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Mac

Apple looks to address lingering issues with New improved MacBook

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The Apple MacBook early version, specifically 2011 MacBook Pro, has been on the receiving end of complaints about graphic failures and systematic crashes. The problems began to appear in 2013 and as of last year, authorized Apple service providers were still accepting MacBook repairs and now that the new and reinvented Apple MacBook is out, expectations are high that old issues will have been addressed and settled.

The new MacBook was unveiled last March 9 during the Spring Forward Apple Watch and is called “New MacBook 2015. It will be available for retail on April 10 through authorized dealers, the Apple Online Store, and Apple retail stores. It is a notebook that weighs 2 pounds making it the lightest MacBook as well as the thinnest at just 13.1 mm.

According to Philip Schiller who is the SVP for Apple’s Worldwide Marketing, almost everything about the MacBook has been reinvented. Some of the changes include an ultra thin Retina display, fanless design, a new Force Touch trackpad, new battery design, a super thin full-size keyboard, and a USB-C port. This USB-C port means there is only one single connector so you no longer need separate ports for charging, video out and data transfer. The most shocking for many though is the price tag at around $1,570 for the 1.1 GHz model and up to $1,954 for the 2.6 GHz model.

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USB-C (5 Ports in 1)

The specs for the New MacBook are:

  • Intel Core M Model with Turbo Boost speeds of 2.4 GHz for the lower-priced model and 2.6GHz for the higher-priced model
  • 8 GB memory
  • 256 GH of flash for the lower-priced and 514 GB for the higher priced model
  • 5th generation Intel HD Graphics 5300
  • 2304 x 1440 pixel Resolution
  • 812.11ac Wifi
  • Bluetooth 4.0
  • Butterfly mechanism on the keyboard
  • 35% better battery capacity and 30% less energy consumption without sacrificing display brightness. Battery is capable of 9 hours wireless use and 10 hours of movie playback
  • Available in silver, Space grey and gold
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New Logic Boards are 67% Smaller

The Force Touch Trackpad is one innovation likely to be pleasing to users because of it deep click feature which can fast forward videos or be used to force click to launch apps. You can also customize the trackpad by changing the amount of pressure so that every gesture or click on the trackpad will mean a specific command assigned by you to fit your personal preferences.

Most impressive is the fact that there are no more moving parts on this New MacBook 2015. This will mean greater efficiency and a very quiet, noiseless device.

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Batteries now take up most of the MacBook casing

As far as old issues on crashes and graphic failure, Apple has addressed these and one can expect to have fewer issues moving forward. We’ll have to wait until the April launch for testing. For the user who needs a powerful light notebook, this new 12″ MacBook could be the answer.

iPhone

Best Cydia apps to Download Music and Watch Movies for free

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Many iOS users like you would like to customize their devices with more games, apps, and themes. This is why one would prefer to jailbreak an iOS device. If your iDevice is not jailbroken, there could be many limitations when it comes to your choices of applications.

Apple does not allow you to install applications from other sources other than from its app store. However, the problem here is that most of the applications from the Apple app store are usually too expensive to download or sometimes, the features are not good enough. If you’re looking for an app to watch movies and download music like mp3s for free, then you can try Cydia.

Here is the list of the best applications from Cydia which will help you watch movies and download music  on your iOS device.

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1. Movie Land App – When you get this app, you are in fact entering the land of movies. It has a wide collection of movies and you can easily download it on your iOS device. All you need to do is to create an account in order to begin downloading and watching your favorite movies. The good thing about this app is that once you buy your favorite movie, you can watch it anytime as many times as you want on your device.

This app offers you high speed downloads and high quality movies for only $6.99. This can be bought from BigBoss repository.

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 2. BigU Movie App – With the help of this app, you can either download or stream the movie of your choice in a flash. Aside from that, the movies come in high quality so you can really enjoy watching the movie. Of course, new content is added regularly to ensure that you get the latest movies out there. With a user-friendly interface, everyone in the family can enjoy using this app.

A special feature of this app is that you can watch your downloaded movies on your television. There is a feature called TV-OUT which will enable you to watch your movies on your big screen TV.  If you prefer to watch on your computer, this is also possible with the My Movies tab where you can find and play all the movies that you have downloaded.

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3. iPlayApp Cydia App – This free app enables you to stream many movies on your device. The good thing about this app is that it updates you regularly for any news or events to make sure you are connected. The movies are divided into categories which will help you choose the movies you want. There are categories for latest releases, highest ratings, and many more.

As you try to select your movie, you are also given a synopsis about each movie. This way, you can easily find the movie genre that you really want. This app is available from BigBoss repository.

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 4. MusicDog App – This free Cydia app let’s you stream your favorite songs wherever you are as long as you’re connected online.  It has a huge library of music to make sure that you find all the songs that you want. If you don’t have connection all the time, do not worry. Similar to Spotify, you can also choose to listen to your playlist offline. The only thing you need to do is to register your device upon installation, then you’re good to go.

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5. EZ-Mp3 Player App – If you’re a music lover, then this app is for you. It lets you stream the music of your choice. You also have the option to create a playlist of your favorite songs so that you can play them whenever you want.

You don’t have to worry about copyright issues or anything else here. It is a legal app that also gives you access to a built-in radio with 25 radio stations and 22 genres of music.

How-To

How to use your Mac to make and receive phone calls or texts

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With the release of Mac OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 Apple introduced several new features that make cross-platform communication easier and more seamless than ever. Two of those features – SMS/MMS and Call Relay – allow you to make and receive calls through the FaceTime app as well as to send and receive text messages though the Messages app. In this article we’ll show you how to enable this functionality.

What you’ll need:

  • A Mac running OS X Yosemite that’s connected to Wi-Fi
  • An iPhone running iOS 8.1 or later connected to the same Wi-Fi network that has the ability to make calls and send text messages
  • Both devices have to use the same Apple ID for iMessage/FaceTime

Note: It is important to understand that making calls and sending texts from your Mac is not free. All of the data still goes through your phone, you’re just interacting with it on your computer. So your carrier will charge you for the calls and texts as if they made through your iPhone.

Tip: Unlike Handoff, Call Relay and SMS Relay do not require Bluetooth LE communication between your Mac and iPhone in order to work, so this feature is available to all devices that run the required operating systems.

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Setting Up Call Relay

How to set up Call Relay:

  1. On your Mac, open FaceTime from Launchpad, your dock or Spotlight.
  2. Click on FaceTime in the menu bar.
  3. Click on Preferences.
  4. Ensure that the option “iPhone Cellular Calls” has a checkmark in front of it.
    Tip: At the end of the option’s description you can see the phone number that will be used to place and receive calls.
  5. On your iPhone, go into the Settings app.
  6. Open the FaceTime section.
  7. Ensure that the option “iPhone Cellular Calls” is turned on
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Use your same ID as used on your Mac

How to make and receive calls:

If you’ve ever received a FaceTime Audio call on your Mac, you already know how to receive regular phone calls since they appear in exactly the same manner. The great thing is that you don’t need to keep FaceTime open in order to receive FaceTime and cellular phone calls.

Making a phone call is more tricky. In apps like Mail, Contacts, Maps, Calendar, Safari, etc you need to hover over a phone number with your mouse until a blue phone icon appears. Clicking on it will initiate a call. The biggest drawback is that there isn’t an integrated keypad, so you can’t dial random phone numbers. Fortunately, Mac App Store apps like Keypad can add this functionality.

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Text Message Forwarding

How to set up SMS/MMS Relay:

  1. On your iPhone, go to Settings.
  2. Choose the Messages section.
  3. Enter the Text Message Forwarding menu.
  4. Enable the toggle next to your Mac’s name.
  5. On your Mac you should receive a popup with a numeric code that you need to enter on your iPhone in order to complete the setup.

Tip: If you’re not receiving your numeric code on your computer, log out of iMessage on your phone and Mac and then log back in. If that doesn’t work, try adding a new email address where you can receive iMessages and follow the steps again.

How to send and receive texts on your Mac:

Sending and receiving texts is identical to sending and receiving iMessages. Everything is done through the Messages app. If you need to text a number that’s not in your Contacts, just enter it as the recipient of a new message, type in the text and send it.

News

Apple preparing to pull Aperture from the Mac App Store

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A recent update to the official Aperture website points to the end of the pro app. On the product page Apple has stated that “When Photos for OS X is available this spring, Aperture will no longer be available for purchase from the Mac App Store”. We were warned that this day would come during 2014’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) where Apple briefly showed on stage Photos for OS X – the successor of both Aperture and iPhoto.

Photos for OS X is the desktop counterpart to the Photos app that ships with your iOS device. Just like its mobile version, the software will have built-in support for iCloud Photo Library – Apple’s solution to storing all of your photos and their non-destructive edits in the cloud and making them available on all of your devices. In terms of functionality, we expect that Photos for OS X will be a suitable replacement and even an upgrade for iPhoto users, but may leave professional photographers and fans of Aperture disappointed. In addition to the built-in features, the app will also serve as a system-wide platform for photo manipulation by allowing OS X and iOS developers to create photo extensions which can be used directly inside the Photos app.

In terms of visuals, Photos for OS X feels at home in Yosemite thanks to its flat and translucent interface. The app’s layout is very similar to its iOS counterpart – you have all of your photos organized into Moments, Collections and Years. The Shared and Albums tabs are also present and allow you to organize the photos you’ve taken and view images shared by your friends and family. A new addition that’s only available on Photos for OS X is the Project tab, a place where you can create slideshows, calendars, photo books, cards, print orders, etc.

The new desktop application is expected to ship this spring with the release of Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.3, most likely during a special event where it will be demonstrated on stage once again. Apple recently released its first beta of 10.10.3 to developers and Photos for OS X is indeed present.

Even though the introduction of the desktop Photos app marks the end of Aperture, The Loop reports that Apple has no plans to discontinue their other pro apps – Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. So you need not worry if one of those two apps is critical to your workflow – they’re not going anywhere. If you’re a photographer, on the other hand, you may want to look into alternatives to Aperture like Adobe Lightroom. While the current version of Aperture does work on Yosemite and will continue to do so after it’s retired, there are no guarantees that it will support the next major version of Apple’s desktop operating system.

News

After recent update Wi-Fi issues continue to plague OS X users

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Ever since the official launch of Mac OS X Yosemite in October 2014, numerous users have been plagued by Wi-Fi connectivity and reliability problems as evidenced by the lengthy thread in the Apple Support Communities forum. Currently there are 2,570 replies to the thread and over 834,000 views. Even after the releases of OS X 10.10.1 and the recent 10.10.2 system update, both of which contain Wi-Fi improvements, many Mac owners still do not have fully functional machines.

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10.10.2 OS X update that acknowledges a Wi-Fi Issue / Fix

The issues reported range from a noticeable lag and a reduction in Wi-Fi speed to an outright lack of connectivity. While we have not experienced such problems on MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, others have been much less fortunate. Macworld’s Karen Haslam recounts the challenge she was facing as she was trying to apply the 10.10.2 system update to her MacBook Air while having a non-existent Wi-Fi connection. Hers was a particularly dire situation since MacBook Air model don’t come with an ethernet port, so the main way of going online is via Wi-Fi. She managed to update her laptop by using her iPhone’s LTE connection over USB. Unfortunately, 10.10.2 did not remedy her Wi-Fi woes.

So is there a solution?

If your Wi-Fi has been unreliable since you upgraded to OS X Yosemite and you’ve tried the different suggestions found in Apple’s Support Communities, it may be worth wiping your Mac and installing a fresh copy of Yosemite.

It is always a good idea to do a clean install of new operating systems, rather than to just upgrade your existing one since all kinds of files and preferences get carried over and not all of them are beneficial. In fact, if you’ve been upgrading your operating system for a few generations already, your Mac will be slower than expected, will have suboptimal battery life and may experience odd glitches and reliability problems.

Unfortunately, with each new release of OS X, and especially after the introduction of the Mac App Store back in the beginning of 2011, Apple has been making it increasingly difficult to perform a clean installation of Mac OS X. If you decide to go down this route, we strongly recommend that you install OS X Yosemite directly, rather than using the installation media or recovery disk that came with your MacBook.

While doing a clean Yosemite install is possible, it requires some extra steps. For an easy to follow tutorial on how to create a USB thumb drive containing the OS X installer, check out guide here. Alternatively, you can perform Internet Recovery which doesn’t require additional hardware. A step by step tutorial can be found here.