New MacBook Pro's launched

This afternoon Apple have released the long-awaited update to the MacBook Pro family. These will be available from tomorrow on the store.

Shipping with much improved processors (the entry level 13" model has a dual core i5, the high end 17" model a QUAD core i7!), and the new Thunderbolt interface (a little like Firewire 800 but a lot faster, and uses the display connector to daisy chain several devices together if required) we expect the new machines to be very popular, so don't delay!

Apple's new MacBook Pro is the first computer to include a new connectivity technology called Thunderbolt. But what is it?
The answer, is that it's actually a rebrand of Intel's long-talked of Light Peak technology – Light Peak, it appears, was a codename. Thunderbolt is a new cable interface enabling you to connect up compatible devices – and, crucially, existing devices too. Thunderbolt also supports electrical cables as well as optical and it's this version of Thunderbolt that's in the MacBook Pro. And, if adopted across the industry, should lead to lighter and thinner laptops from all manufacturers. As Apple says, "Thunderbolt delivers PCI Express directly to external high performance peripherals such as RAID arrays, and can support FireWire and USB consumer devices and Gigabit Ethernet networks via adaptors."

THUNDERBOLT CABLES: Apple's cabling for Thunderbolt
The tech also supports DisplayPort for HD displays and can, through more adaptors, connect up HDMI, DVI and VGA displays.
So it's a connector that can replace literally all other connectors on your PC. Wow. If you're a peripherals manufacturer, you should be making Thunderbolt adaptors for everything, right now.
So how fast is it? There's massive bandwidth available with Thunderbolt – up to 10 Gbps, which could grow by up to 10 times that by 2020.

Thunderbolt means you can now transfer an entire Blu-ray disc in 30 seconds or a year's worth of back-to-back MP3s in 10 minutes. And it's dual-channel, which means information can flow both ways, as you can see here.

Thunderbolt can also power bus-powered devices over the connections while Intel promises that files can have highly accurate time synchronisation too. Intel demonstrated the technology inside a laptop nearly a year ago when it sent two HD video streams across a single Light Peak connection. You can also daisy chain devices, seemingly without performance loss.
Of course, Light Peak is intended as a replacement for current connectivity standards including USB and eSATA – in fact, it could be a replacement for all storage and display standards.


HOW IT WORKS: A block diagram of Thunderbolt
However, because this looks to be such a groundbreaking technology, it surely will seep into competing laptops and netbooks before long – depending on the duration of Apple's inevitable exclusivity deal of course.
Despite the huge potential for connecting to legacy display and storage standards, Thunderbolt will also need mass adoption inside PCs for external display and storage devices to use it natively.
One thing's for sure, if Intel and Apple can force the connection to permeate through the industry, it could be have interesting consequences for USB 3 and eSATA, which are still struggling to get a foothold in the market.

Just Mobile AluPen & Penultimate app review

We stumbled across these products a little while ago when enquiries started to flood in through our web stores, after much pre-release coverage in the press. Having tried other stylus products in the past, I have to be honest and say i wasn't expecting this one to be a great deal better. However, on opening the box the AluPen felt completely different from it's competitors. Like all the Just Mobile products it's primarily brushed aluminium and therefore fits the Apple look just perfectly. The box I tested came with a nice leather-effect case, although I have heard from several people who got no case with theirs (maybe the early production models didn't have these included?). If I had to describe the size of the pen I'd say it's a bit chunky, something like the big pencils people of my age (and older) might have used at school in their early years (it even has the same hexagonal profile). That said, it feels beautiful in your hands, especially once the aluminium has drawn some heat from your body. Running down the centre of the AluPen is a black rubbery nib, which adds to the whole chunky lead pencil look.

Admittedly, one of the flaws of the technology used in the iPad means that a rather chunky nib is required, but because theAluPen is itself on the rotund side, its nib doesn't seem so bad. Let's say that it's in proportion. The key thing is that it feels and looks pretty much like a really nice writing implement, nicely weighted and elegant looking.

Now the whole point of the pen is to get rid of those greasy finger marks all over your iPad and iPhone, which it does beautifully in general use. But where it really excels, for me at least, is when being used with an app I found called Penultimate. I've tried several apps in the past that try to emulate the paper pad, but this is the one that seems to do the best at that job, and possibly at the cheapest price (currently 59p). Put simply Penultimate is just a paper pad emulator, but it offers a few extras, such as the ability to email a page (or pages) from your notepad directly to a contact as an image, perfect for the salesman in a meeting to send back to the office to get a quote started for example. Most important though, Penultimate actually reflects your writing pretty well on the iPad screen, something it's competitors dont seem to do quite so well. It's become my most used business app recently, and I now believe I can safely say that the future of our trees is starting to look just a little safer.

The AluPen is available in silver, black, blue, red, gold and green at allmacshop

Penultimate is available through iTunes

iOS 4.1 Available - HDR Photography new killer feature ?

Apple finally released iOS 4.1 yesterday evening, and after waiting 2 hours for the 585Mb download to complete, I quickly put it through its paces last night.

Today I wanted to tell you about the HDR photography function that was added into this release because I think this may be the single greatest feature Apple have added to the iPhone (other than multi-tasking). For years now, people have suffered the frustration (often unknowingly to be fair) of over-exposed skies or under-exposed shadow areas. The photos below shows you a couple of examples taken without HDR of a typical scene.

No HDRSky over exposedTrees under exposedAll of these photographs were taken with an iPhone 4 running iOS 4 and HDR turned off. You can see that they are pretty typical of the results you'll see when taking snapshots.

To explain briefly, HDR is High Dynamic Range. Camera sensors and film are unable to replicate the wide range of brightnesses the human eye can see, so lots of techniques can be used to try and replicate it. For a long time, this has been the domain of the photographer and/or Photoshop operator. Now, however, camera manufacturers are beginning to build cameras that do the work for you. They do this by (in effect) taking a couple of photographs at once and blending these so the full range of brightness in the scene is shown in one photograph. How it does this is not important, but let's see the results of turning HDR on in the two scenes above. 

Perfectly exposed with HDR

Screen and keyboard using HDRThe beauty of this feature will be more evident in your holidays snaps from the beach. No longer will you have to suffer the indignation of blown-out skies that do not show how beautiful the weather was last year in Puerta Ventura or Florida, and most importantly without any effort from the user. For my money this is one of the biggest things to happen in pocket camera photography for a long time, and makes the iOS 4.1 upgrade well worth the effort to put onto your iPhone 4.

Just Mobile Gum Pro reviewed

Gum Pro in a fieldSeveral weeks ago we sent one of our regular customers off to Glastonbury armed with one of these new battery chargers for a proper 'field' test.....here's his report:

Where would you go to fully test a charger’s capabilities? Where, in this plugged-in world would you be able to take it and give it a full run-out, let it show its talents?

 How about a field in the middle of Somerset for five long days?

 I packed the Just Mobile PP-08 Gum Pro 4400 mAh Power along with my wellies, sun cream and wet wipes and took it to the Glastonbury Festival 2010. Among the hippies, happy-clappers and hardcore ravers, it would get a proper test, a true examination of its power.

 I know what you’re thinking. Why do you need a charger at a free-thinking, anti-capitalist love-in? Well, things have moved on since the hemp-filled days of the 70s. All four of us Glastonbury-going pals have got iPhones. We need to keep in touch with each other. There’s 250,000 people in that grassy valley and, if you aren’t careful, you can soon lose your mates.

 Three of us had an iPhone 3GS. One, hanging out for an upgrade to an iPhone 4, is still carrying round his iPhone 3G. We all took a Just Mobile PP-08 Gum Pro 4400 mAh Power and prepared to be powered through the festival with the help of the little black box.

 That’s the first thing to notice. It’s a small, unassuming black box. It has three lights on it and very little else. To charge it, I plugged it in to my laptop for a good few hours. It connects via the USB port to a mini-USB.

 Once charged, it holds a lot of power and it would be essential for me and my pals to make sure we knew where the best burgers were, who had found the hottest new band and which of us had taken the best picture.

 Wednesday. A fully charged phone was used sparingly. By the end of the day, the battery was down to about 40% power.

 Thursday: By the time the evening came, and refreshments had been taken, too many phone calls, Twittering and larking about had drained the phone. A full charge was needed. Plugging in the box, the effects are instant. Within about an hour, the phone is back on its feet with full charge.

 Friday:  Slightly over-confident, there was a large amount of phone use. So, in the evening, another full charge was done. The lights on the box tell you how much juice is left. At this rate, we’d have tons to spare.

 Saturday: A quieter day, in terms of phone use, but again a quick charge at the end of the night left the iPhone fully charged as if it had been plugged in overnight.

 Sunday: Still going. And there’s still enough juice in the box to give another full charge. All of us Glastonbury tent-dwellers are feeling less energetic than the little black box.

 And Monday morning: A little bit of power is left in the box, so it’s poured into the iPhone and the job is done.

Overall, the charger is a fantastic, effective and really useful piece of kit. It kept us all connected throughout the five days. Amazing to think such juice is in such a small device.

Highly recommended. Excellent value and something I am very glad I bought.

Thanks to our intrepid reviewer - you know who you are :)

And to those of you planning a 'field trip', you can buy your Gum Pro here

Incipio dermaSHOT for iPhone 4 review

Having had the good fortune of queueing for two hours in an O2 store recently on the off-chance I could grab one of a small number of available iPhone 4's and being successful, I've been testing the Incipio dermasSHOT case on it since.

Being a long-term advocate of Incipio cases, and the fact that Incipio were one of the first to make their iPhone 4 cases available, picking my case of choice was relatively easy. As usual the dermaSHOT comes with a screen protector, and the Incipio ones are a good example, being slightly thicker therefore giving good protection and making fitting slightly easier than with some of its wafer-thin counterparts. The case itself is made of high density silicon which has a nice soft velvety feel. The fit is very good, and gives edge protection all around, as well as fully covering the back. The other thing I like about this case is that it gives a slight ridge around the front screen , which gives you a little bit of protection should you accidentally drop it face down (very important when you're looking at £140 to replace the glass through Apple).

In terms of size, this does add a bit of bulk to your new phone. In fact put it side by side next to an iPhone 3G/3GS (no case) and you'll see its pretty much exactly the same thickness. Fits nicely in a pocket, so I'm not concerned by the extra size bearing in mind the protection its giving my new purchase!

All in all, another quality product from Incipio - definitely recommended.

Buy your dermaSHOT case here