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Engadget Reviews The New MacBook Pro→

Engadget Reviews The New MacBook Pro

Nilay Patel at Engadget on the new MacBook Pro:

Of course, there’s no getting around the fact that the MacBook Pro is still incredibly expensive and omits what should be no-brainer features – $2,199 for two USB ports and no Blu-ray drive? – but those are tradeoffs and prices professional Mac users have long become used to, just like this particular MacBook Pro design itself. Something tells us the next revision of the MacBook Pro will offer a more radical external redesign to go along with Lion, but that’s a long ways off – until then, this MacBook Pro represents the best blend of power, portability, and battery life we’ve come across to date.

I’ve never touched a Blu-ray in my life so that’s not really a problem for me, but I can see some Mac users willing to do whatever they want with those discs. Interesting tidbits: FaceTime does HD video calling but Photo Booth stills shoots at VGA resolution; no way to test Thunderbolt right now; it’s just a really powerful MacBook Pro.

In the meantime, AppleInsider reports Apple has enabled TRIM support for bundled SSDs in the 2011 MacBook Pros running Snow Leopard. Great news.

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BIT.TRIP BEAT For Mac Is Trip-Tastic

CommanderVideo has given you a paddle, and you’ll have to keep up with the beat in order to succeed in BIT.TRIP BEAT on the Mac App Store. It’s like pong and maybe like brick breaker, where you bounce back various “beats” that are streamed across your display in conjunction with the level’s vibe. These aren’t your traditional ping pong bits either – they’re high intensity, moving bullets that bounce and force players to return a variety of patterns without missing. The more beats you return consecutively, the more rewarding the game gets with higher intensity tunes and occasionally trippier visuals. But like Guitar Hero, if you miss a beat, you’ll face the bleak reality of failure. Color fades into monochrome, and the screen beat is reduced to mere 8-bit blips. If you’re not getting those additional bonus points by chaining those high-pitched returns, it’s game over for CommanderVideo.

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Snap for Mac Assigns Keyboard Shortcuts to Apps In Your Dock

If you use the OS X Dock as much as I do, then it’s likely that you’ve always wondered why there’s no easy way to assign a keyboard shortcut for apps placed in the Dock. Snap, a $0.99 app available in the Mac App Store, solves this problem by providing an easy solution to cycle through Dock apps using the keyboard.

Once downloaded, Snap will let you assign numeric shortcuts to Dock apps starting from the Finder and the app right next to it. All you have to do is choose a modifier key that, together with the numbers, will enable you to switch between apps in seconds. The modifier key can be Command, Control, Shift or Option. Personally, I chose Option so I can switch between tabs in Chrome using CMD. If you don’t want to have shortcuts for Dock apps, however, you can also manually pick an app from the “Other” menu and virtually create shortcuts for any app on your Mac.

I like Snap because it’s simple and allows me to quickly open apps using easy to remember shortcuts – always faster than heading over an icon with your mouse cursor. Go download it here.

New µTorrent Beta for Mac Adds Remote Web Access, Scheduler

Popular BitTorrent client µTorrent was updated in its beta version for Mac last night adding support for a series of features that have made the app a must-have among Windows users. Namely, the latest beta for Mac adds the ability to control torrents remotely from any desktop or mobile browser, without having to mess with complicated network and firewall settings. It’s quite handy if you’re that kind of user who likes checking on his torrents on the go and wouldn’t mind adding new ones as well. Everything happens with a Web interface that’s completely accessible from anywhere. Together with the web UI, the application’s design has been improved as well.

Other important features in the 1.5 beta include feeds and the scheduler. While the second option is pretty obvious as it lets you schedule start and stop times for µTorrent (so your internet service provider will be happy), the RSS support is interesting. It allows you to subscribe to torrents’ feeds to automatically download them as new ones become available.

µTorrent is a free download for Mac, and the beta version is available here. [via Cult of Mac]

Personal Hotspot Limited To 3 Devices on AT&T?

AT&T has confirmed it will offer the Personal Hotspot functionality starting March 11 with the release of iOS 4.3, but it looks like the functionality will be modified to work only with connections up to 3 devices. By default, Apple’s Personal Hotspot allows up to 5 devices to connect to a single iPhone sharing its 3G connection. A picture of an internal AT&T document posted by Engadget in fact suggests the carrier is going to restrict the usage of Personal Hotspot to only 3 incoming connections.

While it’s highly unlikely that you’ll end up letting 5 people connect to your iPhone on a daily basis, it’s still interesting to study the possibility of AT&T limiting a feature so heavily promoted by Apple. Guess carriers do have some kind of control on the iPhone, after all. (Personally, I’m just happy 3 Italia is going to keep Personal Hotspot free to use for every iPhone owner)

Update: the image shared by Engadget doesn’t specify whether or not AT&T is simply following Apple’s implementation of Personal Hotspot, which allows 3 devices to connect using WiFi. It’s not clear from the leaked photo if AT&T didn’t mention the additional Bluetooth and USB connections, or is really enforcing Personal Hotspot on 3 devices simultaneously.

From Apple’s website:

You can share your connection with up to five devices at once over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB — with up to three of those connections using Wi-Fi.4 Every connection is password protected and secure. And it’s power friendly, too. iPhone detects when your Personal Hotspot is no longer in use and turns it off to save battery life.

iPad 2: Apple’s Smart Iteration

By now you’ve probably heard and read everything you need to know about the iPad 2. The second generation tablet that’s thinner, lighter (not so much, after all), has cameras and also happens to come with fancy (some people say revolutionary) Smart Covers to protect and clean your device without putting it entirely into a case. Pretty much as I wrote in November, this is the iPad upgrade I was expecting.

But is this the iPad 2 I was hoping for? Or rather, was March 2 the iPad 2 event I was looking forward to? I would say yes, and no.

I’m going to get an iPad 2 from the United States on March 11. 16 GB WiFi model with a $39 Smart Cover. I guess that’s what most consumers will end up with, and I’m happy to stick with my last year’s choice of “just” 16 GBs of storage considering how it’s possible that Apple will slowly move to cloud storage, always available at any time with a simple Internet connection. Which brings me to the second point: the geek in me was hoping for a brief mention of iOS 5 at the iPad 2 event which, you might have seen, didn’t happen. I can see, though, why Apple decided to keep iOS 5 for a dedicated event in Cupertino. Read more

Here, File File! Updated with Retina Graphics, Background Audio

Here, File File! is an iPhone app we reviewed a year ago that eventually disappeared from our radar. The app, mixing a beautiful interface design with a weird and funny name, allowed you to browse the contents of your Mac (read: file system) from a native iPhone UI. You only needed to install a desktop server app in order to connect from the iPhone both through WiFi and 3G. In Here, File File! you could browser and open folders, preview images and documents, play music and video and even search with Spotlight from the iPhone itself. It was a gem.

The iPhone 4 came out last summer and an update to Here, File File! to support iOS 4 and the new device was nowhere to be seen. Not to mention the iPad, which would be perfect for an app like HFF.

This silence has been interrupted today with the release of version 1.2 that brings Retina Display graphics for iPhone 4, bug fixes, background audio support and several enhancements. An iPad app is in the works too, and beta testing should start soon after today’s release of HFF for iPhone. So how’s the update? The app looks beautiful on the iPhone 4 display and much more responsive than before. I also tweaked the desktop application to work with a global DNS hostname so I can access my files from anywhere. Background audio works as expected and you get a nice HFF icon in the multitasking tray to send music across your room to AirPlay speakers. These music files are on your Mac.

Here, File File! is the same great app as before, only it looks beautiful on the iPhone 4. While waiting for the iPad app to come out, go check out the iPhone version here. More screenshots below. Read more

To-Do App Dropkick Gets Even Better with Lists Support - All In The Cloud

Dropkick is a simple, elegant iPhone app we covered a while ago that lets you manage to-dos and sync them back through the cloud to a free Mac companion application. Dropkick, in fact, is free if you want to enter up to 10 tasks, and it goes paid to unlock unlimited access to task management. The app is really minimal and focused on entering new tasks, and completing them. Cloud sync happens through a free Dropkick account, and it’s really fast. For many, Dropkick has become the best way to quickly capture and manage to-dos, keeping them always available thanks to the comfort and reliability of online sync. Read more