Friday November 14, 2008

- Activate the 4 finger gestures on a MacBook Air Rev 1 - Lionel - 09:30:49

One of the most practical things of the new trackpad of MacBook Pro, MacBook and MacBook Air, is the support of 4 fingers gestures that allows the use of expose and is very practical on screens of small size.
Alas, this is not possible on the old MacBook Air. Members of the forums discovered that this limitation is not due to hardware, but software. By forcing the installation of certain system libraries on MacBook Air V1, they succeeded in activating this function. We will not describe the method here, because it requires not only the access to the system on the new portables, but also to modify these libraries by hand and this presents a significant danger that may result with a machine unable to start up again.
It remains only to wish that Apple disregards its current meanness and with the 10.5.6 update enable these advanced functions for these trackpad on all the machines that have adequate hardware.

[translation by crispin]

- The Xeon Nehalem will arrive at the beginning of 2009 - Lionel - 09:17:54

According to Digitimes , it will be necessary to wait the first quarter 2009 to see the arrival of the first Xeon of the series 5xxx with the Nehalem architecture. There will be 10 different models, with frequencies between 2 GHz and 3,2 GHz. Even though the frequencies do not increase, there will be a gain in performances, thanks to the fact that these are true 4 core CPUs (and not 2x2), with hyperthreading, the integrated memory controller, the 3 channels of RAM per CPU…
This information tends to confirm the rumour that has Apple updating its Mac Pros during Macworld, San Francisco which will be held 5-9 January.

[translation by crispin]

- The new MacBook Air faster than its predecessor - Lionel - 08:27:34

Even though the new MacBook Air did not gain in CPU frequency, tests carried out by Macworld show that these machines are much faster than those that they replace. This increase in performances is due to the new NVidia chipset and the processor whose cache increases from 4 to 6 MB.
Of course, the largest difference in performances can be seen with the 3D, the new machine managing to display 25 FPS under Quake 4 whereas the preceding one sometimes did not manage to run at 4 FPS!
We note the obvious: the Geforce 9400M runs at a lower frequency than that of the MacBook; in the same tests the MacBook runs at nearly 40 FPS. This difference is too large to only depend on the higher frequency of the CPU of MacBook (in this case it was the 2,4 GHz model). This is no surprise, since the MacBook Air has a smaller battery than MacBook and must keep an acceptable battery lifetime.

[translation by crispin]

- The 24 inch LED monitor kicks out the old 23 inch - Lionel - 07:34:00

As deliveries of the 24" LED monitor should start soon, Apple has discreetly withdrawn from its catalogue its aging 23" screen. The 20" and 30" that do not yet have a substitute still remain in the catalogue, probably until Macworld Expo and/or the release of Mac Pro and remainder of the range compatible with Displayport or rather its own special version that Apple calls mini-Displayport.
We wish that they would at least propose new graphics cards for Mac Pro already on the market, if not, Apple will push these customers into the arms of the other manufacturers of monitors.

[translation by crispin]

- The price of LCD screens using LED will drop in2009 - Lionel - 06:58:53

Source : Digitimes

With the help of the crisis, the price of the LED retro-lighting systems should drop in 2009. One speaks of a fall of 40 to 50% in their price, which would make them barely 20% more expensive than those using cold cathode lighting which consume more energy and use polluting products.
Under these condition, the majority of the screens for portables and also for monitors should change to the LED in 2009, except certainly the entry level products. Thus Apple will lose its advantage over other manufacturers by being the first to propose its monitors and all its portables are equipped with LEDs.

[translation by crispin]