tablet market that is currently dominated by the likes of Amazon’s Kindle Fire (HD) and Google’s Nexus 7.
We should all know by now how popular Instagram is, after all, it blew all off the competition away and made enough of an impact in the app world to prompt Facebook to shell out the better part of a billion dollars to help them improve their mobile presence. It's all well and good uploading images to your network through the official Instagram app, but if you really need quick access to the service while sitting at your desk and you want to discreetly check out what's popular in with the Instagram loving world then Instabar for OS X could be the answer.
When it comes to personalization of a user-interface, our first thoughts are usually directed to our mobile devices. Because they are in fact so personal, we - almost subconsciously - arrange every little segment exactly as we wish, tailoring the experience, and to a lesser degree, the same process is followed at desktop level.
Although Twitter is one of the most popular social networks out there, it, like Facebook, has struggled to make its native mobile app worth downloading. While Facebook seems to finally have sorted itself out on the mobile front, the official Twitter app is, by all accounts, pretty poor, and as such, rivaling offerings from third parties continue to thrive.
