Year: 2016

Reviews

PC World reviews the new MacBook Pro (With Touch Bar) – What’s the Verdict?

Dan Uff November 14, 2016 0

Apple gave its new MacBook Pro a thinner, sleeker case, which demanded a new, lower-travel keyboard, a new venting system, and even a smaller battery. But while I appreciate a Mac that’s smaller and lighter, I’d rather have a Mac that’s easier or just more fun to use. These 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros with Apple’s new Touch Bar are both.

The Touch Bar brings my favorite things about the iPad Pro’s software keyboard to the Mac. The amount of useful shortcuts it adds is ridiculous, and this is before most third-party developers have even had a chance to add Touch Bar support. Even for a premium price—and these Macs aren’t cheap—I think the Touch Bar makes this a much more compelling buy than the MacBook Pro with function keys.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

TIME Magazine reviews the new MacBook Pro (with Touch Bar) – The Verdict?

Dan Uff November 14, 2016 0

Using Apple’s new MacBook Pro is a little bit like test driving a BMW for the first time. Everything about it feels more refined, sharper, and faster than your old laptop. But it’s probably out of your budget, and even though everything about it is better than what you’re used to, you can’t name one particular thing you miss when it’s gone.

I’ve been using Apple’s MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, for the past week. It begins shipping this month starting at $1,799 for the entry level 13-inch version. Apple also offers a 15-inch model starting at $2,399 that includes a faster processor, boosted graphics, more memory, and a larger trackpad.

As the laptop’s name implies, the most significant upgrade is the addition of a thin horizontal touchscreen called the Touch Bar, which sits just above the keyboard, where the function keys once resided. The Touch Bar’s big trick is its ability to change functionality based on the software you’re using — it will show media controls in iTunes and editing buttons in Photoshop, for instance. It’s a welcome upgrade along with the new Pro’s upgraded keyboard, snappier performance and other enhancements. But it’s not as radical a change as including a full-blown touchscreen, which Apple has yet to do despite the prevalence of touchscreen laptops on the market.

The new MacBook Pros’ high price make them tough to recommend unless you’re a professional who might view a new computer as an investment. There are well-built Windows laptops out there with just as much power — and full-blown touchscreens — that cost considerably less. The Touch Bar is a nice addition, but it’s not enough to warrant upgrading if your current laptop is only a couple of years old or newer.

Here’s a closer look at what it’s been like to use Apple’s new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

President-Elect Trump’s Android Phone could become a National Security Threat

Dan Uff November 14, 2016 0

“If there’s one thing Trump’s staff — whose boss’s addiction to tweeting is legend — can do immediately to improve the security of our nation, it is this: Secure his phone,” Joseph Bernstein and Sheera Frenkel report for BuzzFeed News. “Trump is still firing away tweets from his personal account, from a device that may be an iPhone, may be an Android, or may — according to reports — be whatever device is closest at hand. And it is hardly a stretch of the imagination that Trump may be sending texts, emails, or any other conceivable type of electronic communication from this or these devices.”

“Which normal device Trump has been using up to this point is something of a mystery. His tweets have been posted from Twitter apps for both iPhone and Android. Last October, the New York Times reported he used a Samsung Galaxy,” Bernstein and Frenkel report. “And a text analysis of Trump’s tweets in August by the data scientist David Robinson found that Trump tweets from an iPhone were likely written by his staff, while tweets from the Android were likely written by Trump himself.”

“If Trump is indeed using an Android device, he’s using a phone that the cybersecurity world broadly regards as significantly less secure than the iPhone or iPad,” Bernstein and Frenkel report. “‘Securing Android devices is very difficult,’ said Jeff Zacuto, mobile security evangelist at Check Point, a security firm. “It is a highly vulnerable operating system, and if you don’t have a solution on that device to detect an advance attack you might not know that its happening… God forbid he messages or emails someone from that device.'”

Read more in the full article here.

Microsoft bringing Visual Studio to the Mac?

Dan Uff November 14, 2016 0

Microsoft (MSFT) is holding a programming conference on Wednesday called Connect(). In one of the (now deleted) announcements, one of the topics may have been an announcement that the company is planning to bring its Visual Studio developer's suite over to the Mac.

TechCrunch noted that while Microsoft has traditionally tried to steer developers towards using Windows, the global shift towards cloud computing means that developers are less tied to a single OS or piece of hardware. It can still make money off, however, off of software and its own cloud platform, Azure.

Indeed under current CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has become increasingly Mac- and iOS-friendly, content to have people on non-Windows platforms so long as they're using Microsoft services.

At the same time it has also been diving more deeply into hardware, expanding its Surface line with products like the Surface Book and the Surface Studio, and experimenting with its own augmented reality technology, HoloLens.