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

The thread is filled with possible solutions (from switching monitor resolutions to replacing the graphics card), none of which seem to work for everyone. Of course, it being an Apple thread, there’s also a hefty helping of that sweet, sweet hyperbole.

Check it out, along with more details analysis, after the break.

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9to5Mac is reporting that analysts at Piper Jaffray are predicting Apple will hold a special event this September to make some new announcements. These new announcements, according to the analysts, include new iPods and Macs.

This rumor does not site any insider sources, but seems to be purely speculation. Gene Munster, one of the analysts, points out that Apple has held a special event every September for the last three years, so it’s not that hard to believe that they would do it again. What about Apple Expo 08?

Check out the rumors after the break.

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MacRumors is reporting a rumor of new Apple Cinema displays to be announced at MWSF 2009. The only feature rumored to be added is LED backlighting.

Apple’s 20”, 23”, and 30” Cinema displays have remained expensive and relatively unchanged since launched in 2004.

More after the break.

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Yeah, I didn’t think so. Not in the U.S., anyway, says Apple; at least, not without jail breaking your little friend. Though, for a minute there, it seemed Apple was cool with the idea of using your iPhone’s 3G or EDGE data connection over a SOCKS5 proxy.

Late Thursday night I was doing my usual routine—browsing the App Store for new programs that I just can’t live without—when I found myself in dire need of a reality check. Nullriver released a straightforwardly named program to the App Store, NetShare. NetShare creates an ad-hoc WiFi network with your iPhone, allowing you to connect wirelessly to a computer and use the iPhone’s EDGE or 3G data connection.

Jump past the break to learn more.

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Looks like it might be time to invest in a Macbook Air, that’s if you’ve been holding of. Apple quietly, and without explanation, has slashed the price of the 1.8GHz model to just $2598 which is $500 than it’s previous price at $3098. Adding the solid-state drive to the 1.6GHz model will now cost just $599 from its previous $999 and will reduce the price of upgrading the 1.6GHz processor to the faster 1.8GHz model from $300 to $200.

Apple hasn’t officially noted the price drop, but it’s obvious that the increase in SSD production has led the to the cheaper price points. All the Air needs now is a larger storage capacity (and more power), but the wait shouldn’t be too long as Samsung, which currently produces the SSDs for the Macbook Air, have said they could be delivering cheap 256GB SSD drives later this year, as well as a 128GB model.

Product [MacBook Air]

A group of over 60 owners believes it does. A recent blog details the trouble, which seems to be a persistent blank screen problem.

After a reboot, or on wake from sleep, the machine refuses to acknowledge the presence of a display, either internal or external. From that point on, the computer never regains its displays—not after a reboot, etc. Subsequent debugging indicates that the machine is misidentifying its NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT card as the MacBook’s Intel X3100 card. This issue is known to affect at least 50 people—a group of affected users has formed a Google Spreadsheet in order to document and organize cases.

Apple recommends users replace the logic board, but doing this isn’t solving the problem for some users. And, of course, the problem seems to surface shortly after the expiration of the computer’s default warranty, meaning those inflicted are paying about $400 for a fix that may not actually fix anything.

If you’re noticing similar behavior, we recommend you join the Apple discussion forum to gather/offer possible solutions, or, at the least, to be counted. If this does prove to be a widespread problem, the more people who join the discussion, the sooner Apple may address the issue.

Via [apad.sytes.net]

DisplaySearch, an online market research firm, has reported that Apple’s sales of notebook computers are up 61% from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008. In that time, Apple has shipped over 1.4 million notebooks, compared to almost 900,000 the previous year, which places Apple just behind Asus in terms of growth from year-to-year, as the Taiwanese company saw a slightly higher 67% growth rate. Most other notebook manufacturers saw growth rates in the 20 - 40% range.

However, the bad news is that Apple is still in seventh place in overall notebook market share at a mere 4.6%, behind leaders HP (20.8%), Dell (15.1%), and Acer (14.7%), but still ahead of Asus (4.3%) and Sony (4.2%). It is believed that Asus is seeing huge increases due to its Eee PC subnotebook, which has been extremely popular amongst those who want tiny computers that are capable of running Windows or Linux. If trends continue as they currently are, Apple’s notebook market share numbers should continue to increase throughout the rest of 2008.

Via [DisplaySearch]

In a recent survey by the NPD Group, some interesting new things have happened regarding market shares, specifically for laptops. Although Hewlett Packard and Dell continue to dominate with 20.8% and 15.1% market shares respectively, Apple is approaching fast. With Sony and their VAIO slipping to a distant 9th place (from 6th), Apple finally dug itself out of 8th place, and is now up to 7th. Apple’s gigantic 61% sales increase was surpassed only by the maker of the popular EEE PC, Asus, who took over Apple’s old 8th spot. Asus had a year-over-year sales increase of 67%.

With Apple’s sales figures skyrocketing across the board, the sky seems to be the limit for them at the moment. Don’t screw it up, Steve!

Via [Electronista]

According to the Taiwan area newspaper Economic Daily News, every MacBook released in 2009 will use an LED backlight. Backlight manufacturer Kenmos Technology was Apple’s chief supplier of the more color-accurate and efficient screen hardware for 2007, and is expected to have an even more dominant role next year as Apple switches its consumer models to LED lights. Kenmos is said to be shipping as many as five times more LEDs this year, at 1.5 million, although it is not known what number of these are destined for Apple or other customers.

The Mac designer’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, has promised as part of an environmental initiative that Apple’s computer line will switch to all LEDs when possible, but hasn’t set out a specific date for the transition. Recent reports have suggested that the next revision of the MacBook will undergo a major redesign that will transform the notebook from plastic to aluminum, and should also introduce a number of other technical improvements, such as Intel’s Centrino 2 platform and accompanying Core 2 Duo processors.

Read [Gizmodo]