Apple.com is a huge web site, and it’s all to easy to get overwhelmed and lapse into the habit of living in the seven tabs at the top of the home page. But there are some hidden gems of really useful, every day information that I’ve been collecting over the years, so I thought I’d share them with you.
1. Sell your old computer to Apple: Apple Computer Reuse and Recycling. You have several choices if you want to sell your old Mac for cash: Gazelle.com, SellYourMac.com, NextWorth. However, if you don’t like these sites or have heard too many complaints about them, you might want to stick with Apple.
Apple is affiliated with PowerOn.com, a company that will send you a post-paid shipping box for return, appraise your Mac, and e-mail you a quote. If you accept the quote, you’ll receive an Apple gift card (not cash) in the mail. If you reject the quote, they’ll ship your computer back to you, post-paid. I’ve used them, and one thing to note is that the return postage is paid, but no insurance is provided. So ship at your own risk or arrange to pay the postage yourself and add insurance.
MacTracker is a handy tool to help identify the model number of your Mac — something you’ll need to know.
2. Track your inventory of purchased items: Apple - Support - Welcome to My Support Profile. You probably figured that Apple keeps a database of registered products, but did you know you can access an inventory your own purchases?
On these pages, you can see your lastest case activity and repairs, view the products you’ve registered, and add products that didn’t get registered. You can even nickname your products for easy reference. You’ll need to have an Apple ID.
3. Track your AppleCare coverage: Apple - Support - AppleCare Agreements List. This page shows you a list of all the equipment for which you have an AppleCare Agreement, the Agreement number, the status, expiration date, and the product serial number.
4. Information for Government Employees, buy Apple Equipment at a Discount. Apple - Business - Mac Solutions - IT - Government. Local, state and federal government employees and contractors can learn about: Directory Services, Networking, VPN, Mac & PC file sharing, security, GSA schedules, Common Criteria, CRYPTOCards, export compliance, how to buy Apple equipment at a slight discount and a whole lot more.
5. Apple Security Updates. This page has a list of all the Apple security updates, products for which they were released, the release date, and related articles. If you need to see which CVE-IDs were fixed in each update, this is the place to go.
6. iPod History Timeline. Apple - Products - iPod History. This page is useful for journalists, but it also makes for some interesting reading about when the various iPads were released, sales numbers and milestones. It also helps identify the various iPod generations, but Apple’s “Identifying iPod Models” KB has a more detailed, technical listing.
Apple iPod Product History, Timeline
Identify Various iPod Models
7. Apple Serial Number Info (Non-Apple) This page will tell you a lot about your Mac; just enter the serial number. It’s useful to find out when and where you Mac was built, if there were any production flaws or warranty issues that resulted in a repair program, check your warranty, and check on important firmware updates. You can also register a serial number as stolen.
Of course, there are many more useful pages like this, but these are the ones I found notable. If you have some of your own, let us know in the comments.