Describe how to locate the AppleCare name for a Product: Currently Apple has 6 product lines. The iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook Pro and the XServe. Although it is not as big of an issue with current products, previous product lines (The iMac, Mac Mini, eMac, Power Mac G5, iBook G4, PowerBook G4, and XServe) had many different models that were under the same product line. So although the product you are working on may look similar to one product, it may be completely different in terms of hardware and how you go about repairing them. Therefore, if you do not know the correct name of an Apple product, you may not do a good job of repairing it and waste valuable time. To get around this issue, AppleCare (Apple’s division for technical support), gives each new model a distinctive name. This distinctive name is called the AppleCare name (of the product) and it will appear on all service materials for that particular release. In order to find the AppleCare name (It will not be directly written on the Apple Product) you will first need to find the serial number. There are two distinctive ways of locating the serial number of a product. If you could not boot into the system, you would try to look on the system for the Serial Number. For example, the Serial Number for a MacBook is located underneath the battery. The Serial Number for a Mac Pro is located directly below the video card. If you could still not find the serial number, you could always view the Knowledge Base Article 303372 which will describe to you the location of the serial number. You could also, if the system was bootable, open System Profiler and then click on Hardware. Now with the serial number, you have two options to determine the AppleCare name. If you have access to GSX, on the home page, you could enter the serial number and perform a coverage check. On the next page it will give you the AppleCare name. Now if you do not have access to GSX, you could always head to the Apple Support page, and on the right, enter the serial number of the product. From this, you could also get the AppleCare name of the product. These areas are called coverage check access points for obvious reasons. State the Key Features and benefits of a specified Macintosh System iMac G3 The First iMac G3 (revealed on 10/17/98) was a revolutionary system. It had introduced a new “all-in-one” design for Mac systems in a way that it was attractive and extremely useful. One way that the iMac G3 was attractive was that the hardware was all enclosed in a beautiful colored shell. While earlier iMac G3 systems were just one color, later iMac G3 systems started to feature unique color designs and patterns. One way that the iMac G3 design was useful was that it featured a handle that was built into the case. This became very useful for technicians who needed to carry the iMac G3. All iMac G3 machines featured a CRT screen. The First iMac G3 had featured a 233 MHz processor, a tray loading drive, two USB ports (no firewire), and only weighed about 40 lbs. The next set of iMac G3’s (released 1/5/99) had increased the processor speed, the minimum HD, and the speed of the CD Drive. On the outside, these iMac G3’s came in a broader spectrum of color. Now you could have a Strawberry, Blueberry, Grape, Lime or Tangerine colored iMac G3. The next set of iMac G3’s introduced something radical. Instead of featuring a Tray Loading CD Drive, the iMac G3’s now came with a Slot Loading CD Drive. For the next three releases of the iMac G3, Apple had just updated and upgraded the hardware. They added things such as Airport, the “Odyssey” audio system, bigger Hard Drives, and PCI slots. However, aesthetically the iMac G3 had featured designs they called “Blue Dalmatian” and “Flower Power”. Apple’s last iMac G3, released 7/1/01, had bumped the processor speed to a max of 700MHz and added ATI Rage graphic cards. At this point in Apple’s life, their market share had been declining. So Steve Jobs decided to design a new Apple System from the ground up. The benefits of this system was that it packed a punch for its small size, was an all-in- one system that users could easily place anywhere, and it was overall much more appealing than their previous products. Although they might not satisfy the professional movie editor, the iMac G3 was Apple’s solution to the consumer’s desktop requirements. iMac G4 The iMac G4, released in January of 2002, had gotten rid of the CRT screens and replaced them with beautiful and elegant LCD displays. Overall the iMac G4 had a unique form factor that, unfortunately, made it difficult for the processor to be cooled and made it difficult for parts replacement. The LCD Screen in all iMac G4 systems were very unique. They were attached to the body of the computer, a round, white dome, with two pivoting connectors. This means that the screen could be adjusted in any way. The First iMac G4 system (best standard configuration) featured a 17 inch widescreen-LCD, 800 MHz G4 processor, 80GB Hard Drive, a Tray Loading SuperDrive, and NVIDIA GeForce graphics. Other configurations included the NVIDIA graphics and a 15 (4:3 Resolution) inch LCD display. The next iMac G4 system, released 2/4/03, had bumped up the available processor speed to 1 GHz! It also provided internal Bluetooth (optional on some systems). The next iMac G4 system, released 9/8/03, had provided USB 2.0 support. It also had featured the first 20 inch widescreen LCD display on a iMac G4 system. The Benefits of an iMac G4 system was that it had utilized the LCD display to save a lot of space, had the LCD display mounted on pivoting points so that the consumers could easily adjust the display to their specific viewing level and overall looked much more appealing than other systems on the market. In the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) an iMac G4 is on display due to its beauty. iMac G5 The iMac G5 once again was a breakthrough in the computing and design fields. Released on 8/31/04, it featured a brand new form factor that had, much like the iMac G3, the screen and hardware in one casing. The obvious difference between a G3 and a G5 iMac is that the iMac G5 featured an LCD display. The iMac G5 had also removed the tray loading drive and introduced the slot loading drives once again, just to save space. The first iMac G5 had featured either 1.6 or 1.8 GHz processors, NVIDIA GeForce graphics, (maximum) 20 inch Widescreen Display, and a (maximum standard) 160 GB HD. The next iMac G5, released on 5/3/05, had important hardware upgrades. The first important one was the introduction of the Ambient Light Sensor. The Ambient Light Sensor would allow for the automatic control of brightness, something other computers could not do. The second update was the introduction of a 2.0 GHz G5 processor. This, at the time, was the fastest processor in an iMac G5. The final iMac G5, released on 10/12/05, had once again upgraded the hardware in a unique ways. For the first time in any computer, the iMac G5 featured built in iSight! It had also boosted the processor speed to 2.1 GHz and featured ATI Radeon Graphics cards. Finally, Apple introduced Front Row, an application that utilized an IR Remote and IR Receiver so that the consumer could view their multimedia content in a brand new and unique way. At the time, the iMac G5 was the best computer that a consumer could buy. It was a beautiful, but powerful machine that cost next to nothing considering the hardware that was built into it. The later model had also featured Front Row, a revolutionary and awesome program. Overall the iMac G5 was a huge breakthrough in personal computing. Intel-Based iMacs Apple had started the revolutionary transition to intel chipsets with the iMac. The intel-based iMacs stuck with the same form factor as the iMac G5 with iSight, but gave them a huge hardware upgrade. Instead of featuring solo processors, iMacs now had intel core duo processors. The first intel-based iMac was introduced on 1/10/06. It featured (maximum) a 2 GHz intel core duo processor and contained much of the same hardware as the iMac G5. The next release of the intel-based iMac, introduced on 9/6/06, had supplied the iMac with intel core 2 duo processors and bumped the maximum processor up to 2.16 GHz. They had also increased the screen size to a maximum of 24 inches. Overall, the Intel-Based iMacs were just iMac G5s with intel processors. The benefits of owning an intel-based iMac was that you were able to have better processing speeds and were able to run windows, as well as tiger, on the same machine. eMac The first eMac was released on April 29, 2002 as the replacement of the iMac G3. These eMacs cost much less than the iMac G4, but mixed the elegance of the iMac G3 and the iMac G4 together. The eMac featured a full white casing, 17 inch CRT display, a G4 Processor, slot loading optical drive, and contained NVIDIA GeForce graphics.