Appletell

For those of you who find yourself burning through MacBook or iBook batteries faster then you can say “recharge,” this nifty little piece of equipment could prove a good investment (and trust me, it is an investment, as it will set you back almost $400). This new tool from Oncore will not leave out a single spare when charging is the name of the game. With its six (Six? Who even has six spare batteries?) charging bays, chances are you’ll never be found without a dead battery again. From one plug, you can juice up half of the attached bricks; a second plug can easily take care of the other three. With the peace of mind that you will never run out of power, you can seize the day with no worries.

For the price of $395, you can pick up just the charging station. For a bit more (no word on how much more), you will be able to get the charger and six batteries to fill the spaces.

Product Oncore Battery Charger Via Engadget

I really enjoy the two finger scrolling gesture on the Apple laptop trackpads. It’s smooth, and it works exactly how you would expect, unlike some of those other built in scroll bars.  However, this technology is only available from Apple on newer models; so, what about the older ones? Enter iScroll2. This preference pane software is “...a modified trackpad driver that adds two-finger scrolling capabilities to supported pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks on OS X 10.3 and up.” It looks great.

Simply download and install this program, tweak the settings to your liking, then put those fingers to work.

However, if linear scrolling isn’t your style, iScroll2 also supports a circular scrolling option. This option is just like the scroll wheel on an iPod, except you use two fingers in a circular motion instead of one.  That’s a pretty neat idea, if you ask me. It’s nice to see someone cared enough to make this product, because I’m sure a lot of people are benefiting from it.

Product [iScroll2]

Apple may well be one of the top IT companies producing top-selling and cool products here and there, but this success doesn’t render the company immune to various lawsuits. Like any other big IT companies, Apple is hounded by several lawsuits caused by product-related issues which the company needs to settle financially.

One of these lawsuits is the case filed by some Canadian residents who purchase the Apple iPod player before June 24, 2004. Those iPod buyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple for misrepresenting the actual battery life of its iPod players. Apple claimed eight hours before charging, but the plaintiff found it to last for only three hours. The legal dispute was won by the plaintiff and Apple would have to give them $45 credit which they can use on Canadian Apple retail or online stores. This is reported to cost Apple around $36 million in settlement.

A similar case is facing Apple in San Jose California. This time involving the power adapters of Apple’s PowerBook and iBook computers. A class-action suit was also filed against Apple for failing to correct the problems encountered by users of the said adapters. In 2001, Apple had to recall around 570,000 power adapters due to overheating and sparking. If approved the U.S. District Attorney of San Jose, Apple will have to pay each owners of the iBook and PowerBook $79 each. This would amount to around 2.3 million total settlement damages for Apple.

Read [The Wall Street Journal]

Apple has announced that coming June 2008, a majority of G4 computers will be classified as “obsolete” or “vintage” which means they are no longer supported by Apple in terms of hardware (except for vintage computers, which are only supported in the state of California due to legislation.) If your computer is still supported by Leopard or other software, it’s fine to run it, but if something breaks on your computer, Apple wont fix it, even for a fee. They just won’t have the parts.

As of June 17, 2008, the following computers are no longer supported by Apple.

• iBooks with 32 MB VRAM
• iBook (Opaque 16 VRAM)
• Sunflower iMac Flat Panel (Summer 2001)
• eMac
• Power Mac G4 with Firewire 800

Think it’s too soon? Sound off below!

Stevie Jay just whipped it out, and I almost had an accident in my pants when I saw it. I’m talking about the brand spanking new iBook. If you like the Blueberry iMac, you’re going to love this. A blazing fast G3 processor is right inside of this machine, with speeds that will make Internet Explorer launch in under ten seconds. This thing has no legacy ports. You have a lot of floppies, you say? Throw them out, they’re no good on this machine. Optical drive, USB, Ethernet, and modem ports are what this baby ships with.

It’s got a beautiful 12” display with a mindblowing 800x600 resolution. 32 megs of RAM, a 3.2 GB hard drive, and the amazing Mac OS 8.6 ship with this portable as well. The best part is for last, though. Wireless networking is completely built in and integrated, and AirPort Base Stations are up for sale now, making this the ultimate wireless machine. Hell, it even has a handle on the back in case you don’t know how to carry it. Overall, this 300 MHz beast is an amazing product that we can’t wait to get our hands on!