Apple Kills MacBook Pro
Apple has not been shy to kill off aging technologies that are on their way out, and it’s repeating that this year with the late 2013 release of the new MacBook Pro notebooks. Optical drives, hard drive storage, and low resolution display are all on their way out.
In the recent past, Apple had offered two series of “Pro” notebooks, but now Apple is standardizing on a singular MacBook Pro branding rather than maintaining a separate MacBook Pro with legacy technologies and a MacBook Pro with Retina Display line that is slimmer and eschews the legacy ports. Now, with the new MacBook Pro, Apple is merging both lines into a single product brand.
The new MacBook Pro carries with it a lot of similarities with the older Retina Display cousin, including the Retina Display resolution screen. And now, Apple has killed off the optical drive on the MacBook Pro, a nod to the death of CD and DVD storage as consumers are moving towards the cloud for storage, backup, and even for consumption of content thanks to stores like Amazon’s Video on Demand, Apple’s iTunes, and Netflix among others.
Also resting in peace is the standard optical disc drive. Rather than a standard hard drive, Apple is now using flash-based storage on the MacBook Pro, another feature that was borrowed from the older MacBook Pro with Retina Display of yore. The new MacBook Pro comes with standard flash storage, offering consumers more reliability as flash drives are less prone to failing in harsh conditions and also allow for lighter, thinner notebook designs. Another benefit is that read and write speeds are faster, which is a must for displaying content on the high resolution display while conserving battery power.
And the best part about this year’s refresh? Lower prices. Given the rapid improvements and innovation in technology, prices are dropping so Apple is able to deliver more at a more affordable pricing. The drop in pricing between a 13-inch MacBook Pro–with this year’s storage upgrades, Retina Display, slimmer and lighter design–will make it hard to choose between the Pro model and the more ultraportable MacBook Air at the same screen size.
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August 27, 2013
Apple Granted 36 Patents Today Covering key Touchscreen & GUI Technologies, Mobile Clubbing, Speakerphone & More
The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 36 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover several new design patents covering the iPhone with the iOS GUI and an all-new icon related to the iPad and more. Additionally, we cover a patent relating to a new speakerphone, mobile clubbing and two key original touchscreen related patents. One of them lists the Late Steve Jobs as an inventor.
Apple Granted Patent for Portable Multifunction Device, Method, and GUI for Interpreting a Finger Gesture on a Touch Screen Display
Apple has been granted two original touchscreen patents that were designed for the 2007 iPhone and future iDevices. The pair of patents could one day be used in litigation. The graphic below which specifically relates to patent 8,519,963, depicts an exemplary user interface for unlocking an iPhone or iDevice.
This particular patent generally relates to portable electronic devices, and more particularly, to portable devices that can uniquely determine operations associated with a finger gesture when the finger gesture occurs near multiple icons on a touch screen display. This patent is covered by 25 patent claims.
The second noted touch related patent is 8,519,964 which generally relates to portable electronic devices, and more particularly, to portable devices that support user navigations of graphical objects on a touch screen display. This patent is covered by 12 patent claims. The Late Steve Jobs is listed on this patent as one of the inventors.
Apple Granted Patent for Mobile Clubbing App
Apple has been granted a patent today for their invention that generally relates to mobile clubbing. Apple's patent covers systems and methods for facilitating a music experience that could be shared amongst members of a group of people each in possession of an iDevice. More particularly, the music listened to by each member of the group could be specifically selected by an individual member using a music characteristic common to all members. See Patently Apple's original 2011 patent application coverage for details.
Apple credits Sylvain Louboutin as the sole inventor of granted patent 8,521,316 which was originally filed in Q1 2010 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Apple Granted Patent for a Speaker with a Horizontal Former
Apple has been granted a patent today for their invention relating an iDevice speakerphone system. The key to this patent is a speaker having a horizontal former. For more details, see Patently Apple's original coverage of this patent application under the title "Apple Reinvents Speakerphone System for iOS Devices," in May 2012.
Apple credits Christopher Wilk as the sole inventor of granted patent 8,520,886 which was originally filed in Q1 2011 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Apple Granted 7 Design Patents Today
Apple was granted 7 new design patents today covering the iPhone 5 with iOS User Interface; a Store-within-a-Store retail display; a new iPad Icon; iPad retail packaging; an iBook related icon for Drag Book Here; a calculator icon (not shown) and a Maps UI (not shown).
The Remaining Patents that were granted to Apple Today
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