LaCie Review: Hands-On With the 4TB Rugged RAID Thunderbolt Hard Drive [Mac Blog]
LaCie’s new 4TB Rugged RAID Thunderbolt hard drive, first announced during CES, is the company’s latest product in its iconic Rugged collection. Like all of the Rugged products from LaCie, the Rugged RAID is encased in a bright orange rubber for maximum protection.
LaCie is calling its $419.99 Rugged RAID the one of the fastest HDs available on the market, with upload speeds that reach 240MB/s. It includes two 2TB hard drives with RAID 0/1 options to optimize for speed or data security, plus an integrated Thunderbolt cable.
The Rugged RAID Thunderbolt hard drive is available for purchase from LaCie.com beginning today, and ahead of the release, we went hands-on with it to give MacRumors readers a look at its design, speed, and features.
What’s in the Box?
The LaCie Rugged RAID ships with the 4TB hard drive itself, which includes a protective orange rubber cover, a spare port cover, a quick start guide, a USB cable, and a power adapter for use when the hard drive is plugged in via USB 3.0. There are also several plug adapters to accommodate travelers.
With Thunderbolt, the Rugged RAID is bus-powered and does not require the power adapter to function.
Design and Features
For a 4TB hard drive that’s also shock, dust, and water resistant, the LaCie Rugged RAID is impressively portable. It’s not that much bigger than LaCie’s existing Rugged hard drives, measuring in at 1.3 x 3.6 x 5.8 inches and weighing 1.2 pounds. At that size, it fits into a purse, bag, backpack, or suitcase for travel.
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SurveyMonkey tries to offer insight into smartphone manufacturer brand loyalty
A new survey conducted by SurveyMonkey attempts to measure brand loyalty for a variety of technology industry companies. Some of those companies include smartphone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung, with Microsoft even making an appearance. According to SurveyMonkey’s findings, Samsung managed to best Apple in terms of customer loyalty.
The industry benchmark for customer loyalty is a 19 and both Samsung and Apple managed to score higher than that, indicating consumers are ready to stick with their choices. Samsung scored a 35 while Apple scored a 28, which suggests owners of Samsung devices may be hard-pressed to make a switch to a different brand device. Meanwhile, Microsoft managed to score a -8 (yes, that is a negative number), so apparently consumers cannot wait to get rid of their Microsoft devices.
Although Samsung did better than Apple in terms of overall customer loyalty, the positions were reversed when it came to customer service satisfaction. On that scale, where the industry benchmark is 75, both Apple and Samsung fell far short with scores of 41 and 25. This seems to suggest there are a lot of unhappy people out there with Apple and Samsung devices who needed some type of support and could not get it or could not get it easily. Microsoft fared poorly in this measure as well, scoring only a 19.
Overall these companies did better than telecom and cable providers who saw all of their customer loyalty scores in the negative zone. However, AT&T, Verizon, DirecTV and Time Warner all managed to put up some better numbers when it came to customer service.
It should be no surprise that as smartphones and Internet/entertainment access increasingly become commodities that consumers feel less loyal to any particular brand. This also suggests that companies that can figure out how to offer exceptional customer service may be able to excel in such a market.
source: CNET
Come comment on this article: SurveyMonkey tries to offer insight into smartphone manufacturer brand loyalty
Retina MacBook Compared to MacBook Air in New Ukrainian Video
Ukrainian website Rozetka has compared the new 12-inch Retina MacBook with the 11-inch mid-2013 MacBook Air in a new video, providing a closer look at the physical design of the new MacBook and offering a side-by-side view of the different features between the notebooks. The video also highlights how the new MacBook, which measures 0.51″ at its thickest point, is nearly as thin as the original iPad (0.50″).
The video, spoken in Ukrainian language, provides an in-depth look at the new MacBook’s exterior design, display, keyboard, trackpad, unlit Apple logo and more, interspersed with stock video footage and screenshots of the notebook from Apple. The fifteen-minute clip complements Vietnamese website Tinhte‘s unboxing photos and video of the new MacBook that surfaced last week.
Apple’s 12-inch Retina MacBook will be available to purchase in silver, space gray and gold on April 10, the same day that Apple Watch pre-orders begin in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and United Kingdom. The notebook starts at $1,299 for the base 256GB configuration, while a 512GB model with a slightly faster processor is available for $1,599.
Samsung Responds to SquareTrade’s Galaxy S6 Edge Bend Test
Last Friday, third-party warranty firm SquareTrade released its findings of high-pressure testing on the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and HTC One M9, showcasing some pretty dramatic results once the phones hit certain pressure thresholds. Today, Samsung has responded with testing and results of its own, asking SquareTrade to conduct a new test under the guidance of its official findings.
Samsung points out that the 110 lbs of force exerted on the Galaxy S6 Edge to result in the cracked-glass warning is far from a normally occurring real-world circumstance, with the average force generated “when a person presses the back pocket” being around 66 lbs of force.
The company tested the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge and found the two phones weren’t bendable even up to 79 lbs of force, “which is equivalent to putting pressure to snap a bundle of five pencils at once.”
Samsung continued to point out that SquareTrade’s video failed to showcase the higher strength of the Galaxy S6 Edge’s backside, which in normal circumstances would face equal amount of pressure as the front. With these facts in mind, the company decided to make a force-test video of its own to showcase its results.
Secondly, even though both front and back sides are exposed under the same level of pressure in normal circumstances, this test does not show the strength of the back side. Some smartphones have different durability in each the front and back sides respectively. SquareTrade has only tested the front side, which may mislead consumers about the entire durability of smartphones.
All our devices are put rigorous high-quality validation tests before they are delivered to consumers. These tests include various conditions, such as dropping, bending, and breakage. And we are confident that all our smartphones are not bendable under daily usage.
Stating these reasons, Samsung says it will deliver its statement to SquareTrade and ask the firm to perform the stress test once again, mainly targeting both the front and back sides of the phone, and publish its new findings to the public. Apple faced a similar damage control situation last year following the first wave of “Bendgate“, going so far as to allow reporters into its testing labs to showcase various iPhone 6 Plus durability tests to the media outlets in attendance.
LG Display Claims Apple Will Release the ‘iMac 8K’ Later This Year
While it could be a factual error, Reddit points us towards an interesting comment on the LG Display blog last week that claims “Apple has also announced that they will release the ‘iMac 8K’ with a super-high resolution display later this year.”
“It has become clear that Japan is planning to launch an 8K SHV test broadcast and then promptly restructure the UHD service. Apple has also announced that they will release the ‘iMac 8K’ with a super-high resolution display later this year. Korea is also preparing to offer an 8K service demonstration at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. LG Display displayed a new beacon of the 8K era by revealing their 98-inch 8K Color Prime Ultra HDTV at CES 2015.”
VESA’s new DisplayPort 1.4a standard paves the way for future displays at 7,680 x 4,320 pixels, but Apple has not made any announcements about releasing a Mac with an 8K display. Apple’s highest-resolution Mac is the iMac with Retina 5K Display, which has a resolution of 5,120 x 2,880 pixels.
While this report should be treated lightly until further information surfaces, it still proves interesting that LG Display would make a public-facing comment like this on its website. The most likely scenario is that LG will eventually remove or modify the comment now that it has been put in the spotlight.
Apple Maps Now Includes Hotel Reviews From TripAdvisor and Booking.com
Since the release of Apple’s in-house Maps app as part of iOS 6 back in 2012, Yelp has been the company’s sole partner for integrating customer reviews of businesses and other points of interest. In recent days, however, Apple’s Maps app has begun including reviews from TripAdvisor and Booking.com on select hotel listings.
It is currently unclear what the criteria are for determining whether a given hotel listing includes reviews from Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Booking.com, but based on a spot check of several cities, the vast majority of hotel listings in the United States continue to display Yelp reviews. Other types of business listings also continue to use Yelp reviews on Apple Maps.
Internationally, Booking.com in particular seems to be more strongly represented, with brief surveys of London, Paris, and Sydney all showing reviews from that site on a majority of hotel listings viewed.
Apple has yet to update its Maps acknowledgements page to note it is now sourcing TripAdvisor and Booking.com, citing only Yelp as a data partner for reviews.
Apple has been working hard to improve Maps since its rough launch in 2012 that saw Tim Cook issue an open letter apologizing to consumers for not meeting their expectations with the new Maps app. The company has since improved its directions and three-dimensional imagery, although other changes such as transit integration planned for iOS 8 last year were pushed back as Apple’s mapping efforts have reportedly been hampered by internal politics.
One major improvement that appears to be in the works is street-level imagery similar to Google’s Street View and Microsoft’s Streetside for Bing Maps. Minivans outfitted with sensor arrays and apparently leased by Apple have been spotted in several areas around the United States, with the behavior of the vehicles on residential streets and in parking lots suggesting they are collecting street-level imagery.
(Thanks, Ram!)
Samsung patent battle may help Apple avoid $533 million judgment
In what may be one of the most unusual legal twists witnessed in recent memory, a move by Samsung to have some patents invalidated may end up helping Apple avoid a $533 million judgment. This curious result is because both Apple and Samsung have been sued by the same company, Smartflash LLC, over the same set of patents. A win by either of the tech giants in their respective lawsuits will end up helping the other, even though Apple and Samsung have been huge rivals in recent years carrying on their own patent legal battles against each other.
Samsung recently convinced U.S. regulators to conduct a review of two of the Smartflash patents to determine whether they should have been issued. Samsung has already achieved a major step in their efforts to have the patents invalidated as a USPTO review board has issued preliminary findings indicating the patents cover abstract ideas and are not eligible for legal protection.
Sources indicate Smartflash’s odds of prevailing are poor at this time as history shows 100% of patents reviewed that were found to be based on abstract ideas ultimately get tossed. Smartflash’s attorney is not yielding though, claiming the issue has already be fought already during the trial and the district judge ruled in their favor. Since that ruling though, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly scaled back legal protections available for software inventions.
The bad news for Apple, which has a court ruling pending against it in the amount of $533 million based at least in part on the same patent, is that a ruling by a review panel in Samsung’s case probably will not occur until about a year from now. Apple is trying to convince the court to delay payment of the judgment until the patent office completes all reviews of the patents at issue in the case. That includes not only the patents Samsung has successfully challenged, but also the other patents involved in the case which have been challenged by Apple themselves.
source: Bloomberg
Come comment on this article: Samsung patent battle may help Apple avoid $533 million judgment
Apple Watch In-Store Reservations Available Beginning April 10
Apple on Friday updated its online store with instructions on how to purchase the Apple Watch, reiterating that the wrist-worn device can be ordered online or reserved for in-store pickup. The new section appears to confirm that Apple Watch in-store reservations will be available beginning April 10, allowing customers to reserve a specific Apple Watch for pickup at an Apple Store beginning April 24.
The wording and timing of the new section suggests that Apple Watch in-store reservations will be available April 10, a move that would generate more foot traffic in Apple Stores on Apple Watch launch day. Nevertheless, there remains a slim possibility that reservations will begin on April 24. Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment, although we will update this post if we receive clarification.
Last week, Apple Store training documents obtained by MacRumors indicated that Apple will not allow walk-in purchases for the Apple Watch upon launch, meaning that reserving the wrist-worn device for pickup at a specified date and time will be required initially. Walk-in customers can join the queue for a try-on appointment, after which they can order the Apple Watch online or make a reservation for in-store pickup.
Apple Watch pre-orders kick off at 12:01 AM Pacific on April 10 in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and United Kingdom. Apple has added “Guided Tour” videos to its website that outline various functions of the Apple Watch, while we’ve prepared detailed guides on how to pre-order the Apple Watch and what to expect at a try-on appointment.
Apple Adds New ‘Guided Tours’ Page to Apple Watch Site
Apple today updated its dedicated Apple Watch website with a brand new “Guided Tours” section that includes several Apple Watch walkthrough videos. The introductory video on the site, entitled “Welcome to Apple Watch,” walks users through all of the things the Apple Watch can do.
The site also includes dedicated videos on various Apple Watch features, like Messages, Faces, and Digital Touch. Other video walkthroughs on features like Phone Calls, Siri, Maps, Music, Apple Pay, and more, are labeled as “Coming soon” and should be uploaded over the course of the next few hours.
These videos are also referenced within other areas of the Apple Watch site, with a Fitness video, for example, available in the fitness section, and the Messages video available in the “New Ways to Connect” section.
Today’s walkthrough videos from Apple come a week ahead of Apple Watch pre-orders, which are set to begin on Friday, April 10 at 12:01 AM PT.
Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Bends as Easily as iPhone 6 Plus
Third-party warranty firm SquareTrade recently released a video showcasing the durability of the new Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and HTC One M9, discovering the Galaxy to bend at 110 lbs of pressure and the One M9 to bend at 120 lbs of pressure.
Although the Galaxy S6 Edge’s pressure limits are comparable to the iPhone 6 Plus’ testing, the Galaxy’s screen ended up cracking under the pressure instead of slightly bending similar to Apple’s plus-size iPhone model. The HTC One M9 lasted further than its two competitors, reaching 120 lbs of pressure, but the phone was rendered useless thanks to a faulty power button following the pressure test.
Testing to the point of “catastrophic failure”, the iPhone 6 Plus survived 179 lbs of pressure, beating out the Galaxy S6 Edge’s 149 lbs stress test. As SquareTrade points out, the Galaxy’s stress tests proves the phone could be worse for users due to the smartphone’s screen cracking under intense pressure.
Following the “Bendgate” controversy last year, both Samsung and HTC parodied Apple’s woes on social media. Though SquareTrade’s pressure tests are meant to measure intense circumstances, it’s still interesting to see where each smartphone lies on the durability scale when compared to one another.
AIVAnet 