Interestingly, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro looks identical to the aging iPad Air 2, which is now 18 months old. In fact, the two devices have the exact same size dimensions (9.4 x 6.6 x 0.24 inches) and weight (0.98 / 0.96lbs for cellular/non-cellular), according to a comparison by Forbes.

The new iPad Pro boasts so many advanced features that Apple couldn’t consider it a new version of the Air. But that hasn’t stopped current iPad Air 2 users from planning to make the upgrade.

Gazelle data analysts dug up some compelling stats to prove that point. On March 21, the day of Apple’s Media Event, Gazelle saw a 1,844% increase in iPad Air 2 trade-ins when compared to the same period two weeks prior. The iPad Air 2 was the model with the highest spike in trade-ins, proving that Air customers are ready for a more powerful, yet equally sized device.

The second strongest model is, not surprisingly, the iPad Pro with a 1,540% bump in trade-ins when compared to the same period two weeks prior. When examined collectively, all iPad models increased by 758%.

Clearly, there is strong demand for the new, more affordable iPad Pro.

The post Spike in iPad Trade-ins Suggests High Demand for 9.7-inch iPad Pro Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.

We want to know what you think Apple will be naming this new addition to the iPhone lineup. Rumors predict two possibilities: iPhone 6C and iPhone 5SE. Which do you think it will be?

[polldaddy poll=9285536]

Image courtesy of Flickr. 

The post What Will Apple Name the New 4-inch iPhone? Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.

To get a closer look, we’ve compiled the 7 best features of the Samsung Galaxy S6, including the biggest improvements, the show-stopping specs and a few of our favorite hidden features.

1.  New Design

At first glance, the most noticeable improvement from the Galaxy S5 is the all-metal and glass body. By scrapping the plastic, Samsung has taken a big leap forward and given its new phone the premium look that the price demands.

The back of the Galaxy S6 is Corning Gorilla Glass 4, an especially durable glass to withstand the unexpected, yet all-too-common phone drop.

2.  Camera Quick Launch

Another milestone for the Galaxy S6 was the ability to use a hardware button to drastically reduce the time required to open the camera. Simply double tap the home button and the camera is ready to snap a photo in 0.7 seconds or less—perfect for capturing those fleeting moments.

3.  Very, Very HD

1440 x 2560 pixels across a 5.1-inch display gives this phone a density of 577 ppi, making the Galaxy S6 the sharpest smartphone display on the market. The screen is truly brilliant for watching video, noticeably outperforming a standard HD display.

4.  Samsung Pay

Samsung’s mobile payment software allows you to upload most conventional credit cards, plus it doesn’t require any special retail hardware. Samsung claims it works in more stores than any other form of mobile payment.

5.  Automatic Answer

This is one of our favorite less-known features. Auto answer is perfect for those looking to connect their smartphone to a car via Bluetooth. If you enable “automatic answering” in call settings, your Galaxy S6 will automatically pick up any call after 2 seconds when connected to a Bluetooth device. With this feature, you never have to touch your phone to answer while driving.

6.  Wireless Charging

The S6 includes both types of wireless charging technologies (Qi and PMA) in one phone, making it the most compatible smartphone with third party wireless chargers.

7.  A Simply Amazing Camera

We saved the best for last. For the avid photographer and selfie enthusiast alike, the Galaxy S6 provides one of the most advanced smartphone cameras on the market.

The feature-rich interface boasts a Pro shooting mode, allowing the photographer to manually focus and control the sensor’s sensitivity. Another impressive feature is the HDR Auto mode, which intelligently mixes a range of exposures to optimize the brightness and clarity of images.

Have a favorite feature that we missed? Let us know in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Flickr.

The post The 7 Best Features of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.

Keyboard shortcuts are the fastest and easiest way to navigate around your MacBook and perform frequently used functions. Learning these shortcuts may seem overwhelming now, but you’ll thank yourself later when you’re a productivity powerhouse.

This list skips the most obvious shortcuts (assuming you’re familiar with the basic copy/paste), and instead focuses on the hidden gems that will help you the most.

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2.  Transfer Large Files with Target Disk Mode

If you need to share large files between two Macs, you can connect the two devices with a Firewire or Thunderbolt cable and use target disk mode to make one Mac appear as an external hard disk on the other.

Start by shutting down the Mac that will be used as an external disk (Mac A). Using the cable, connect the two computers and power on Mac A while holding down the T key (you can also go into system preferences > startup disk and select “target disk mode”). A disk icon will appear on Mac B’s desktop. Transfer files by dragging them to and from the icon. When finished, drag the disk icon to the Trash, which will change to an Eject icon. Power off Mac A and disconnect the cable.

3.  Check Wireless Network Speed

Ever wondered if your Mac is slow because of a sluggish WiFi network? Well, now you can instantly check the speed and get technical info like your IP address, security network and much more. Voila.

4.  Instantly Change Audio Output Device

If you’re using an HDMI cable to plug your MacBook into a TV or other device, this could be incredibly useful. Avoid system preferences and simply hold the Option key while you click the audio icon.

5.  Crop Screenshots

Remember command + shift + 3? Change it to a 4 and your mouse will turn into crosshairs that allow you to select a specific area of your screen to capture.

Bonus: Add “control” to any screenshot command and you’ll copy the screenshot to your clipboard instead of saving—very useful for pasting in documents and messages.

6.  Change the Volume in Quarter Increments

Increasing or decreasing the volume in smaller increments is especially useful when dealing with sensitive external speakers.

7.  Wrap Your Cord Like This

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photo credit: J Cornelius

Pro Tip: When wrapping the little cord, make a big loop first so you don’t put stress on the area where it attaches to the power adapter.

8.  Sign PDFs With Your Trackpad

Almost every piece of paperwork can be submitted digitally these days. But you often need a real signature to seal the deal. Luckily, a feature of Preview on Mac can help you avoid the print-sign-scan procedure.

Open the PDF in Preview and go to Tools > Annotate > Signature > Manage Signatures. From there, you can sign your name with your finger directly on the trackpad, or use the iSight camera to capture an image of your signature on paper.

9.  Minimize Applications Faster

Ever needed to minimize a window really quick? Instead of using command + M (minimize), which closes with an animation and leaves the window in your dock, try command + H (hide) to close immediately.

10.  Combine PDFs

Open a PDF in Preview and bring up the thumbnail view. Drag the second PDF file where you want it in the pages and drop. They will be combined when you save the file.

Have something to add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.

The post 10 MacBook Shortcuts to Improve Your Productivity Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.

Holiday purchases can strain the wallet. Shoppers will spend an average of $702 this season – up from $677 in 2014 – with $575 going toward gifts, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers’ Consumer Forecast. But despite the expected increase in purchases, consumers are feeling the sticker shock from high-ticket items. In a recent survey of 754 Americans, Gazelle found that 70% of shoppers feel the expensive price of a new iPhone or iPad prohibits them from buying it as a gift.

While it’s common to hunt for discounts and bargains, many shoppers don’t think about offseting hefty costs by selling things they own and never use. We’re not talking about planning a full-blown garage sale or spending hours on eBay. Rather, identifying a few key items around the house that could be sold for a sizeable profit.

iPads might be the golden key to your holiday shopping fund. Gazelle’s recent survey found 16% of households own an iPad that is no longer being used. Some of those families even own more than one, bringing the average to 1.3 spare iPads per household.

That unwanted iPad could fetch you up to $280, with the average iPad trade-in paying about $100. With a little over 120 million households in the country, we’re talking about $2 billion in iPads collecting dust across the United States. The unclaimed value of those devices depreciates over time, reducing the opportunity to recover easy money. Money that could go toward buying holiday gifts.

Find out how much your iPad is worth here.

The post How to Score Some Cash for the Holidays Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.

Apple continuously makes updates to its signature laptop, enhancing our experience like no other device of its kind. Two of Apple’s bestsellers, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, feature unibody designs with anodized aluminum finishes – a beautiful, yet extremely durable construction.

But when it comes to choosing between the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air, it’s difficult to identify the differences that matter to you most. Luckily, we’ve identified each MacBook’s strengths and weaknesses.

MacBook Air

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The MacBook Air, designed for the everyday user, is perfect for web browsing, email and general productivity tasks like writing papers and working in Excel. Its stunning frame is light yet durable. And despite the extremely thin design, the MacBook Air has an impressive amount of battery life. It’s also the only MacBook under $1,000, making it the most affordable option in Apple’s lineup.

The MacBook Air can handle applications like Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, but it won’t perform as well as the Pro. If you know you’ll be using heftier apps like these on a regular basis, it may be worth upgrading to the Pro.

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Our Takeaway: We recommend the MacBook Air for students and anyone on the go. With its ultimate portability and long-lasting battery, you’ll never feel burdened to stay in one place.

MacBook Pro

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The MacBook Pro is Apple’s most powerful laptop with a lightning-fast processor, stunning graphics and, most importantly, the largest amount of storage. A variety of upgrades also give the MacBook Pro customizability, allowing you to increase things like memory and storage to meet your workload demands.

You’ll want to spring for the MacBook Pro if you plan on producing multimedia, like video, photo or audio editing, or if you’re auditing a large amount of data in Excel. If you’re a gamer, you’ll also want the Pro to avoid compromising the experience with poor graphics or slow speed.

New models of MacBook Pro (May 2015) include a Force Touch trackpad, which allows more navigation by measuring the pressure of your touch.

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Our Takeaway: We recommend the MacBook Pro for artistic design professionals such as those that use Adobe Suite, Final Cut Pro and other creative applications. It’s also best for people who need to crunch large sheets of data or do a lot of multitasking between applications frequently.

Ultimately, your decision will be determined by what you value most in your future laptop.

*MacBook specs based on 2015 models.

Images courtesy of Apple.

The post MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro: Which is Right for You? Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.

The Surface Pro 4 bears a striking resemblance to its strongest competitor, Apple’s iPad Pro, which received a lot of attention for its impressively large display, accompanying stylus (aka Apple Pencil) and Smart Keyboard.

Thinking of upgrading your iPad? We took a look at these two products side-by-side. Here’s what we think.

What’s the Difference? Primarily, Nothing

Specs and features do vary a bit, but many of the so-called “innovative” attributes are very similar between both tablets, most noticeably the stylus. Both the Apple Pencil and Surface Pen are designed for a natural writing experience, sensitive to pressure and tilt, a plus for anyone seeking precision and accuracy. Other similarities include the fingerprint reader, personal assistant (iPad’s Siri and Surface’s Cortana) and redesigned keyboards.

Both devices are also focused on bridging the gap between tablets and laptops, merging portability with performance. In a recent poll, 40% of people believed the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard could do all the functions of a computer. You’ll have to answer for yourself whether a tablet is suitable for your computing needs.

Let’s Talk About the Price

Aside from your loyalty to either Apple or Microsoft products, the main difference here is price, but not by much. Both devices are competing at the high-end of the tablet market with starting prices of $799 and $899 for the iPad and Surface, respectively.

Plus, if you want the Apple Pencil (and you will), you’ll pay an additional $99, while the Surface Pen is included with a Microsoft purchase.

Which One Should You Buy?

The Surface Pro 4 will be available on October 26, with the iPad Pro coming sometime in November, so we can’t be sure about performance until we put them to the test.

Our gut tells us the iPad Pro will be better suited for designers, business owners and artists, while the Surface Pro 4 will be the choice of students and the every-day computer user. This has largely to do with Windows 10, designed to be a fluid operating system responsive to different types of hardware. This means a Windows user can easily upgrade to the Surface Pro 4 and replace their existing tablet and computer, only needing one device.

Current iPad users, however, are less inclined to upgrade to the iPad Pro (or replace their MacBooks). Apple is targeting professionals who could benefit from the large surface and precise motions.

Do you plan on buying a new tablet? Let us know which one and why in the comments.

The post Comparing the iPad Pro and Microsoft Surface Pro 4. Which Should You Buy? Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.

Apple knows what we want, and it’s not a design change. As Wired puts it, “Apple spent the last year connecting dots between the disparate pieces of its operating system. The next phase of technology is all about it learning our behavior and adapting to our needs, not forcing us into its pre-determined ideas about how the world works.”

With the hype of improvements, there have also been reports of crashing phones and subsequent data loss when attempting to download the new software, primarily among older generation iPhones. The Independent did the math and found that of the 160 million people who have already downloaded iOS 9, an insignificantly small percentage is actually having problems. To be on the safe side, make sure you back-up your data before updating.

Once you download the update, you won’t notice much difference apart from a minor font change and the side-by-side view when navigating between apps. But play around a bit more and you’ll soon realize how many small differences there are – and the big improvements they make.

Here are the top 5 hidden features of iOS 9:

1.  Search in Settings

This is a simple update that makes a big difference for people who haven’t memorized the entire organizational mess of the Settings app (a.k.a. everyone). Now you can search whatever you’re looking for and each result will display its location within the app.

2.  Improved Battery Life

Ever needed to milk your remaining battery to get you through the day? Of course you have, because poor battery life will forever haunt us all. Now there’s an easier way than turning down your brightness or going into airplane mode. Low Power Mode automatically reduces unnecessary functions so you can move on worry-free.

3.  Select Multiple Photos at Once

If you’re in a rush to free up some storage space, deleting old photos just became so much easier. Simply tap, hold and swipe to select groups of photos at once. Another tiny improvement that makes a big difference.

4.  Get Customized Suggestions from Siri

Siri gets a lot smarter in iOS 9, pushing us closer to the world of freakishly-advanced virtual personal assistants à la Her. Siri’s innovations are focused on customized suggestions based on your location and the time of day. It’ll give you news, contacts and apps using this information.

5.  Call Contacts Directly from Search

Like most of iOS 9’s improvements, this one saves you one extra step in a task. Now when you search for a contact, you can directly call, FaceTime or message them from the search screen. Congratulations, you just saved yourself 2 seconds.

Sensing a theme here? These updates are designed for a marginally better experience and may go unnoticed by a large percentage of the population. However, they allow for more efficient and productive use, allowing you to accomplish more in less time.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

The post Apple iOS 9 Updates for iPhone are Worth Isolated Incidents of Download Frustrations Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.

So when Apple announced its fourth generation Apple TV this week, I couldn’t wait to see what is in store for the next generation of online streaming. After seeing the demo, I knew I needed the newest version. Here’s why:

1.  Fix All Search Frustrations with Siri

Apple TV has a new remote with voice activated capabilities, sending Siri to the rescue. This new control will be most valuable for browsing content. You can ask something like, “Show me new documentaries,” and Siri will present a compiled list, including content from multiple apps without navigating away from your current screen. Or search for your favorite actor, and all of his movies will show.

On current models, searches are isolated within single apps like Netflix and YouTube and are fulfilled by spelling out a query one letter at a time, an extremely frustrating and time-consuming process. Siri will easily fix that experience.

2.  Explore Endless Possibilities with TV’s First App Store

Along with the device, Apple released its new platform for developers: tvOS. Developers can now start building apps for consumers to download from the TV’s new App Store. As Apple demonstrated, apps can range from classic content providers like network TV channels and Hulu to interactive experiences like online shopping and home-buying.

3.  Game with Friends

The combination of a new motion-sensing remote and a new app platform adds an entirely new feature to the Apple TV: gaming. While the TV only includes one remote, most games will offer multiplayer options simply by connecting an iPhone. This is pretty cool, because now my friends and I can easily download and play a game together without ever leaving our seats to get new controls. All a player needs is an iPhone or iPod Touch.

4.  Subsidize the Price by Trading-in an Old Apple TV

Here’s the cherry on the cake: my new Apple TV won’t cost $149. Because Gazelle buys Apple TVs, I can trade-in my old one and get cash towards the new: as much as $42.

Will you be buying the new Apple TV?

Image courtesy of the Apple Special Event.

The post Why I’m Upgrading to the New Apple TV and You Should Too Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.

Here are the top 10 things you should know about the iPhone 6s:

1.  Timing
September 9 announcement; September 18 in-store release

Sources close to Apple say the special event will be held on September 9, 2015, as first reported by BuzzFeed. Based on timelines from past years, we can expect pre-orders to begin on September 11 with an in-store release on September 18.

2.  Name
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus

Updates will focus on internal improvements without major design changes this year. This year’s model will be called the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, in line with the naming conventions Apple has been using since 2009.

3.  Screen size
4.7” and 5.5” for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus

Leaked photos point to a very similar body size as the iPhone 6, suggesting we’ll get the same standard and Plus sizes we first saw in 2014.

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4.  Camera
12 megapixel camera

The iPhone’s 8-megapixel camera, introduced in the iPhone 4s back in 2011, is about to change. Instead of improving megapixels the past four years, Apple has focused on making software updates to improve the image quality. This year, however, multiple analysts suggest the camera will offer a 4-megapixel jump to 12. Analysts have also suggested the new camera will be equipped with a two-lens system, capable of producing DSLR-quality photos.

5.  Video recording
4K capabilities

Ultra high-definition (4K) video is the next big step in HD technology. Many smartphone manufacturers have already launched models with 4K video recording such as the Samsung Galaxy S5. 4K not only improves video quality, but also offers image stabilization and high range capabilities.

6.  New technology
Force Touch

After making its debut in the Apple Watch and new retina MacBooks in April 2015, Force Touch, a new technology that senses the amount of pressure of your touch, is coming to the iPhone. While only a minor change in physical appearance, Force Touch allows for entirely new actions in navigation and usability. The technology is expected to work across iOS 9, both in apps and on the home screen.

7.  New color
Rose Gold

Apple is expected to release the iPhone 6s in a fourth color, rose gold, in addition to the existing space gray, silver and gold options. The new color will be the same hue as the Apple Watch Edition released earlier this year. Martin Hajek took a shot at prototyping the new color, seen below.

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8.  Faster Processing
A9 processor with 2GB RAM

One of the primary internal improvements is faster processing speeds, thanks to an A9 processor chip and one additional GB of RAM. Analyst Srini Sundararajan estimates this chip will be 20% more powerful and 35% more power efficient.

9.  More security
Improved Touch ID

This one’s pretty simple. Apple is upgrading Touch ID to make fingerprint recognition faster and more secure, improving the Apple Pay experience.

10.  Operating System
iOS 9

No rumors here. Apple will release a software update for all iPhones with improvements focused on built-in apps, Siri, battery life, performance and security. But the most notable improvement doesn’t have to do with iPhone at all. iPad’s productivity is literally doubled with iOS 9’s split screen capability, allowing you to work between two apps at once.

What are you most excited for in the iPhone 6s? Let us know in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Martin Hajek.

The post 10 Rumors to Know About the iPhone 6s Taran Loper appeared first on Gazelle The Horn.