The PC Report

Remember that iPad that was shown off a month ago? Well now we have confirmation on a release date from Apple: April 3rd 2010. This is the date that the Apple iPad (non-3G version) will go on sale in the United States, with pre-orders starting March 12th. The 3G version will come on sale late April in the US along with the iPad release in Australia, Canada, UK, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Switzerland.

Prices for the Apple iPad will start at US$499 for the 16GB WiFi only edition, 32GB will be US$599 and the 64GB: US$699 – just add US$130 if you fancy the 3G on top of your selected storage.

We finally have closure on one of the biggest rumours of the past couple of years – the Apple iPad is finally released. To summarise what it looks like, it’s basically a huge iPod Touch. It’s 1.3 cm thick, weighs close to 700 grams and has a nice and large 9.7-inch capacitive touch IPS LCD display with a 1024×768 resolution. It has a slightly curved back similar to the iTouch/iPhone and also carries a similar button set: Home, Power, Volume and Mute.

On the inside we’re seeing a custom-made Apple A4 processor running at 1GHz, flash storage sizes of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi, accelerometer and digital compass. There’s also an optional 3G model supporting data only and assisted GPS (A-GPS). Connectivity wise there is a 3.5mm headphone jack as well as a 30-pin dock connector which enables charging, video output at 1024×768 VGA and 480p via composite, keyboard via a dock and a camera import attachment kit that allows importing of photos straight to your iPad.

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The latest rumour out of the Apple camp is that of a new 22-inch touchscreen iMac to join the ranks of the other current-gen 21.5″ and 27″ non-touch systems. The new Mac is rumoured to be shipping sometime in 2010, with Quanta producing the model and Sintek Photronic supplying the panels. Like most Apple rumours these days, any actual info from Apple could be months (even years) away.

It isn’t surprising to see rumours for a touchscreen desktop iMac with loads of rumours surrounding the unconfirmed Apple Tablet with a modified Mac touchscreen interface. They could (and probably will) port some aspects of the Tablet interface to the new iMac. It will also be interesting to see the design of the new iMac; whether they choose to keep the same design as the 21.5″ one or go for a whole new design.

Greenpeace has gone and awarded Apple a prized four giant gold stars for their efforts in keeping their company, and products, green. According to the latest report from Greenpeace, Apple is the only company to have been awarded the four giant gold stars for keeping polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFR) out of their desktop and laptop computers, as well as their mobile phones and computer monitors.

With this award, Apple blew away all the competition, coming in better than all the other five companies who have products in each category, and most of the other companies who produce computers (the best being HP with two small gold stars). Nokia and Sony Ericsson also did well, achieving a large gold star each for the only category they were in (mobile phones). Keep up the good work Apple; maybe we’ll see other manufacturers doing better in the future.

The most expensive of the Mac desktop computers, the Mac Pro, has got an upgrade, if you choose so. If you feel that the 2.93Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor isn’t enough for you, you can upgrade that to a 3.33GHz Xeon for only US$1,200 on top of the base price. Also, if you feel like upping your storage, you can upgrade the 1TB hard drive to a 2TB for just US$350. Also, you can fill the other four hard drive bays with 2TB HDDs for US$550 a hard drive.

Unfortunately these options are rather expensive, considering the base price for the Mac Pro is US$2,499 for a 2.66GHz Xeon, 3GB of DDR3, a 640GB hard drive and a single GeForce GT 120 graphics card. Chuck in the 3.33Ghz Xeon and one 2TB hard drive and the price goes up to US$4,049, or you can buy the best Mac Pro available with all the upgrades and extras for just US$16,845.90

You might have been enjoying the nice multi-touch feel of your Apple Magic Mouse on your Mac, however when trying the mouse out on a Windows machine you would have been disappointed to find that it didn’t work. Not any more, as it appears as though some hackers ripped the drivers straight out of the Bootcamp update for all to enjoy. The drivers work from Windows XP (32-bit) right up to Windows 7 and you can grab them now from UneasySilence.

Apple chose the perfect time to release new products – just before the release of Windows 7 tomorrow. Apple has released a bunch of new products today for the “holiday season” – a new range of iMacs, MacBooks and Mac Minis and also updated the Mighty Mouse (now know as the Magic Mouse) and the Apple Remote.

First off is the new iMac range (pictured above) which look much closer to the LED Cinema Displays as expected. While there still is no blu-ray in these new iMacs, we do see a nice spec bump. The new desktops come with either 21.5″ (1920×1080) or 27″ (2560×1440) 16:9 widescreen displays in the same aluminium enclosures. What really is great to see though is the inclusion of Intel’s Core i5 and i7 range in the top end models.

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Around 12% of US households own a Mac, and of those 85% have at least one computer running Windows, according to market research company NPD, in a survey of 2300 people.

The explanation is actually quite straight-forward.

“There is also a high correlation among Apple owners and more affluent consumer households,” said the vice president of industry analysis, Stephen Baker.

The survey found that 36% of Mac owners had household incomes greater than US$100,000, compared to 21 percent of all consumers.

“The average Apple household owns 48 CE devices whereas the average computer household owns about 24.”

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve used and own several Apple products myself, and even though I’m mainly a Windows user I just love some of the features and the overall build quality and looks of their products – but I just can’t see myself paying for an Apple Tablet, or using it. And I have my reasons.

Being one of the main news posters on this site means I look through loads and loads of computer related news, and I have sifted through all the latest rumours surrounding Apple’s new device, so aptly named the “Apple Tablet.” After all these rumours, still, nothing really has grabbed my attention about the device apart from it’s coming and it’s probably going to be the next big Apple thing, like the iPod and iPhone.

So, I’ve compiled five reasons as to why I will not be purchasing Apple’s new Tablet:

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AppleInsider, the usual source for all sorts of Mac related rumours, has come out with a new rumour about the iMac line-up. They are claiming that Apple has finalised some new iMacs up to the stage where they have been rolling of the Taiwanese production lines for a couple of weeks now.

The new Macs are rumoured to be thinner, looking more like it’s range of LED Cinema Displays, and (finally, thank God) cheaper for us to buy. Also on the list of new features could be a previously rumoured Blu-ray drive, as well as some sort of audio enhancement to make the new iMacs the “most versatile ever.” No word on a release date for these or any other sort of details – it’s all rumours for now