MacBook Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Mac 101: Upgrade to SSD

by Shawn "Doc" Boyd (May 14th, 2013)

If you are looking for a way to get more out of your MacBook or MacBook Pro, consider a solid-state drive (SSD). SSDs offer faster data read and write speeds, fast file transfers, speedier boot times and will save you some battery life. In the past, SSDs were considered somewhat pricey upgrades ...

The Juan Valdez ColcaSac shoulder bag is the most comfortable one you'll ever own

by Michael Grothaus (Mar 15th, 2013)

Years ago I wrote about a small company named ColcaSac that had just started selling cases and sleeves for Apple's MacBooks and iPads. I was impressed with the products, and I'm happy to say the company has kept updating its offerings and the quality is as good as ever. ColcaSac has a number of ...

Chromebook 101: How to make your new toy more Apple-y

by Erica Sadun (Feb 1st, 2013)

Steve is a deeply bad influence. He started the trend, which prompted me to order my own Chromebook (although I had been waiting to pull the trigger for several weeks). Slowly this US$250 MacBook-wannabe has been infiltrating TUAW households. It's great for kids. It's a unit you don't mind ...

MacTech finds Parallels beating VMWare Fusion again in annual virtualization rundown

by Mike Schramm (Jan 30th, 2013)

MacTech has posted its annual rundown of benchmarks between two of the most popular virtualization solutions out there on the Mac: VMware Fusion 5 and Parallels Desktop 8. Both are of course used to run Windows-compatible software inside of an OS X environment, and especially on the high end IT ...

Apple awarded glass-on-metal trackpad design patent

by Steven Sande (Jan 15th, 2013)

The next time you sit down at an aluminum unibody MacBook and glide your finger atop the trackpad, you can take pride in knowing that the design of that trackpad has been issued a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Design patent D674382 was published today under the rather mundane ...

POLL: Which Apple device would you give up if you had to?

by Michael Grothaus (Jan 14th, 2013)

A buddy of mine who I've been trying to lure to Apple for five years is finally getting ready to make the switch. We were talking, and he asked me which "iDevice" should be his first: a MacBook Air*, an iPhone or an iPad. I tried to look at it from his perspective, i.e.: which device would be ...

Drexel University intros MacBook Pro vending machine

by Mike Wehner (Jan 11th, 2013)

Drexel University in Philadelphia has created a solution for students who need to use a computer on campus but don't have immediate access to one of their own: A free MacBook vending machine. Ok, so it's not exactly a vending machine, and the computers are only loaned to the students for free ...

Daily Update for January 4, 2013

by Steven Sande (Jan 4th, 2013)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player ...

NPD Group: US MacBook sales took a 6 percent hit during 2012 holidays

by Steven Sande (Jan 4th, 2013)

NPD Group is reporting that sales of Apple's MacBook line were 6 percent lower during the period between November 18 and December 22, 2012 than during the same period in 2011. The report, as described by John Virata of AppleInsider, notes that the average selling price of all MacBooks sold ...

Just Mobile's AluBase and AluRack give your MacBook a new place to live

by Steven Sande (Oct 29th, 2012)

A few weeks ago, TUAW featured an Engadget interview with Erich Huang and Nils Gustafsson of Just Mobile, a design firm that specializes in creating accessories to compliment your Apple products. The company uses materials in its products that are as identical as possible to those used in ...

What didn't we get from Apple today?

by Mike Wehner (Oct 23rd, 2012)

While the hype leading up to today's Apple event was clearly centered around the all-new iPad mini, it quickly became clear that the company had a lot more in store. Not only did we get the new, smaller iPad of our dreams -- as well as the anticipated reveal of a 13-inch MacBook Retina -- but ...

Quad-core chips rumored for 2014 Apple mobile products

by Steven Sande (Oct 12th, 2012)

If a research note from Citigroup analyst J.T. Hsu is any indication, Apple is working with Taiwan-based chip manufacturer TSMC on quad-core chips that could be worked into future products such as the iPad and MacBooks in 2014. According to a report on China Economic News Service (CENS), Hsu ...

Decoding Apple's naming rules

by Mike Schramm (Sep 7th, 2012)

Apple's naming style for its products may seem silly at times -- the iPhone 5, for example, if it is even called that, will actually only be the second iPhone granted a numerical moniker, after the iPhone 4. Now there's actually a way to put a real, concrete formula on Apple's naming schemes, ...

Dear Aunt TUAW: I made the switch. What do I do with my old system?

by Erica Sadun (Aug 27th, 2012)

Dear Aunt TUAW, I did it. I made the switch. Mountain Lion and those hot Retina display MacBook Pros finally brought me to the Mac Side. So, what do I do with my old Windows system? It runs Win 7, is reasonably functional, and in need of a task. What do you suggest? Your loving (new) ...

Dear Aunt TUAW: Disappointed over AirPlay Mirroring hardware cutoff

by Erica Sadun (Aug 3rd, 2012)

Dear Aunt TUAW, With the new launch of Mountain Lion and its new features, I have somehow started looking at my old mid-2009 MacBook Pro with disdain. One of the features I looked forward to was AirPlay Mirroring which unfortunately my older model can't support due to hardware limitations. ...