Apple Is Offering a Replacement Program for 1TB iMac Seagate HDD Failures

Apple has acknowledge a 1TB Seagate HDD failure issue affecting iMacs sold between May 2011 and June 2011. They are now providing a replacement program to anyone who has bought the affected hard drives and will replace free of charge. Official quote from Apple:

Apple has determined that a very small number of Seagate 1TB hard drives used in 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac systems, may fail under certain conditions. These systems were sold between May 2011 and July 2011.

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) will replace affected hard drives free of charge.

Apple is contacting affected iMac owners who provided a valid email address during the product registration process to let them know about this program.  If you have not been contacted, but think you have a 1TB Seagate hard drive, you can enter your serial number below to see if it's part of this program.

Here is a link if anyone need to check there serial number.

New Sandy Bridge Equipped iMacs Due Next Week

Rumors are coming in fast and hard about an imminent refresh of Apple's iMac line due as early as next week. AppleInsider reports that the new iMacs will be updated with Intel's new Sandy Bridge family of processors as well as the new high-speed Thunderbolt port which will replace the current miniDisplay port. Rumors also suggest new display sizes and better AMD graphics cards.

Vintage Victorian iMac Cover

Tired of that sleek, modern looking iMac of yours? You can always slip on this one-of-a-kind vintage victorian wooden cover and go back in time. It comes complete with a matching Apple keyboard trim cover (not shown) for $299.

Quirky Mantis Clip-On LED Task Lamp

Another quirky gadget comes to us from Quirky called the Mantis, an LED task lamp with a clip. You can use the attachable clip to hook the Mantis under your iMac so shine some light on your keyboard or you can even use it as a free-standing desk lamp. The Mantis is only powered by two AA batteries, that is a con right there. The 11 bright LEDs have two light intensity settings for high and low light. Until Apple comes out with an illuminated desktop keyboard, the Mantis seems like a useful gadget. The Mantis is currently on pre-sale for $26.99 over at Quicky, which is similar to the Kickstarter method of funding new inventions. 

Apple's Back To Mac Keynote Predictions

 

With Apple's return to the Mac after the mountain of mobile devices announced, it is meant to be a huge announcement. Starting at 10 am PST tomorrow, and the invite sent out to media last week, caused the entire internet to explode with predictions of what Apple is going to announce, and here is mine. 

For starters, if you look at the invite above, you can see a Lion behind the Apple logo, which probably means that the next version of Mac OS will be announced as Mac OS 10.7 Lion, as all recent versions of Mac OS  are named after big cats. Main features of the new version of the new Mac OS that have been floating around are touch screen support, drastic speed increases and subtle UI changes to stuff like the dock and the menu bar. The reason that touchscreen is in there, is because Apple has filed several patents about touchscreen iMacs and MacBooks, and this would be a great time for Apple to include some parts of iOS into Mac OS, i.e. the touchscreen aspect. Call me an Apple fanboy, but I cannot see what drastically new features Apple could add, as I think it is as good as it can get, yet we will find out tomorrow. 

 

In terms of hardware, the rumours about the long overdue update to the MacBook Air are picking up again. These rumours are saying that the new MacBook Air will be smaller with a 11.6" screen, a new version of SSD that is similar to a stick of RAM that is supposedly really fast and even slimmer profile. There are also some rumours of the MacBook and the MacBook Pros being updated, but I don't think that will happen as the Mac laptops got updated around April, and the MacBook family usually have a refresh cycle of around 9-10 months. Alike the laptops, I do not think that the desktops will get updated as they got their refresh this summer. 

So, not long to wait until we find out so stay tuned to the live blogs like Engadget's for all the latest stuff coming out of Cupertino. However, it is still not clear if Apple will be streaming the event itself, like the iPod event, so get ready for the Lion to come out of the cage.

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Update on 2010-10-20 16:51 by Patrick Rigby

Apple has just posted the live stream page. Check it out here.

New iMacs, Magic Trackpad, but no Mac Pro

 

What is Apple playing at, the Mac Pro has been out of date for well over a year and it still hasen't received an update! But Apple have given an update to the iMacs as well as releasing the infamous Magic Trackpad. Apple also released a new product, a battery charger. Nice one Apple...

The 21.5" iMac's and the 27" iMac have all received Intel's new I3 processor which can be upgraded to Intel's Core I5 as well. The speeds of the I3 range from 3.06GHz to 3.2GHz, while the I5 is 3.60GHz. The Quad Core I5 and I7 chips have also received a speed boost at 2.8Ghz and 2.93Ghz respectfully.

The Magic Trackpad was rumoured for quite some time now and has been finally released. The Magic Trackpad is as you'd expect, a device that lets you do all of the usual stuff a normal trackpad would like clicking and scrolling. Except it is external and is for a desktop. It is 80% larger than the trackpad on the Macbook Pro and uses 2 AA batteries. Apple’s says that the "Magic Trackpad gives you a whole new way to control what’s on your Mac desktop computer. When you perform gestures, you actually interact with what’s on your screen. You feel closer to your content, and moving around feels completely natural. Swiping through pages on screen is just like flipping through pages in a magazine, and inertial scrolling senses the momentum in your fingers as you move up and down a page." It is available now and costs $69.

Apple also released their own AA battery charger to keep devices like the wireless keyboard and Magic trackapd charged. It costs $29

Apple Store Goes Down...

 

Yesterdays prediction about new Mac Pros and iMacs seem to have come true. As if you pop over to the Apple Store right now there is the usual "Updating Store" notice which leads me to believe that they are going to update the long overdue desktop Macs. Along with the update for the desktop Macs, there were also rumours about a 27" Cinema Display to accompany the new Mac Pro. So what do you think they will launch, but by the time you are reading this, they may already have...

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