What I have discovered and according to many other resources is that Apple admits that they were involved in child labour. Results have shown that around 12 kids under fifteen worked in factories to produce products. The actual location and detail wasn’t mentioned. So that could mean any Apple product people have right now could have been built by a young student. Most of Apple’s products come built and assembled from China. I myself could not believe Apple would be involved in such a thing, but then again it has also happened to many other companies as well.We aren't sure what Apple are doing right now about those teenagers but 1-Mac will be sure to keep everyone updated if more news comes up. Stay Tuned.

When people go out to buy a Mac product, they might be held back by the price of the products. But here is one thing I would do before buying a Mac product from any store. Firstly make sure to check the Apple refurbished site. This is a store which sells refurbished Apple products online. But the good part is Apple replaces all the exterior so the products look scratch free and the only difference is they come in a different box. Now you may worry about the fact that since it's a refurbished it only comes with a very limited 90 day warranty. Well at Apple, refurbished products also have a 1 year warranty just like when you buy a new Apple product! So buying a refurbished Mac is a win- win situation. There are some people though who just don't feel comfortable buying a refurbished Mac and that is perfectly fine, it happens. There is a site called MacMall and this site is an authorized Mac reseller and they sale Mac products below prices which Apple sells at plus they throw in extra software and a printer! This is excellent for Mac buyers. Here is another trick when buying products. If you check out Bing Cashback, it shows you that if you buy from certain amount of companies on the internet you could save up to 10%! So that is even better and on their list of stores they also include MacMall and according to Bing if you use Bing Cashback to shop at MacMall you save an additional 3% which may not sound like much but in the end you make a pretty good amount of savings. Ebay is also a huge seller of products around the world and people constantly post items and if you would like to use Bing Cashback for that it is also on the list and you save 8%! Don't forget Apple also offers a discount to students purchasing a Mac! So overall looking at all these ways to save, you won't have to give away your whole wallet for a Mac after all!

To check out Bing Cashback and the stores included click the link below:

http://www.bing.com/cashback?FORM=R5FD

To check out MacMall click the link below:

http://www.macmall.com/home

As you all know 1-Mac is developing even more, first I had linked 1-Mac to Twitter and now am proud to announce 1-Mac also has a Facebook page as well! At the toolbar near the bottom, you will see a tab saying "Become a Fan". Feel free to become a fan if you would like! The Twitter and Facebook page will be updated regularly, stay tuned as 1-Mac will bring you more features in the future. 1-Mac is also now using FeedBurner a feature which sends out feeds of all the posts on 1-Mac for people who subscribe. You can choose to subscribe if you would like and I have made the process very simple in order to subscribe simply enter your e-mail address underneath in the right hand tab below and simply hit subscribe and you are set! I hope you enjoy using this site! Thank you!

During the post a few days ago, I had talked about how Apple is nearing their ten billionth iTunes download well that day of the download was today! It is great to see Apple reach their ten billionth app store download in only nine months! The ten billionth app downloaded was an app called "Bump" and that was downloaded by a teenager, who was the age of 13. He will now receive a whopping $10 000 iTunes gift card!  Congratulations to him!

For more information check out Apple's site: http://www.apple.com/itunes/billion-app-countdown/

Apple has always been known for having great customer service, when you step into an apple store, to be greeted by the friendly staff, they are always there to help you out. I have no idea how Apple manages to find great people. Over the years the customer service at Apple is beginning to get even better. A survey taken by PC World shows that out of all companies around the world. Apple ranks #3 which is a huge achievement and should make Steve Jobs feel proud. It just goes to show that people at Apple keep there customers first. People working at Apple have a really friendly desire to help to their fullest extent. Not long ago I actually went to my nearest Apple store and I couldn’t believe how much brains they had compared to other local retailers who sell Apple products. They took the time to show everything to me and had no rush whatsoever to ask if I was going to purchase anything! In case you also don’t know there are weekly sessions which happens at Apple stores worldwide where people at Apple would teach others about the OS and various other applications for free. People at Apple sure care about their customers and want to make sure that people get the best out of their Mac. With such great customer service no wonder Apple sales are growing. Apple’s reputation continues to hold it’s standards and it’s great to know that you have great people around you to help you with your Mac needs. More news to come stay tuned.

Apple’s App Store is growing very quickly with more than a million apps. The problem people started to notice was that there were also some apps which weren’t really intended for a normal audience. Apple for some reason hadn’t taken a serious look at this issue and since the app store opened around two years ago many of this adult content was starting to grow rapidly. Apple finally took an action against it and banned all of those apps from the store. This is a good thing for most people who are young owners of the iPod and parents won’t have to worry about children downloading them. The bad part though is that the companies who made those apps will lose money. To be honest Apple should have taken care of this issue long ago and maybe put some strict parental controls on the app store or create a separate app store for adult apps. So after today no more of those apps will be seen on the app store again.

Following the market of Apple for a while now we have noticed that in terms of Apple’s sales in their notebooks, Apple’s Macbook is sky rocketing maybe because it’s the cheapest Mac notebook offered whereas the Macbook Air is idle in many ways. Firstly when you look at the price of the Macbook Air it is quite high, for a 13 inch slim notebook with no super drive and limited amount of connectivity it is far too expensive. Performance on the Macbook Air is also considerably slower when compared to it’s sibling the Macbook. The Macbook Air starts with around a 1.86ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, while the Macbook which is far cheaper with a 2.26ghz processor. If you take a look at the refurbished site on Apple.com you can see that a refurbished Macbook Air starts at $1099 yet still it doesn’t sell like the Macbook does (which gets sold out within minutes). This is a part where it shows the Macbook Air is very sluggish in terms of sales. Noticeably the new Macbook is built much stronger and no longer has any issues reported yet but the Macbook Air has had some hinge issues. We aren’t sure whether Apple will keep the Macbook Air in their line up or lower it’s price but we will see more soon.

Just until news at Apple couldn’t get even more exciting with the upcoming release of the iPad. Apple has taken a new approach and this is a competition for people who love to download music from itunes. Get ready because what reports show is that Apple could be nearing it’s 10 billionth itunes download and to thank people, Apple will be awarding the person who download’s that 10 billionth product with a whopping $10 000 iTunes gift card. Already people around the world are desperately downloading in search of being the 10 billionth one to download from the itunes store. This is smart work by Apple to get more downloads into the store and to make more money. Stay tuned as we will soon find out more information and the winner. If you are planning to have a go at this competition, good luck to everyone.

Today I will focus on two Apple products which people have a hard time choosing between the iMac and the Mac Mini. The iMac is a full fledged desktop without having to lug around both the computer and the monitor around, instead the computer is built inside the monitor. The good thing about this is that people won’t have to worry about plugging in a monitor or having to purchase them separately, we believe that people who are looking for a desktop strictly which is going to sit either on their office desk or at home should consider the iMac. The iMac is also more of an entertainment system as well because of it’s faster processor and you can also configure a better graphics chip. For the ideal computer which is going to be the main one in someone’s house we think you should consider the iMac. The iMac comes with the new Magic Mouse and a wireless Apple keyboard so everything is ready out of the box just plug them in and you are set. The iMac starts at $1199


Now there are other types of people who consider space to be a big factor and that is where the Mini shines. Not only is the Mini small it is also very affordable considering it is a Mac. Starting at $599 this is ideal for being used as a home desktop or an office desktop but can also be carried around easily. For people looking to switch to a Mac should consider the Mac Mini. Granted you don’t get a display or a keyboard or a mouse. Which is a bit of a disappointment, but the good part is unlike other Mac products the Mini can be used with any industry standard keyboard or mouse. So no need for people to purchase Apple’s keyboard and mouse which can be quite expensive. Display can also be from any company and the Mini comes with a Mini DVI to DVI adapter included to connect to any monitor. The Mini also shines when it comes to people requiring a small home server to store data because the Mini is so small it can be taken everywhere with all your data. Performance wise the Mini isn’t the greatest with an integrated graphics chip as an only option limits the Mini in terms of gaming and video editing and as a main computer one would require that. On the upside reports have shown that the Mac Mini is one of  the most reliable Macs.

Today Microsoft unveiled their new edition to the Mac line up for Office and it is said to feature a much cleaner and sleeker looking interface the one which we had seen on the latest edition of Office for PC and also a new sharing feature has been brought to the product and that is the ability to share online all your documents using SkyDrive.  There is a new feature for editing which we believe might replace the Spell Checker. Their new upcoming Office suite is said to be more compatible with Windows than ever before. The new interface called the “Ribbon” is highly customizable and makes it easier for a user to select which tool required for typing. Also Entourage is taken out of the Mac line up to be replaced by Outlook and will also be compatible with all your Windows e-mail as well. The new version of Office for Mac is looking to be a winner. It has improved in various aspects and the future is looking bright for Microsoft as they are going in the right direction. Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac is set to be released for sale sometime near the end of this year.

Just as Steve Jobs had spoken about how the iPad will change the experience in internet surfing. That was when the question came up "is there flash" according to what spectators saw during the keynote when Jobs was presenting a site was the familiar blue box with a question mark inside and instantly people knew that there was going to be no flash. To most of us that is going to defeat the purpose of internet surfing because most people need flash to satisfy their internet surfing. Well apparently relationship between Apple and Adobe is going the wrong way because Steve Jobs claims that Flash is too buggy and has caused many crashes in the Mac OS. Adobe on the other hand are desperately trying to clear up this situation because it will also affect them if there is no flash on the iPad and without any flash it might bring down the amount of consumers who are thinking of purchasing an iPad.  Right now there is no final decision yet as to what is going to happen but stay tuned as we will bring you more updates.

Refurb.me is a website targeted for people who are looking to buy a refurbished apple product this great website acts as a updater with information on what is in stock and what’s not. For people looking to purchase a refurbished product make sure to check out refurb.me and for Mac users there is also a widget available for download for easy access to check what is in stock. Generally on the refurbished site there is a higher chance for people wanting a macbook pro, a macbook air or a mac pro to find one easily but for people opting for products such as the macbook and the mac mini will have to wait generally as these products are rare and get sold out within just a few hours or minutes! So we believe this is a great site for those types of people.

Check out their site:

http://www.refurb.me/

This is to tell everyone that I have linked my blog which is this one with my YouTube account so I will be uploading more videos and posting them here as well and more future updates to come in the future. Check out my YouTube channel too if you would like. My username is: AZ100x and subscribe if you guys would like I will be posting more video tutorials and Mac related videos soon. Stay tuned and thanks for visiting my blog! Feel free to leave a comment with questions and concerns and I will be happy to answer them.

As you all may know the Mac Mini also has a fellow companion and that is known as the Mac Mini server. The Mac Mini server was released in late 2009 and it was a smart move by Apple considering many people use their old Mac Mini as a home server. It comes installed with many server applications and comes with the Snow Leopard Server operating system. The server features a 2.53ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and 4GB of RAM with 1TB hard drive space. Form wise and physical appearance looks nearly identical to a Mac Mini except with the exclusion of the Superdrive. What is good about this server compared to Windows Servers is the fact it can accept unlimited clients which makes the Mac Mini Server a winner. Starting at $999 we believe it is an excellent price and if you check the refurbished store often you might be able to pick one up for $899!

Just as the iPad was released rumors have quickly come out stating the fact that a bigger tablet is coming and will keep the Mac OSX interface and software. This is very quick news considering the fact that Apple had just released an iPad a few days ago. Rumors say that the new tablet will feature a 15.4 inch screen we believe it might be called iPad Pro perhaps? We hope that Apple will change the design a bit and not keep it looking like an oversized iPod Touch. Only time will tell whether this is true or not. More updates to come stay tuned.

Just after the whole excitement of the release of the iPad many people started thinking about the cons of the iPad. Many reports and people show that more competition is coming to the iPad, what people are waiting for is the release of the HP slate. Windows computers are usually the ones with more features than an Apple computer and sell at a much cheaper price. When looking at the price of $499 some people will say that is a great price for an Apple. But some people might believe that the iPad isn’t a full fledge computer and should be cheaper. With that price you can get a Windows laptop as well. What we think is that it might take some time for the iPad to get known into the market and this is a very different type of product which might make people think twice before purchasing.