Apple

There are 7 posts tagged Apple (this is page 1 of 1).

MacBook Pro Suffers from Defective NVidia Chip

If you've been following me on Twitter, you may have heard that my MacBook Pro is dead in the water. It was working fine this morning but when got to the office and opened the lid, the screen remained black. I tired a hard reboot but no matter what I did it wouldn't come back on.

After a short meeting at the office, I headed back home to see if I could restore from a backup. (My latest backup is a few weeks old, so I was really hoping the drive itself was fine.) When I got home I took the laptop apart, removed the drive, and installed it in an external USB enclosure to check if it was OK. Much to my relief, when I plugged it into a spare Mac Mini the drive showed up fine. I quickly rsync'ed the original drive with my backup drive to make sure I had an up-to-date copy. With a 320GB drive and only 6GB free, the backup took some time.

While waiting for the backup to finish, I did some research to see if anyone else had this blank screen problem. I quickly discovered that I was most definitely not alone. Thousands of people have experienced this same issue. (I vaguely remembered hearing news about this issue, but didn't pay attention.) The Apple Support article on this problem describes the symptoms:

In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within two years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

So I brought the laptop to the local Apple store and, after running some tests, the technician confirmed the problem was indeed the NVidia chipset. My MBP is 6 months past the 1 year warranty, which means only 6 months remain before Apple would make me pay $1,200+ for this repair. I'm just happy it happened sooner rather than later and that I don't have to pay a dime, even if it does mean trying to survive without it for a few days.

Apple finally advancing laptop battery tech?

AppleInsider has an article taking a look at the battery technology used by the new 17" MacBook Pro announced at Macworld today. Apple claims the new battery technology gives the MBP up to 8 hours of battery life -- pretty impressive considering it's the largest laptop Apple sells. Check out the battery video on Apple's website to see exactly how the new battery technology differs (including clips of the manufacturing process). I'm really happy to see that someone is making a real effort to push laptop battery standards. It's one of the areas in technology that really needs improvement.

iPhone: The future of mobile computing?

WWDC 2008 Keynote Address

I just finished watching the WWDC 2008 Keynote Address and I am fully convinced that the iPhone, along with the developer tools Apple is providing, will lead the way for a new generation of mobile devices over the next few decades. The applications they demonstrated, particularly in the medical and social networking fields, just blew me away.

If you have some time, watch it and tell me what you think.

Apple's home page not viewable in 1024×768

Apple's Site Requires 1280x1024

I do all my browsing with my web browser resized to 1024x768, mainly because I don't need the window to take up the whole screen, but also because I like to see how compatible sites are with lower resolutions. As you can see from the screenshot above, Apple's home page is not fully viewable in 1024x768.

According to Google Analytics, 30% of all the visitors to my blog are browsing with a screen resolution of 1024x768. I'm not alone: According to W3Schools 48% of their visitors are browsing their site with 1024x768.

Come on Apple, don't lose sight of usability!

MacBook Pro gets a Smaller Power Supply

For the past few weeks, my local Microcenter has been out of power supply's for the MacBook Pro. They did, however, have plenty of power supply's for the 13" MacBook (which just so happened to be packaged in the exact same box as the MacBook Pro power supply's).

I finally gave up waiting for them and called a local MacEdge store. They said they had some in-stock, so I picked one up last night. Apparently the MacBook Pro power supply's got an update because the new power supply is a lot smaller (which partly explains why Microcenter was out of them for so long). In fact, the new power supply reminds me a lot of the old PowerBook G4 power supply!

If you're in the market for a new power supply for your MacBook Pro and you want to make sure you get the new size, you might want to take a peek at the label on my box and try to match the serial numbers or model number. I haven't figured out exactly how to differentiate between the two, but if you know what to look for please let me know!

Now before you ask why I'm buying another power supply, let me explain. I have been asked dozens of times by fellow customers AND store clerks, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if you're wondering the same thing. It's mainly because I abused my first one a little too much and it started to show major signs of wear (you can see where the wire is becoming exposed if you enlarge the picture). It's also because I realized how convenient it must be for David (my co-worker at Aerva) to leave his power supply at work when he goes home.

Now I not only have a new power supply to lug around with me, but its a smaller power supply. 🙂