thunderbolt

Apple has refreshed its MacBook Pros with small but noteworthy bumps in speed, storage, and graphics power, and all prices remain the same.

Unveiled this weekend, the upgrades run across the board to include the 13-inch, 15-inch, and 17-inch models.

The entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro now sports a 2.4GHz processor, inching up from 2.3GHz previously, while its hard drive capacity has been upgraded to 500GB from 320GB. The $1,499 13-inch MacBook Pro is now powered by a 2.8GHz processor, from 2.7GHz previously, and the hard drive has been beefed up to 750 gigabytes from 500GB.… Read more

Apple will win customers away from 4G Android phones by offering the iPhone 4S at a lower cost but still managing to rake in hefty profit margins.

At least, that's the take of Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore. In an investors note released Sunday, Whitmore compared the prices of the iPhone 4S with those of several Droid phones. Though the monthly fees for each phone are comparable and depend on the carrier, the upfront cost for the new iPhone is lower, which Whitmore believes will lure in more customers.

The 16GB iPhone 4S costs $199 with a two-year contract. … Read more

As the monitor screen is the visual interface for your computer, it's obviously vital that it work properly and show the expected output from your system.

Often when a monitor doesn't display output properly it's because either the monitor or your computer's graphics system is not configured properly or is malfunctioning, but at times it may merely be a matter of an improper connection or a faulty adapter. If your monitor is not showing any output, here are some approaches that can help you determine the nature of the problem.

Recently MacFixIt reader "Jim P.&… Read more

An Apple phone branded as the iPhone 5 won't arrive until "4G" LTE technology is ready for compact smartphones, according to analysts.

Needless to say, the iPhone 5 did not make an appearance today. Will Strauss, president of wireless chip market research firm Forward Concepts, says there is a very good reason that it was the 4S that showed up today and not the 5.

"They're saving iPhone 5 for the LTE version and that won't be out until next spring," said Strauss, who tracks companies like Qualcomm that supply the chips that … Read more

HTC Android smartphones including the Evo 3D, the Evo 4G, and the Thunderbolt contain a flaw that gives Internet-connected apps installed on the devices access to personal information such as text message data, location info, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers, according to a trio of security researchers.

Researcher Artem Russakovskii says that he, Justin Case, and Trevor Eckhart have discovered a vulnerability involving logging tools that HTC recently installed on the devices during a software update.

Such tools, Russakovskii writes, might normally be used for remote analysis of problems on a device, among other things. But the problem here is … Read more

When new Mac systems and devices come out, expect the do-it-yourself repair guide iFixIt to be one of the first to rip it apart and show you what's inside. When Thunderbolt was issued iFixIt disassembled the first MacBook systems to show the Thunderbolt controller chips, and also took apart the Thunderbolt cable to show the signal conditioning electronics in them. Only days after Apple released its Thunderbolt Display, iFixIt is at it again and has fully disassembled the monitor to show a surprising amount of circuitry.

Apple's Thunderbolt Display is in essence a Thunderbolt hub, and as iFixIt … Read more

IDG's news service reports that Intel is reassuring owners of current-generation Thunderbolt devices about the future of the cutting-edge input standard. Indirectly quoting Intel's Dave Salvator, IDG reports, "Thunderbolt ports on Apple's current Macintosh computers will be compatible with upcoming fiber optic cables, which should be ready by next year."

The current generation of Thunderbolt ports on Apple's most recent MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro computers all rely on a first-generation copper-based Thunderbolt design. While certainly fast--offering 10Gbps data throughput both in-coming and outgoing simultaneously--copper-based Thunderbolt ports were more of a … Read more

Iteration is something Apple is good at. Its 24-inch Cinema Display was good, but it appealed to an extremely small number of users. In 2010, Apple released a new version with an improved screen and by that time there were many more Mini-DisplayPort-compatible Macs in the wild, thus widening its appeal.

With its Thunderbolt Display, Apple adds a superfast connection, as well as Ethernet, FireWire, and Thunderbolt. Note that the display is only compatible with Thunderbolt-compatible Macs, so in effect, we're kind of right where we started with the 24-inch Cinema Display: a powerful monitor that only a small … Read more

If you think the Promise Pegasus is just a bit too big (and you're right!), LaCie has something for you. The company announced today that its first Thunderbolt device, the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt external drive, is now available for purchase.

This is the second Thunderbolt storage device on the market, besides the Pegasus, and the first that comes in a design that's small enough for you to carry on the go.

The new drive features a pair of 2.5-inch drives, set up in JBOD, RAID 1, or RAID 0 configurations. Measuring just 1.6 inches by … Read more