Wow, Apple came out with a slew of great announcements yesterday! Apple has us all covered, for play and work, from the new iPad Mini to the updated (and ultra-sleek!) iMac and 13 inch Retina Display Macbook Pro!
Many of the Apple products aren’t shipping yet, and some won’t be for a couple of months. So, to make your life easier, MelroseMAC will hold a new product for you when you buy now, so as soon as we get it, you get it. Now who’s the cool kid on the block? You are!
So let’s dive right into the nitty-gritty details on these new bad-boy products. To start, the much-anticipated iPad Mini! This little guy takes after the iPhone 5 with the same anodized edges. It weighs in at less than a pound (a mere .68 pounds, to be exact) and measures 7.9 inches. In fact, the screen is .9 inches longer than the Google Nexus 7, which purportedly gives the iPad Mini 35% more display area.
It has a 1,024 x 768 display, which is the same as the iPad 2. It sports a 5-megapixel camera and an LTE modem with the cellular model. It is, however, running the last-generation A5 CPU, which is the same as the iPad 2. This might account for the whopping 10 hours of battery life!
With reduced size comes reduced price – the iPad Mini starts at $329. The WiFi versions start shipping November 2nd, and cellular versions November 16th. Did we mention you can reserve yours in advance at MelroseMAC? Plus, we will have iPad Mini cases the same day the iPad Mini ships.
Following the theme here, Apple announced the fourth gen iPad, only six months after the release of the iPad 3! So what’s new with the latest? First, it has A6X processor with quad-core graphic, as compared to the A5X chip. According to Apple, that doubles the performance on this machine.
The new iPad also gets dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, expanded LTE compatibility, which includes Sprint and KDDI, and a 720p FaceTime camera on the front.
Like the iPhone 5, the new iPad has the new image processor and the lightning port. And thankfully, the machine comes in both black and white. We at MelroseMAC are still waiting for the lime green and hot pink options, though. C’mon, Apple!
There is no price change with the new iPad, so pricing still starts at $499. And yes, we still have the biggest selection of iPad cases in the greater Los Angeles area.
Apple brings to life again their Mac Mini line of products with two new models! The first is a 2.5GHz dual-core i5 Ivy Bridge processor with 4GB of RAM and 500GB HDD. The second model is a server model with a 2.3GHz quad-core i7 Ivy Bridge, 4GB of RAM and dual 1TB HDDs! The i5 dual-core goes for $599, and the i7 dual-core goes for $999.
Both models also include Intel HD 4000 GPU, Bluetooth 4.0, Four USB 3.0 slots, an SD card reader, HDMI out, Thunderbolt port, SDXC, Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800 ports, and OS X Mountain Lion pre-installed.
All of that in such a small package.
Moving right along, Apple came out with a new iMac this morning that is unbelievably – thin! The first and most obvious point for the new iMac was the change over to the Ivy Bridge i5 and i7 core processors. The screen sizes are the same, at 21.5 inches, 1080p and 27 inches 2,560 x 1,400. No retina display with this release, which is probably good for TV because who would watch TV after working all day on a killer 27” inch retina display?
The most interesting addition to the new iMac (aside from its svelte appearance) is the new Fusion Drive. This is a new hybrid drive that fuses together a separate SSD and HDD with custom software in Mountain Lion. So, fused into a single volume is 128GB flash storage, 1TB or 3TB HDD and faster read and writes. Sweet!
Last, but certainly not least, is the new 13-inch Macbook Pro with Retina Display. Apple is so good at packing a lot into a little, and they did not fail us here: it’s really just a smaller version of Apple's 15-inch Retina Display Macbook Pro -- the 13-inch offers the same sharp screen, dual Thunderbolt I/O connectors, and an SD card slot and HDMI out port.
Amazingly, the new 13-inch Retina Display Macbook Pro is 20 percent smaller than it’s 15-inch big brother, and weighs only 3.57 pounds!
Starting price for this little guy is $1699.
We might have mentioned it once or twice here, but you really can call us, email us or come by any of our three store locations to reserve any new product that is not shipping yet. As soon as it hits our store, it’s in your hands. And we get these things quick once they are released to the wild!
So, here’s how you reserve a product from MelroseMAC:
Call us at 323-937-4600
Email us at info@melrosemac.com
Swing by and grab an employee (they don’t mind).
We will speak, write or see you soon!
A special note for our FCP7 post-production customers: the new Apple Macbook Pro and Mac Pro products are shipping with Mountain Lion OS X 10.8. If you are still using Final Cut Pro 7, you won’t be able to run it on the new machines. Sean Nasseri, Vice President at MelroseMAC, discusses FCP7 and Mountain Lion in more detail.
