You'll be hard-pressed to find an analyst in the technology industry that doesn't believe the Apple Watch is going to put wearables on the map. For years now, predictions and projections have shown the wearable market exploding following the launch of a device from Apple, and now we're just months away from seeing if the analysts were right.
The world's most famous designer, Jony Ive. Photo: Apple
In what may be the longest magazine feature yet dedicated to Apple's industrial design guru, the New Yorker has just published a sprawling 16,000 word profile of Jony Ive — taking readers from his early meetings with Steve Jobs up to the present day.
It's jam-packed with fascinating tidbits about Ive, his secretive design studio, and Apple's past and future. While I'd thoroughly recommend reading the whole article, here are the details that really leaped out:
Some of Ive's colleagues gave him a seven-inch Playmobil likeness of himself for Christmas. It wears sunglasses and carries an off-white Valextra briefcase. A photo of its face is Ive's iPhone lock screen image.
Given the rumors of an Apple Car, it's no surprise to hear Ive is a car nut. Photo: Josh Baré/DeviantArt CC
Possibly not a new revelation, but interesting given the recent reports of an Apple Car. "There are some shocking cars on the road," Ive says in the article. "One person's car is another person's scenery." Seeing a car he dislikes on the road he says, "It is baffling, isn't it? It's just nothing, isn't it? It's just insipid." (The car in question is a Toyota Echo.)
"I asked Jeff Williams, the senior vice-president, if the Apple Watch seemed more purely Ive's than previous company products," the New Yorker's reporter writes. "After a silence of twenty-five seconds, during which Apple made fifty thousand dollars in profit, he said, 'Yes.'" The article also acknowledges that Ive B.F.F. Marc Newson worked on the project from the start, and his name will appear on the patents.
Ive thought about making it 5.7-inches, but then concluded that was too big. He eventually settled on 5.5-inches.
You can take the industrial designer out of Britain, but you can't take Britain out of the industrial designer. Photo: Banksy
He has a Banksy picture of the Queen with a chimpanzee's face in his office, while the design studio constantly plays "Euro douchepop."
Do the names Chris Martin, Stephen Fry, J.J. Abrams, Yo-Yo Ma and Bono mean anything to you? They certainly do to Jony.
No details on exactly what they are, but they relate to the lightsabers in the new movies. "I thought it would be interesting if it were less precise, and just a little bit more spitty," Ive said, noting a redesigned lightsaber could be "more analog and more primitive, and I think, in that way, somehow more ominous."
Given his friendship with J.J. Abrams, he's certainly got the right person's ear to get his ideas listened to.
Walter Isaacson isn't in Jony Ive's good books.
Ive says he hasn't read it all, but has read enough to dislike the famous Jobs biography for its apparent inaccuracies. "My regard couldn't be any lower," he says, contemptuously.
After Steve Jobs' death, Ive bought his former boss' twenty-seat Gulfstream GV.
On his first meeting with Steve: "I can't really remember that happening really ever before, meeting somebody when it's just like that. It was the most bizarre thing, where we were both perhaps a little — a little bit odd. We weren't used to clicking." At Jobs' memorial, Ive called him "my closest and my most loyal friend."
"Fuck, you've not been very effective, have you?" was Steve Jobs' conclusion when he first saw Ive's design studio at Apple, after rejoining the company. He also accused Ive of being vain, because Ive cared too much what people thought of him.
Jony Ive is pretty f*cking motivated.
He has a rather profane motivational poster in his office, created by Brian Buirge and Jason Bacher at the studio "Good Fucking Design Advice."
It reads: "Believe in your f*cking self. Stay up all f*cking night. Work outside of your f*cking habits. Know when to f*cking speak up. F*cking collaborate. Don't f*cking procrastinate. Get over your f*cking self. Keep f*cking learning. Form follows f*cking function. A computer is a Lite-Brite for bad f*cking ideas. Find f*cking inspiration everywhere. F*cking network. Educate your f*cking client. Trust your f*cking gut. Ask for f*cking help. Make it f*cking sustainable. Question f*cking everything. Have a f*cking concept. Learn to take some f*cking criticism. Make me f*cking care. Use f*cking spell check. Do your f*cking research. Sketch more f*cking ideas. The problem contains the f*cking solution. Think about all the f*cking possibilities."
Few people could argue Ive hasn't taken that advice on board.
In one sense, it's ridiculous to speculate that Ive could be more integral to Apple's overall success than Steve Jobs. After all, if Jobs had never come back, Apple would likely have been bought out or gone out of business all together. That said, a massive new profile of Ive in The New Yorker makes it clear that Ive possesses not only design smarts but a leadership style that may have been better suited than Jobs' for getting the most out of the people who work for him.
Apple is opening up a new suite of offices inside Israel this week, with CEO Tim Cook reportedly visiting Israel in part to inaugurate the new workspace. Recent reports have indicated that the offices will hold approximately 800 employees across 180,000 square feet of space.
Today, Israel-based website GSM-Israel has published purported photos of the upcoming new Apple space in Herzliya. The construction, features, and tables are all in line with Apple's offices in others parts of the world. A full gallery of the new offices can be viewed below.
Apple has a history of working in Israel from purchases of companies like Anobit and PrimeSense, to the construction of research and development offices. Cook has also previously met with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During this upcoming visit, Cook will reportedly meet with former President Shimon Peres.
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Vision is another area of health that technology may help fix in the near future, as researchers are figuring out ways of making tiny contact lenses even more useful. In fact, France24 reports that researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed contact lenses that can zoom in and out in response to simple blinks from the wearer. The technology could benefit anyone looking to correct eyesight in the future, with researchers focusing on low vision and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) patients, though the product is just at a prototype level.
My Mac is now silent. After installing a solid state drive (SSD) with no moving parts, the drone of my iMac's hard drive and fans has given way to such an absence of sound that I only hear the high-pitched squeal of my office lights.
My Mac is now fast. Even with 400GB of available space, OS X Yosemite's constant hard drive accessing had brought my quad-core, 3.4GHz Core i7 machine to its knees. Now I'm seeing five times the hard drive speeds, apps are loading instantly, and my iMac feels as responsive as the MacBooks and iPads that beat it to the SSD game.
Last week, buoyed by (finally!) reasonable SSD prices and a desire to try a DIY project, I walked through the steps to replace a prior-generation iMac's hard drive with an SSD. Similarly excited readers have pointed out that older MacBooks and certain other Macs are also easy to upgrade… but at least one Mac (surprise: the Mac mini) is not. So below, I'll show you some great SSD options that you can install yourself, ask a tech-savvy friend/repair shop to handle for you, or choose as external solutions.
It's hard to believe, but back in 2008, Apple offered a 64GB solid state drive upgrade to the original MacBook Air for a whopping $1,300 premium over the laptop's normal price. At that time, a consumer 1TB drive cost around $4,000, and Apple wasn't even attempting to sell one.
A lot has changed even over the past year. SSDs are faster, more reliable, and a lot more affordable. Today, excellent quality SSDs start at $60 (120GB), climbing to $120 (250GB), $231 (500GB) and $420 (1TB) — still not as cheap as traditional drives, but better. The Samsung 850 EVO I installed in my iMac is 5 times faster than the 1TB hard disk it replaced and has no moving parts, so it's tiny, silent and cooler-running. It also has a five-year warranty and a longer expected lifespan than most hard drives; if you're willing to pay more, the 850 PRO version has a ten-year warranty that eclipses all but the most expensive enterprise-class desktop hard disks.
Although performance will vary based on the specific Mac you're upgrading with an SSD, Macs released over the past five years will likely see bigger gains if you replace their internal hard drives rather than adding SSDs as external drives. A new SSD inside an older iMac, MacBook, Mac mini, or Mac Pro will lead to much faster OS X performance, app loading, restarting, and file accessing. But if you buy an external SSD and connect it using something faster than USB 2 or FireWire 800 — say, a spare Thunderbolt or USB 3 port — you'll see definite speed improvements for whatever files and apps you place on the SSD.
My personal advice would be to consider an internal solution, if possible following a DIY hard drive replacement guide like the ones linked below. If you're concerned about damaging your Mac during the replacement process, you can opt to have a tech-savvy friend or local Apple repair store handle the SSD replacement for you. And if you prefer an external drive — and don't mind cutting the performance benefits down somewhat — there are some good, though more expensive options below.
courtesy iFixit
Aluminum-bodied MacBooks and MacBook Pros made in 2012 or earlier can be upgraded with 2.5″ internal SSDs, including the Samsung 850 EVO I carefully selected for my iMac. As shown in these iFixit guides (MacBook Pro 13″ 2009 / 2010 / 2011 / 2012, and MacBook Pro 15″), the process requires little more than one Torx T6 screwdriver, one Philips #00 screwdriver, and a flat-head screwdriver (or spudger) to accomplish. It's even easier for the short-lived 2008 metal MacBook, which has a pop-off bottom panel for easier hard drive replacement.
Replacing the hard drive of the unibody MacBook Pro requires only a handful of steps: backing up your old drive (preferably using Time Machine), removing the bottom cover of your MacBook using Torx screwdrivers, removing the hard drive, replacing it with the SSD, then reattaching the bottom cover. For a variety of reasons, it's even easier than the iMac hard drive swap I discussed in my prior article, and all you need is the screwdriver, the SSD, and the confidence to do it yourself.
If you're going to do an internal hard drive swap, there's pretty widespread agreement that the Samsung 850 EVO ($60-$420) I previously recommended offers a superb combination of speed, reliability, and quality for the price. It has a 4.7/5-star rating on Amazon, versus the 850 Pro, which sells for more ($98-$555) and has a 4.8/5-star rating. By contrast, the most popular portable external SSDs right now are Samsung's new USB 3.0-based T1 (250GB/$174, 500GB/$300, 1TB/$569, shown above), with 4.5/5-star ratings. If you're willing to spend quite a bit more and have a free Thunderbolt port, Elgato's Thunderbolt Drive+ (256GB/$425, 512GB/$780) has Thunderbolt and USB 3.0/2.0 interfaces.
courtesy iFixit
Internal SSD replacement for the 2010 to 2014 "unibody" Mac mini requires considerably more effort and skill than doing so for the MacBooks and iMacs. You'll need to disassemble the Mac mini's chassis, fan, and antenna plate before disconnecting the logic board and hard drive — with steps that become even more challenging on the most recent 2014 models. My suggestion would be to leave an internal drive upgrade of this model up to a professional.
The same sort of 2.5″ internal drives can be used in the Mac mini as on the other Macs. While the 2010 Mac mini limits you to FireWire 800 or USB 2.0 — probably not worth the effort of adding an external SSD — the 2011 model has a Thunderbolt port, and the 2012 version has USB 3.0 ports, making external SSDs easier to add. Go with the Elgato Thunderbolt Drive+ (256GB/$425, 512GB/$780) if you can't use USB 3.0, and Samsung's T1 (250GB/$174, 500GB/$300, 1TB/$569) if USB 3.0 is an option.
Current-generation Mac Pros ship with large, fast SSDs, making replacements highly unlikely for the time being, but first-generation Mac Pros can definitely benefit from the speed increase. As iFixit's guide notes, the process of installing a new drive is as simple as flipping a rear latch, pulling the Mac's side panel and hard drive bay out, then using a Philips head screw driver to attach a hard drive sled to your new drive.
But with an SSD, there's another step: you'll need a 2.5″ to 3.5″ hard drive adapter bracket such as NewerTech's AdaptaDrive ($15) to mount the tiny SSD inside a large hard drive bay. The company also sells the OWC Mount Pro (now only $18), which lets you mount the SSD on a custom-fit replacement for the Mac Pro's hard drive bay. This is an easier solution, and the one I'd pick if installing an SSD in the Mac Pro.
The Mac Pro's physical size and multi-drive-ready internal architecture make it an ideal candidate for an internal SSD. If you're considering an external drive, you might want to think again. The built-in, outdated USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 ports aren't going to cut it, and users have reported very mixed experiences adding USB 3.0 cards — somewhat better results with more expensive ones such as Caldigit's FASTA-6GU3 Pro — to this computer. My advice would be to stick with an internal solution.
I've discussed the iMac in much greater detail in my prior article, but the internal and external SSD recommendations are basically the same as for the MacBook Pro: the Samsung 850 EVO ($60-$420), Samsung 850 Pro ($98-$555), Elgato's Thunderbolt Drive+ (256GB/$425, 512GB/$780), or Samsung T1 (250GB/$174, 500GB/$300, 1TB/$569).
Whichever option you choose for your Mac will yield significant dividends – with an internal drive, 3X to 5X speed improvements are typical with SSDs of the caliber recommended above. There's no better (or more cost-effective) way to speed up an old Mac today.
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What would a Jony Ive spacesuit look like? Photo: Sotheby's
When you've designed some of the most successful consumer electronics in modern history, where else can you look but up?
One of the many interesting tidbits in The New Yorker's 17,000-word profile of Jony Ive surrounds his fascination with the Apollo space program and, yes, designing spacesuits. It doesn't sound like the spacesuit itself was what inspired Apple's top designer as much as the process that went into it.
Ive mentions he's been watching the old Discovery channel series Moon Machine about the challenges facing the Apollo program. NASA designers had no idea what goals they even needed to meet for the suit, but built up to the final design with invention after invention until they got it right.
An anecdote from The New Yorker's time in Ive's hallowed design studio (emphasis added):
Back in the main room, Ive noted that he'd been watching "Moon Machines," an old Discovery Channel series about the Apollo program. "There was the realization we needed to develop a spacesuit, but it was hard to even know what the goals should be," he said. And then he linked the studio's work to NASA's: like the Apollo program, the creation of Apple products required "invention after invention after invention that you would never be conscious of, but that was necessary to do something that was new."
Here's the clip from Moon Machines Ive is talking about.
The shared ideological connection Ive could make with Apple and NASA is a bit of a stretch, but understandable. But coming to the "realization we needed to develop a spacesuit?" WTF?
OK, Apple is obviously not getting into space exploration anytime soon. Ive is talking about how it takes tons of innovative steps to make something that's truly revolutionary and unthinkable. That kind of thinking will certainly come in handy when it comes to making an Apple car.
While Jony Ive has never designed a futuristic space weapon before that didn't stop J.J. Abrams from asking his advice for how lightsabers should look in the upcoming film Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The New Yorker's huge profile of Ive contains a section where it's revealed that Ive gave Abrams some feedback for how to improve the design of lightsabers and we can see that Abrams seems to have taken some of his advice.
It's time for Jony Ive to get the credit he deserves. Photo: Portfolio/Penguin
People are calling The New Yorker profile of Jony Ive the most important thing written about Apple in quite a while, and I'd have to concur.
Not only is it full of fascinating details, it puts Ive at the center of Apple, where he belongs. As the piece's author, Ian Parker, writes: "More than ever, Ive is the company."
This is something that's been true for a couple decades, but still isn't apparent to most people — even veteran Apple watchers. Such is the company's secrecy, and the tendency of the public to equate everything Apple does with Steve Jobs, that the true story has yet to be told. Ive has not gotten the credit he deserves.
As I tried to make clear in the title of my most recent book, Apple's senior vice president of design is the genius behind the company's greatest products. But whereas my book was unofficial, Parker was given unprecedented access to Ive and his studio. The resulting profile begins to peel back the curtain. It's a long-overdue telling of Apple's history that places new emphasis on Ive's crucial contributions.
In the New Yorker profile, Ive complains about Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs and the many inaccuracies it contains. His regard for the book "couldn't be any lower," Ive says.
But the inaccuracies are not the book's biggest failing: It's how little insight Isaacson provides into the inner workings of Apple. Steve Jobs reveals little about how Apple actually operates. The development of the iPhone, for example, was a three-year effort with countless problems and restarts, but it's covered in a single chapter and told from Jobs' point of view. Jobs was central to the iPhone, of course, but more so were the designers in Ive's studio, whose story wasn't covered in Isaacson's book.
The New Yorker profile begins to detail how Ive is at the heart of what Apple does. It details how the upcoming Apple Watch is Jony's baby. And it offers a tiny clue about Apple's future plans for the wearable, which will ultimately become a health-monitoring platform that sends alerts to parents when their children start to get sick.
The profile details how Ive is involved in everything, from the company's renowned hardware and software to the design of the spaceship campus in Cupertino and even a yet-to-be-unveiled redesign of Apple's retail stores for selling the Watch.
Ive's design studio is Apple's idea factory, the primary source of most of its new products. It's the part of the company that creates new products. But more than that, it fundamentally figures out not just how the products will work, but how they will be made, sold and even how they will be serviced, repaired and recycled.
As mentioned in the New Yorker article, design used to be one step in a chain of events, but at Apple, it's central to everything the company does. Ive's predecessor at Apple, Robert Brunner, describes it like this:
Typically, Robert Brunner explained, design had been "a vertical stripe in the chain of events" in a product's delivery; at Apple, it became "a long horizontal stripe, where design is part of every conversation."
This wasn't apparent even to me before I wrote Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products. I have followed Apple closely for 20 years, and had some idea about Ive's importance, but until I dove into the mammoth research project that resulted in my book, it wasn't clear how central he and the studio had become.
The design studio is soup-to-nuts — and that's why Ive dissed Isaacson's biography of Jobs. Isaacson allowed Jobs to take most of the credit for Apple's work without digging further, leaving a central truth untold: that Ive's studio and the 19 designers who work there are the primary source of Apple's creativity. Jobs was the facilitator and a major collaborator —- whose role absolutely should not be diminished — but his contribution was not the only one.
And yet Jobs' voice is essentially the only one anybody has heard. Ive's side of the story remains to be told.
The big problem facing Ive and Apple about assigning the designer his proper place in history is getting his version of events out there. And because of Apple's incredibly restrictive secrecy policies, it's very hard to do.
The New Yorker piece is a good first attempt at an official version that validates Ive's critical role at Apple, which most people still haven't grasped.
If you bought your iMac 3-5 years ago, there's probably nothing so seriously wrong with the hardware that you need to consider replacing the machine. Sure, the new iMac with 5K Retina Display looks a little nicer, but at a steep $2,499 starting point, it's still a luxury, not a necessity.
Yet there's something you can do for $200 to $500 that will radically change your iMac's performance: install a solid state drive (SSD) in addition to or instead of its original hard drive. SSDs use high-speed memory chips rather than the spinning platter mechanisms in traditional hard drives, achieving up to 5X benefits in speed while requiring no moving parts. Five years ago, SSDs were both expensive and limited in capacity, making them unlikely components for most Macs. Today, high-quality, capacious SSDs can be had for reasonable prices, and they're surprisingly easy to install in iMacs. With limited expertise and only three tools, I swapped out my old hard drive for an SSD in roughly 30 minutes. Here's how I did it, and – if you're up for a quick do-it-yourself project – what I'd recommend for you.
iMacs sold between 2009 and mid-2012 have two drive bays: one for the hard drive, and one for the DVD/CD SuperDrive. Some people prefer to keep their old hard drives and replace the optical drive with an SSD. Other people want to keep the optical drive and swap the hard drive for an SSD. It's easier to replace the optical drive, but if you still use DVDs or CDs on occasion, swapping the hard drive is an option. (That's what I did.)
If you're going to keep your old hard drive inside your iMac, you could save money on the SSD by going with a lower capacity model: 128GB or 256GB could be enough to hold OS X and all of your apps, keeping your music, photos, and videos on the old drive. But if you're going to swap the hard drive for an SSD, you'll probably want a 512GB or 1TB drive, which will have enough breathing room for files that you won't feel constrained over the next few years. I paid a little bit more and went with a 1TB drive, a decision I don't regret at all.
A solid state drive. After a lot of research, I strongly preferred the price, performance, and durability offered by Samsung's 850 EVO, which comes in 1TB ($400, reg. $500), 500GB ($200, reg. $270), 250GB ($100, reg. $150) and 120GB ($75, reg. $100) versions. With write and read speeds in the 500MB/second range, the 850 EVO is super fast, has a five-year warranty, and promises 30% better long-term performance than its already excellent predecessor 840 EVO. There are cheaper SSDs out there, but I value speed and reliability; the 850 EVO has both in spades.
Tools. You'll need two grippable suction cups (or one large suction cup, gently applied) T-8 and T-10 Torx screwdrivers, a small Philips head screwdriver, a microfiber cleaning cloth, and some LED screen-safe cleaning spray. You'll probably have at least some of these tools already. This $8 (reg. $13) Delcast Torx set will give you the special Torx drivers you need for this and future projects; a $4 suction cup like this one from WorkShop will be enough for this product. A metal paperclip or tweezers are also handy for pulling the LED display up from the iMac's chassis.
An in-line digital thermal sensor. If you're going to remove the iMac's hard drive, this roughly $40 cable from OWC/Newer Technology will save you major headaches going forward. Apple hard drives have temperature probes inside; third-party SSDs do not. This cable adds a probe to your SSD, preventing the iMac from panicking and turning on its fans at full blast whenever you turn the computer on. There are software alternatives to this cable, but consider this a small investment that will reduce your need to screw around with manual fan controls while keeping your Mac running perfectly.
A 2.5″ to 3.5″ drive converter bracket. Again, if you're going to remove the iMac's hard drive, you'll need a $10-$15 metal plate to mount the 2.5″ SSD in the iMac's 3.5″ drive bay. Newer Technology sells this $15 one called AdaptaDrive; a less expensive $8 version from StarTech will suffice. Screws are included to mount the SSD on the plate; you'll reuse the iMac's screws to mount the plate inside your computer.
In all candor, I had no idea how easy or difficult the SSD swap process would be. But if you have the parts mentioned above, it's astonishingly simple.
Preserving Your Software
Preparing your iMac's existing hard drive to be replaced is almost as painless as if you're leaving it untouched inside. You can run a complete Time Machine backup to an external drive (preferably one that's connected with a cable rather than over Wi-Fi), or complicate the process somewhat by using a complete drive cloning app.
In my opinion, going the Time Machine route is a better idea when starting fresh with an SSD, and it costs nothing. You just turn off and unplug your iMac, swap the drives, then hold Command-R down on the keyboard when first restarting your Mac. Any recent version of OS X will boot into Internet Recovery mode, enabling you to use Disk Utility to format the SSD (choose Mac Extended + Journaled), then restore directly from your Time Machine backup. The restoring process will take hours, but you'll come back to a fresh Yosemite install with everything pretty much as it was left on your old drive.
If you want to go the more complex route, you can order this $13 (reg. $16) USB 3.0 to 2.5″ SATA III Adapter Cable, connect it to your iMac and SSD before opening up the machine, and run SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to transfer the old drive's contents to the new drive. This will let you start using your iMac right away after the drive is swapped, without waiting hours for Time Machine, and for better or worse pretty much guarantees that every one of your files (and potentially plenty of cruft) will be exactly where it was before.
For users with plans to swap an optical drive for an SSD, nothing needs to be done to prep software beforehand. Backing up your Mac is always a good idea before opening it up, but all you'll need to do after the SSD installation is run Disk Utility and format the new drive.
Hardware
While I'll leave the specific iMac opening instructions to the experts at iFixit (this guide works for pre-2012 27″ iMacs), and the details of installing the digital thermal sensor to this video at OWC/Newer Tech, here's a brief play-by-play of my SSD installation experience.
(1) Removing the iMac's glass front was much easier than I expected. If you go gentle when pulling up on a single large suction cup in the upper left or right corner, you can remove the glass face in a matter of seconds, pulling tabs upwards from the iMac's metal chin. Cleaning and reinstalling the glass was so simple that I wish I'd tried it earlier, when dust first began to accumulate between the glass and screen.
(2) Pulling up the iMac's display looks a lot more complicated than it is. Eight Torx screws need to be removed, which is barely challenging at all. You then need to follow the iFixit directions, using a paperclip (or tweezers) against the screen's metal frame to tilt it upwards, then very gently pull four small monitor connectors out from the iMac's various boards. Go slowly and carefully, though you'll soon realize that (with a little dexterity and that modest bit of experience) you'd be able to do all four again in less than two minutes.
(3) Swapping the hard drive out takes little more effort than removing two cables from its back and unscrewing four more Torx screws. An EMI sticker gets pulled off the hard drive and placed on the SSD. Figure out which orientation the SSD needs to be on relative to the 2.5″ to 3.5″ drive converter bracket, then screw the SSD to the bracket with the bracket's included screws. Attach the bracket to the old hard drive's metal rail, such that the SSD's connector pins will eventually face the iMac's small and large hard drive cables.
(4) Following OWC's video, add the in-line digital thermal sensor to the larger hard drive cable in the iMac, connect the sensor's larger connector to the SSD, then use the adhesive backing to attach the sensor to the SSD's large exposed side. Reattach the smaller hard drive cable to the SSD, then use the other Torx screws to attach the bracketed SSD in the iMac. Tuck the thermal sensor's body off to the edge of the SSD.
(5) Go in reverse, reattaching the four display cables, remounting the screen, putting the 8 Torx screws back, and reattaching the glass. Stop long enough to gently clean the screen and the glass with the microfiber cloth and screen-safe cleaning fluid.
Following publication of this article, several commenters suggested that the upgrade is too difficult for regular people to handle on their own. I respectfully disagree, but then, I find 30 minutes of using a suction cup, screwdrivers, and a paperclip a lot easier than more labor-intensive do-it-yourself projects like remodeling a bathroom or changing a car's tire. Reasonable people – as well as their particular skills and concern levels about technology – may differ.
If you're intimidated by the thought of opening your iMac, or think you might have problems gently removing parts or disconnecting the internal cables, seek out a local Mac repair shop to do the hard drive to SSD swap. Be prepared to pay between $50-$100 (plus the cost of the SSD and possibly other parts), and transport your iMac to and from the shop in its original packaging to avoid damaging it in transit. You'll also want to make sure the shop has specific experience in iMac hard drive replacements, and is insured in the event something goes wrong, as these are the only potentially important differences between hiring someone else and doing it yourself.
If you're swapping the old hard drive for an SSD, yes, that's it. Rebooting your Mac with an empty SSD requires just holding down command-R on the keyboard, after which you'll see the Internet Recovery prompt and perhaps 15 minutes of automated downloading. If you're booting from a pre-cloned SSD, your Mac will come back as it was before. And if the SSD's in the optical drive bay, your iMac will now have two internal drives to choose from. Make the SSD the boot drive by installing Yosemite on it and choosing it in System Preferences > Startup Disk.
You'll begin to notice how much faster your iMac is pretty quickly after the installation process is complete. Until and unless there are some major Mac processor performance jumps (and apps worth upgrading for), simply adding an SSD is going to make a much bigger speed difference for most iMac owners than getting a completely new computer with a faster CPU or video card. The machine will resume from sleep instantly, reboot in seconds, and load apps as if they're tiny. My SSD-equipped iMac is now seeing roughly 500MB/second read and write speeds, a solid 5 times faster than it was with a hard disk.
Prices have fallen enough that average users will finally find that SSDs now deliver a great balance of speed and capacity for the dollar. If you're an iMac user, and you want to experience much-improved performance, it's time to make the switch.
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Apple is indeed working on a car, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Mac maker kicked off a top-secret project tasked with developing an electric car with a minivan aesthetic, per the WSJ's sources, after CEO Tim Cook approved the project nearly a year ago. It includes "hundreds" of staffers and is led by Ford Motor vet and Apple VP Steve Zadesky, and it includes… Read More 
After teasing its release earlier on Thursday, Microsoft has made the Windows 10 technical preview for phones available to download for all Windows Insiders. If you've been itching to see how Microsoft has adapted its latest operating system to mobile platforms, you're probably going to want to check this one out.
必要に応じてキーボードのガイドが浮かび上がるiPad mini用保護ケース「Phorm」が、予約販売を開始しています。
タッチパネルでの入力が苦手というひとは少なくありません。
物理的なフィードバックがないため、指先がズレて隣のキーを押してしまうミスが頻発し、効率が悪くストレスが溜まるのが主な原因です。
その問題を解決すべく開発されたのがこのiPad mini用の保護ケースです。
文字の入力をする際にキートップに「突起」を出現させ、タイプのミスを軽減してくれるというもの。
液晶を保護するフィルムの中に、オイルをベースとした透明な液体が通る経路を埋め込んであり、必要なときに圧力をかけて膨らますという仕組みです。
ケースの背面にスライドするパーツがあり、これを動かして圧力をかけるだけで、キーボードのガイドが出現します。
電力は使っておらず、よって充電などの煩わしさもありません。
スライダーを逆に動かすと減圧され、ガイドの突起がなくなりフラットな画面に戻るとのこと。
必要に応じてガイドをオン・オフできるので、キーボードが表示されていない時にジャマになりません。
メーカーによる紹介動画がこちら。
現在のところ対応機種はiPad miniのみで、価格はUS$99(約11,800円)。発送が米国内のみというところが残念なところ。
iPhone 6 Plus用も開発中で、メールアドレスの登録で注文開始時に連絡を貰えるそうです。
【リンク】Phorm
Adobe's Lightroom app for iOS is actually pretty good, but you have to pay for a Creative Cloud subscription to use it.
What if you could have the power of an editing suite like Lightroom without all of the extra fuss? You want just one app for editing pictures on the go, but it needs to be easy to use and full featured.
Enter Darkroom, the hottest new photography app for iPhone.
Developed by ex-Apple and Facebook employees, Darkroom allows you to not only edit photos using desktop-class curve adjustments, but make your own filters.
That's right: after you tune an image just perfectly, you can save your settings as a filter to use again later. The image you created becomes the preview of the filter along with a name you give it. In an Instagram and VSCO age where filters are simply cut and pasted, it's nice to have some control over creating your own looks.
"We've turned static filters to jumping off points for editing"
"By putting the tools used to make filters in an app, we've turned static filters to jumping off points for editing," said Darkroom engineer Majd Taby. "For the first time, you can capture the perfect tone, and you can create your own filters. The editing tools we offer are carefully chosen and powerful. Everything about Darkroom is designed to be fast and get out of your way."
I can attest to Darkroom's speed and helpful design. I've been beta testing it for the past few weeks, and it's the best photo editor I've used on the iPhone.
Adjusting highlights, shadows, blacks, midtones, and whites with the RGB Curve tool is great for granular control over your edit. The app's straighten and cropping tools are also excellent, rivaling even Instagram's. The history view where you can go back and undo each edit is particularly helpful if you mess up along the way.
Apps like VSCO Cam and Litely are great if you want pre-made filters, but the sky really is the limit with Darkroom. It's not for everyone, but for those who want a little more control over the editing process, it's a joy to use.
There are still a couple big negatives (pardon the pun) that I hope get fixed in future updates. You can't zoom in on photos to see specific areas, which is an annoying failure for an app that prioritizes editing about all else. Images looked compressed when you add them from the Camera Roll, and I was always second guessing if what I had taken was in focus or not.
An iPad version needs to happen. There's no landscape view either, but since VSCO has yet to support landscape as well, there must be some kind of technical reason for that omission.
Darkroom is free to download, and a $2.99 in-app purchase unlocks the Curves tool.
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