Macworld November 2013

One Monday night not long ago, after I had fallen asleep, my Twitter timeline exploded briefly. Folks on the West Coast were unhappy that their iPhones had blasted to life with noisy notifications—alerts that had apparently ignored their Do Not Disturb settings. The reason: Authorities had issued an Amber Alert after discovering a horrific crime scene and evidence of a potential kidnapping. iOS and other smartphone operating systems have supported Amber Alerts for a while, but they also require carrier support; some carriers introduced support for the alerts only recently. The immediate reaction to an unexpected alert on your iPhone at 11 p.m. is understandably surprise, annoyance, and maybe even anger. But armed with a little knowledge about why the alerts exist, what they mean, and how you can control…

iPhone-a-Palooza THE JOBS MOVIE: NOT SO SPECIAL For all Jobs did for the entertainment industry, it’s a travesty that Zuckerberg got a biopic directed by David Fincher and that this film is directed by that guy who directed that other movie no one’s ever heard of. Even worse, it ends in 2001! nonlinearmind3o8n, via Macworld.com THE LOW-COST iPHONE Many companies have approached the features vs. price problem by introducing a new, lower-price brand. If the marketing is well executed, customers for the lower-price line will feel good knowing they’re “really” getting an Apple phone, while high-end customers won’t feel their brand’s status has been cheapened. RobLewis, via Macworld.com Apple makes most of the profit in the industry, despite selling less than half the phones (and probably selling only in the…

For a long time, Mac Pro users have asked themselves, “When will Apple update its professional desktop line?” The wait is nearly over. Apple says that a brand-new Mac Pro will be available before the end of 2013. But the new Mac Pro is not the hulking beast we’re familiar with; rather, it’s a model of compactness (see page 15). The main concern about it is the lack of internal expansion and customization options. Instead of four internal hard-drive bays, the new Mac Pro uses built-in flash storage. Users must connect any additional drives or PCI cards externally. That means some tough decisions: Buy the new Mac Pro and purchase external drives and an expansion chassis? Or stick it out a few more years with the current Mac Pro and…

Apple has a long history of making tower computers that weren’t just tall, heavy-duty systems aimed only at power users. The design and style of its towers have always made them stand out from a skyline of beige PC towers. Here’s how those designs have evolved. Macintosh Quadra 700 1991 You might not consider the Quadra 700 to be a tower, since it was essentially a Mac IIcx case standing on its side. The Quadra 700 was released in October 1991, and had a 25MHz Motorola 68040 processor. It had two NuBus slots and a PDS (processordirect slot), and employed SCSI to connect to external hard drives. Macintosh Quadra 950 1992 The follow-up to the Quadra 900, the 950 is the machine that some people consider to be the first…

Although every biopic takes its share of liberties with the facts, Jobs doesn’t wander too far from the historical record in its big-screen retelling of the Apple cofounder’s life. Still, some people and institutions may have a beef with the movie. Jef Raskin: Jef Raskin appears in two scenes in Jobs, the first as the bumbling head of the faltering Macintosh team and the second as he cleans out his desk, having been given the bum’s rush. That hardly seems a fair depiction of a man sometimes dubbed the Father of the Macintosh. Raskin’s influence on user interfaces, particularly when it came to the Mac’s legendary ease of use, is undisputed. He also kept the Mac project going in the early days. Arthur Rock: Every movie needs a villain, and…

In recent months, Apple CEO Tim Cook has had to deal with an increasingly indifferent press and a hostile stock market. Enter this story’s unlikely white knight: takeover tycoon and activist investor Carl Icahn, who, with just one tweet in August, single-handedly managed to raise the company’s stock by nearly 5 percent in less than 24 hours. The 77-year-old billionaire isn’t exactly known for his cozy relationships with CEOs. He has been involved in some of the most contentious takeovers of the past four decades, and has picked fights with a who’s who of corporate giants—Blockbuster, Time Warner, U.S. Steel, and Yahoo. His company has just dropped a lawsuit to prevent entrepreneur Michael Dell from taking private the computer manufacturer that bears his name. Yet, here Icahn is, announcing that…