Type of Article: MacTech Blog

iOS devices get all the Apple love (and media attention) these days, but there’s plenty of room for Mac growth. And it will happen.

In 2011, the UK computer hardware market was estimated to have increased by 1.5% on the previous year, according to new data by Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com). This growth represents the second consecutive year of growth for the computer hardware market, following declining trading conditions in the sector during 2009, notes the research group.

Apple has been granted a patent (number 8286127) by the U.S Patent & Trademark Office for a mirrored file system. It involves the Time Machine back-up feature in Mac OS X.

By Greg Mills

As I have previously speculated in this column, I consider the desktop 3D plastic part printing revolution fertile ground for being one of Apple’s next big things. I think Apple is uniquely situated to do for 3D printing what they did for desktop printing on paper 20 years ago.

Apple has considered moving its Mac line-up to its own in-house developed chips, though such a change isn’t in the immediate future, reports “Bloomberg Businessweek” (http://macte.ch/HaMlS). Makes sense to me — over a period of time, at least.