Music fans have now downloaded and purchased more than three billion songs from the iTunes Store, and “we’d like to thank all of our customers who have contributed to this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. The world’s most popular online music, TV, and movie store, iTunes features a catalog of more than five million songs, 550 TV shows, and 500 movies, and it recently surpassed both Amazon and Target to become the third largest music retailer in the US.
Apple announced this afternoon that it sold 1.764 million macs in the June quarter, almost 150,000 more than the previous record, leading to $.92 of profit per diluted share, beating Wall Street estimates by 20 cents. Apple's gross margin was responsible for the gap in earnings vs. estimates, up almost 7 % year over year to 36.9%.
The greatly rumored new iMac keyboard is real. To verify earlier claims, the design shown in photos is remarkably thin and uses individually isolated keys similar to the MacBook or Sony's VAIO TZ; the entire design is less than 1cm (0.39 inches) thick and requires extrusions just to hold the USB ports, according to the photos. Apple has also changed the keyboard layout, adding F17-F19 keys and a Function key that modifies the role of the F-keys similar to past Apple notebooks. Several of those keys now control basic media play functions, display brightness, and MacOS features such as Dashboard and Expose.
Particularly, the company has also removed the Apple logo from the Command keys in a likely attempt to simplify understanding of key commands for newcomers. The aluminum-bodied keyboard photographed has what appears to be a legitimate Apple Development Team logo and is likely a development sample for the actual keyboard, which has been rumored to accompany a newer, thinner iMac design for a release later this summer.
Apple is shipping a new pre-release beta version of Mac OS X 10.5 to developers, a report claims.
The new version, 'Build 9A499" is the first major revision since June, AppleInsider claims.
Apple distributed pre-release copies of the software to attendees at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference that month, later making this available to members of its Apple Developer Connection.
In its latest build, Leopard is reportedly faster than the previous build, but it's alleged that some instability remains.
Apple is shipping Mac OS X 10.5, to consumers, in October 2007.
Apple unveiled a near final version of Mac OS® X Leopard, the sixth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system. Scheduled to ship in October, Leopard introduces over 300 new features.
Among the new features are a new Desktop and Dock with Stacks, an intuitive new way to organize files.
An updated Finder featuring Cover Flow.
Quick Look, a new way to rapidly preview most files without opening an application.
Time Machine, a new way to easily and automatically back up and restore lost files.
Spaces, a powerful new feature to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them.
New enhanced iChat and Mail applications, which easily allow users to communicate even more creatively.
And a new way to easily browse and share files between multiple Macs.
“Leopard is the best release of Mac OS X to date, surpassing even Tiger, and will further extend Mac OS X’s leadership as the most advanced and innovative operating system in the world,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think current and prospective customers are going to love Leopard, and that it will help make the Mac even more popular.”
You can now pre-order Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on Amazon.com. A single user license costs $129 and a 5-license family pack is $199.
According to Apple this update contains over 300 changes and enhancements, including the Time machine automated backup tool, Spaces virtual desktops and Spotlight searches across multiple machines.
Twenty years from now a new generation of computer users will look back on the operating systems of today with the same bemused smile we look back at the cars of the late 1950s and early 60s. They had huge fins, were the size of a small yacht and burned up just about as much gas.
That's right, I'm comparing Apple OS X 10.5, or Leopard, and Microsoft's Windows Vista to those old behemoths -- big and flashy and totally unnecessary.
Instead our grandchildren will be using discreet, unobtrusive operating systems that will be invisible to the naked eye.
They will, if you want to think about it like this, almost be a return to the concept of a command line, only in this case they will respond to either a typed command or a voice command or perhaps a gesture to open, join, find, save or close a file.
Most likely they will be embedded in the system that you buy or in the network.
Operating systems that try to make a statement as today's crop of OSes do will look awfully foolish, and perhaps the users of these systems will also be ridiculed for using them (as if we had a choice). But imagine what you would think of the guy who in 1959 built an extension on to his garage in order to accommodate the length of his Cadillac.
The OS of the future will not, like the current crop of OSes, feel it is necessary to toot their own (car) horn. The truth is Leopard and Vista are not user-centric, but instead are ego-centric.
They are created by a massive team that is collectively trying to say, "mine is bigger than yours." Consider if you will who the team leader at the very top of each of these companies is and you'll see that I'm not that far off base.
In the future, however, the OS and the computer, will become a true utilitarian tool, just like other tools where form follows function not determines it.
Today, whether you look at the simplest tool like a hammer or a giant crane at a construction sight, tools in the analog world come with few, if any, frills.
There can be beauty in the spareness. And this I think will be the direction the next generation of operating systems will take.
As fans of the iLife suite can tell you, the OS team isn't the only one that slowed down its maniacal, once-a-year pace over in Cupertino. MacScoop has the er...um...scoop on the next version of iLife. It's a small scoop though, as MacScoop's ever-present unnamed source doesn't have much info on the apps themselves, but only claims that the next version of iLife has already been certified Golden Master. According to the source, the only thing they're waiting for is for Mr. Jobs to release it to the people from his majestic hands like a snow-white dove. That, and ensuring that it will work with the final shipping version of Leopard.
This new edition of iLife will reportedly support both Tiger and Leopard, which, as one commenter points out, would mean that it has no Leopard-specific features like Core Animation. MacScoop feels that the timing coincides quite nicely with those updated iMac rumors for later this summer and could therefore actually beat Leopard out of the gate.
At this point, I don't put much stock any the iLife update rumors regardless of the rhyme or reason. All of the reasonable (and rhymable) windows of opportunity have already passed for this calendar year. So unless they just throw it out there at random (which has happened before), I think they'll hold onto it for a while. In fact, my money is on Macworld '08, if for no other reason than to avoid the question of what to name it (as MacScoop points out, they certainly can't name it iLife '07 and then bring it out in September).
Apple is finally seeding the WWDC version of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to online ADC members (Select or Premier). Previously, the most recent version of Leopard was only available to developers who attended WWDC.
Apple previewed a "feature complete" version of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) at WWDC and demonstrated many of the new Leopard features, including new Desktop, Finder, Quicklook, Time Machine, Spaces and more.
The version being distributed is the exact same build as the one distributed on DVD to WWDC members. Leopard is expected to be released in October of this year.
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