Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
MNYC, I'm laughing all the way to the bank.
Does that count?
Lion In Depth...
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: the Ars Technica review
By John Siracusa | Published about 12 hours ago
Mac OS X 10.7 was first shown to the public in October 2010. The presentation was understated, especially compared to the bold rhetoric that accompanied the launches of the iPhone ("Apple reinvents the phone") and the iPad ("a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price"). Instead, Steve Jobs simply called the new operating system "a sneak peek at where we're going with Mac OS X."
Behind Jobs, the screen listed the seven previous major releases of Mac OS X: Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard. Such brief retrospectives are de rigueur at major Mac OS X announcements, but long-time Apple watchers might have felt a slight tingle this time. The public "big cat" branding for Mac OS X only began with Jaguar; code names for the two earlier versions were not well known outside the developer community and were certainly not part of Apple's official marketing message for those releases. Why bring the cat theme back to the forefront now?
The answer came on the next slide. The next major release of Mac OS X would be called Lion. Jobs didn't make a big deal out of it; Lion's just another big cat name, right? Within seconds, we were on to the next slide, where Jobs was pitching the new release's message: not "king of the jungle" or "the biggest big cat," but the "back to the Mac" theme underlying the entire event. Mac OS X had spawned iOS, and now Apple was bringing innovations from its mobile operating system back to Mac OS X.
Apple had good reason to shy away from presenting Lion as the pinnacle that its name implies. The last two major releases of Mac OS X were both profoundly shaped by the meteoric rise of their younger sibling, iOS.
Steve Jobs presents the first seven releases of Mac OS X in a slightly unusual format
Leopard arrived later than expected, and in the same year that the iPhone was introduced. Its successor, Snow Leopard, famously arrived with no new features, concentrating instead on internal enhancements and bug fixes. Despite plausible official explanations, it was hard to shake the feeling that Apple's burgeoning mobile platform was stealing resources—not to mention the spotlight—from the Mac.
In this context, the name Lion starts to take on darker connotations. At the very least, it seems like the end of the big cat branding—after all, where can you go after Lion? Is this process of taking the best from iOS and bringing it back to the Mac platform just the first phase of a complete assimilation? Is Lion the end of the line for Mac OS X itself?
Let's put aside the pessimistic prognostication for now and consider Lion as a product, not a portent. Apple pegs Lion at 250+ new features, which doesn't quite match the 300 touted for Leopard, but I guess it all depends on what you consider a "feature" (and what that "+" is supposed to mean). Still, this is the most significant release of Mac OS X in many years—perhaps the most significant release ever. Though the number of new APIs introduced in Lion may fall short of the landmark Tiger and Leopard releases, the most important changes in Lion are radical accelerations of past trends. Apple appears tired of dragging people kicking and screaming into the future; with Lion, it has simply decided to leave without us.
Table of Contents
Installation
Reconsidering fundamentals
Lion's new look
Scroll bars
Window resizing
Animation
Here's to the crazy ones
Window management
Application management
Document model
Process model
The pitch
The reality
Internals
Security
Sandboxing
Privilege separation
Automatic Reference Counting
Enter (and exit) garbage collection
Cocoa memory management
Enter ARC
ARC versus garbage collection
ARC versus the world
The state of the file system
What's wrong with HFS+
File system changes in Lion
File system future
Document revisions
Resolution independence
Applications
The Finder
Mail
Safari
Grab bag
System Preferences
Auto-correction
Mobile Time Machine
Lock screen
Emoji
Terminal
About This Mac
Recommendations
Conclusion
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars
Stick to your penny stocks, guy.
Mossberg's review of Lion:
http://allthingsd.com/20110720/mossberg-lion-review/?mod=tweet
Well, yofal, did you ever stop to think that if you dropped by more often that we might be at $600 by now?
Apple Shares Soar Past $400 After Strong Earnings Report (WSJ)
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/07/19/apple-shares-soar-past-400-after-strong-earnings-report/
By Dave Kansas
Apple’s shares are trading above $400, up more than 6%, in after-hours trading following a blow-out earnings report.
The iEverything company seemed to hit on every cylinder. Fears of weak iPhone sales didn’t materialize, with more than 20 million units sold. That’s probably something that will cheer Verizon and AT&T.
Here’s a breakdown in revenue. Americas revenue was $10.13 billion, Europe brought in $7.1 billion, Japan $1.51 billion, Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) $6.33 billion. This spread illustrates why Apple has talked more about getting bigger in China.
Mac sales rose 14% compared with a year earlier, outperforming a moribundish PC market.
Gross margins edged up to 41.7% from 39.1%.
Some comments for the Apple faithful:
“We’re thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Right now, we’re very focused and excited about bringing iOS 5 and iCloud to our users this fall.”
“We are extremely pleased with our performance which drove quarterly cash flow from operations of $11.1 billion, an increase of 131 percent year-over-year,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $25 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $5.50.”
And more on that ginormous $76 billion cash pile over at Deal Journal.
Lion to be released tomorrow.
Now where's my iPhone5?
Yeah, they don't sell any product or have any income. It's all just newsletter hype.
You're joking, right?
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Q3 shipment stats: 20.3 million iPhones, 9.25 million iPads, 7.54 million iPods, 3.95 million Macs.
Apple FYQ3 Blows Away Estimates; Rev $28.6B, EPS $7.79
Apple Shares Halted Ahead Of FYQ3 Report
By Tiernan Ray
Apple (AAPL) this afternoon reported fiscal Q3 revenue and earnings per share well ahead of expectations.
Apple revenue in the June-ended quarter rose to $28.6 billion, yielding earnings per share of 7.79 per share.
Analysts on average were expecting $25 billion in revenue and $5.85 in EPS.
For fiscal Q4, Apple sees revenue of $25 billion and EPS of $5.50, below the consensus $27.7 billion annd $6.42.
Apple Conference Call Link
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq311/
AAPL: Piper Sees Miss On Mac Units; The Qtr To Own, Says Ticonderoga
By Tiernan Ray
Apple (AAPL) reports fiscal Q3 results in just a matter of hours. Too late to quarterback the quarter? Never.
Analysts are continue to tweak things. For example, Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray this morning opines that Apple’s sales of Mac desktops and laptops perhaps missed consensus estimates, coming in at 4 million to 4.2 million units in the quarter ended in June, below the 4.2 million consensus.
He’s basing that on an examination of NPD data released for each of the months of the quarter, which show 12% growth in Mac unit shipments in the quarter, year over year, in the U.S. That would appear to suggest that Mac sales “decelerated slightly” in the quarter while folks waited for new models of the MacBook “Air” laptops.
Münster reiterates an Overweight rating on Apple shares and a $554 price target. He’s not changing his estimate for the quarter, which stands at $24.49 billion in revenue and $5.51 per share in profit.
And Brian White with Ticonderoga this morning writes that the rally in Apple shares should continue on through tonight’s earning’s call and beyond, perhaps referring to the rally in Apple shares yesterday in the face of a terrible tape.
Apple stock this morning is up $2.84, or 0.8%, at $376.60, though it trails the broader market’s percentage gains, with the Nasdaq up 1.6%, at 2,808.
“Despite the recent rally, we believe tonight’s report will justify a continuation of this current leg up in the stock price that we have previously estimated could be a 100 plus point move and ultimately drive the stock to our $612 price target over the next year,” writes White.
White is modeling $25.9 billion in revenue this afternoon and $6.08 in EPS.
Again, the Street is looking for $25 billion in revenue and $5.85 per share in earnings.
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2011/07/19/aapl-piper-sees-miss-on-mac-units-the-qtr-to-own-says-ticonderoga/
AAPL at $629 come mid-2014?
http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/18/a-new-way-to-value-apple/
Well, one can hope.
Well, there's no guarantee about anything in today's market, is there?
Steve Jobs could kick the bucket tomorrow, for example.
All things said and done, however, I like Apple's prospects going forward.
Another all time high today with earnings tomorrow.
Not a bad time to be a shareholder.
Apple accounted for one-fifth of all US retail sales growth in Q1 2011
By Slash Lane
Published: 03:45 PM EST
Apple led U.S. retail growth in the first quarter of calendar 2011, accounting for a whopping 20 percent of all sales growth by publicly traded American retailers during the three-month period.
The data comes from retail sales expert David Berman, who told USA Today that he believes Apple's retail success is "mind-boggling." In the quarter which ended in March, Apple's U.S. sales saw an 80 percent increase by $4.6 billion.
"Total U.S. sales among public retailers, including auto parts dealers, Internet companies, and electronic retailers, grew by $23.2 billion in the first quarter, according to Berman's report," the story filed on Wednesday reads. "After Apple, the biggest chunk of U.S. sales growth came from Amazon.com and Wal-Mart stores."
During the three-month span to start 2011, Apple's retail sales were up 32 percent, and in-store revenue from Mac sales was up 90 percent. Revenue from retail stores was $3.18 billion, a year-over-year increase of 90 percent.
While the bulk of Apple's retail sales come from the U.S., where most of its stores are located, the international expansion of the iPhone maker's retail operations is playing an increasingly vital role. The company revealed in its last quarterly earnings call that international retail store volume now exceeds average U.S. store volume.
Apple plans to open a total of 40 new stores in fiscal 2011, with nearly three-quarters of those stores outside of America. One of those stores will be a new, massive two-story flagship shop located in Hong Kong.
While international expansion has become a priority, Apple also has big plans for its stores in the U.S. The company's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City is currently under renovation, as the company is spending $6.7 million to replace the giant 32-foot glass cube that serves as an entrance to the underground retail store.
Apple's Upper West Side store in New York City is one of its largest in America.
It's only appropriate that Apple's retail operations lead growth in the U.S., as 2011 has been a year of milestones for the brick-and-mortar stores of the American company. In May, Apple celebrated the tenth anniversary of its retail operations by placing interactive iPad displays in its stores to provide product information, pricing and features.
The huge success Apple has seen in retail was spearheaded by Ron Johnson, who announced in June that he would leave Apple to become the new president and chief executive of J.C. Penney. The Cupertino, Calif., company is "actively recruiting" for his replacement.
But Johnson was not alone in plotting Apple's rise to the top of retail. One recent report from The Wall Street Journal revealed that even Apple CEO Steve Jobs pays close attention to his company's retail business, and was even said to be "poring over blueprints for future Apple stores" when he was in the hospital for a liver transplant.
PC sales continue slump amid iPad takeover
By David Goldman @CNNMoneyTech July 13, 2011: 5:52 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Shipments of personal computers in the United States tumbled in the second quarter as manufacturers, retailers and consumers shift their focus to tablets.
PC shipments fell 5.6% at in the U.S. compared to the same three-month period a year ago, according Gartner. Worldwide PC sales grew just 2.3%, well below the tech consultancy's modest 6.7% growth forecast.
"Given the hype around media tablets such as the iPad, retailers were very conservative in placing orders for PCs," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "Instead, they wanted to secure space for media tablets."
The consumer PC market had been growing strongly since 2007, driven primarily by the rise of low-priced netbooks. Now, that segment of the market is being replaced by the iPad and, to a much lesser degree, some Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android, Research In Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows-based tablets.
Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has sold nearly 20 million iPads in their first year on store shelves. Meanwhile, U.S. PC manufacturers have been underselling their year-ago results by about a million devices.
Acer, the world's fourth-largest PC manufacturer, was the biggest loser. The Gateway owner shipped 20.4% fewer computers last quarter than it did a year ago.
By contrast, Lenovo's global shipments grew 22.5%.
In the U.S., No. 1 PC seller Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ, Fortune 500) shipments fell 1.2% and No. 2 Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) tumbled 9.8%.
HP's outlook sours on slumping PC sales
It wasn't all grim news. Apple, the country's third-largest PC seller, grew its shipments by 8.5%, putting to rest fears that iPad sales would cannibalize its Macintosh line. Apple frequently touts is so-called "halo effect," in which satisfied buyers of less expensive Apple items like iPods, iPhones and iPads buy the more expensive Macs for their next PC purchases.
Toshiba's U.S. shipments rose 3.3%, while all others fell 6.9%.
PC growth is mostly coming from emerging markets, particularly in the Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions, while PC sales in more mature markets like North America and Europe are sinking in favor of tablets.
But one source of growth in the mature markets the corporate world. Many companies are in the midst of a so-called "hardware refreshment cycle," in which they buy a slew of new PCs to replace their aging ones. The most recent refresh has been exacerbated by corporations stretching the life of their PCs in recent years due to the combination of the Great Recession and Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) unpopular Windows Vista operating system.
Overall, however, the PC market is "shifting to modest, but steady growth," Kitagawa said.
As a result of the tablet boom, Gartner said it expects PC shipments in the U.S. and other mature markets to grow less than 10% annually, on average, between 2011 and 2015 thanks to "a general loss in consumer enthusiasm for mobile PCs."
That represents a sizeable shift in Gartner's earlier expectations, which were colored by the belief that consumers would continue buying laptops as their second and third PCs. Gartner reduced its 2011 PC shipment growth forecast a whopping five percentage points, ratcheting it down from 15.9% to 10.5%.
JP Morgan: Apple stock still has 'gas in the tank' despite fluctuations
By Josh Ong
Published: 02:10 AM EST
J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz told investors Tuesday that shares of Apple stock remain a strong buy with "plenty of gas in the tank" for upward movement, in spite of recent volatility.
In a note to clients early Tuesday, Moskowitz said he expects Apple to beat both his estimates and the Wall Street consensus when it reports its third quarter of fiscal 2011 results next week. He attributed the stock's recent fluctuations to the change in investor expectations as a result of "iPhone 5 vs. iPhone 4-plus soothsaying and the speculation over iPad 2 shortages."
According to the analyst, concerns of shortages are "overdone," as the firm's research indicates that "most Apple stores are fully sourced." He also pointed to the recent shift in Apple's lead times for the iPad 2 from 1-2 weeks to 3-5 days as evidence that the company's supply woes have improved.
The firm's iPhone estimate for the June quarter stands at 17.5 million units, though Moskowitz suggests there is upside potential to the prediction. The analyst sees Apple selling 6.7 million iPads in the most recent quarter, also with upside potential. Finally, he notes that his Mac estimate of 3.9 million units may also be on the low end. Apple may also post better than expected results given the improved "component cost environment," excepting Hard Disk Drives.
Moskowitz and his colleagues believe Apple will release an "iPhone 4-plus" in August or September, holding off on the so-called iPhone 5 until 2012. They also agree with recent evidence of an upcoming refresh to the MacBook Air line and suggested that the new ultra-portable Macs will see a price cut.
J.P. Morgan sees recent downtrends as bottoming out relatively soon, while noting that Apple is expected to remain a "top pick" for offsetting "low expectations and macroeconomic issues." The analyst attributes recent weakness among technology stocks to "the Japanese supply chain disruption and rising commodity cost." After a large earthquake and tsunami struck Japan earlier this year, some suppliers and component manufacturers were affected, though Apple has said the disaster did not make meaningfully impact iPad 2 production.
"Our view is that these negative factors have partially faded, which could lead to improving global production activity," Moskowitz wrote. He believes that investors will soon regain confidence in technology stocks, which will pick back up as issues decline.
Shares of Apple fell 1.59 percent to $354.00 on Monday. The stock has bounced back from a year-to-date low of $315.32 on June 20.
Some interesting reading re AAPL valuation in five years:
http://aaplmodel.blogspot.com/2011/07/get-aapl-for-free-yet-another.html#more
Apple iOS more secure than Android...
Symantec has reported that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iOS is more secure than Google Android.
The competition between the Mac Maker and the search major is getting stronger everyday, and the latest report from Symantec, a leading security firm, says that the mobile operating system from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is more secure than Google’s Android.
It was reported that iOS is more resistant to threats including hacking, data loss and malware.
Symantec said that, “Google does not appear to perform a rigorous security analysis of applications posted to its Android Marketplace”.
More here:
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/hard-nosed_thoughts_on_apple_closed_open_systems/
If you didn't already know that.
Final Cut Pro X Q&A:
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/faq/
Bloggers vs. Pros on Apple's Q3: Yet another $2 billion gap
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt June 26, 2011: 11:34 AM ET
If you ask about sales in the quarter that just ended, you get three very different answers
Sources: Apple 2.0 poll, Thomson Financial, Apple Inc.
Apple's (AAPL) third fiscal quarter of 2011 ended Saturday at midnight. How did it go? That depends whom you ask.
In April, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer told analysts he expected Apple to earn $5.03 per share on sales of $23 billion. But given how Apple tends to low-ball its forward-looking guidance, nobody really believed him.
The consensus of nearly four dozen professional analysts, according to Thomson Financial on Friday, is that Apple will report earnings of $5.63 on sales of $24.52 billion, up 52% from Apple's revenue in the same quarter last year.
Over the weekend, we polled our regular panel of amateur analysts and got estimates from nine of them, including Jeff Fosberg of the Apple Finance Board, Bullish Cross' Andy Zaky and Asymco's Horace Dediu, who came in 1st, 2nd and 5th, respectively, in last quarter's earnings smackdown.
The amateur's consensus for Q3: earnings of $6.73 on sales of $26.44 -- up nearly 70% year over year.
This marks the third quarter in a row that the amateurs' revenue estimates were more than $2 billion higher than the professionals'. (See here and here.)
If you're wondering on whom to put your chips, the amateurs as a group have outperformed the pros every quarter for the past 10. In Q1, they underestimated Apple's earnings by 1% compared with the pros' 9% miss. In Q2 they overestimated by 3% while the pros underestimated by nearly 6%.
Do you? You're the one who's always posting "BREAKING" news as if it were gospel truth -- w/o taking the time to digest it.
Elgan: The rise and rise (and rise) of Apple's iOS
Apple's iPhone and iPad are taking over mobile, just as mobile is taking over everything. What does it all mean?
By Mike Elgan
June 25, 2011 07:00 AM ET
Computerworld - When the first iOS gadget shipped in 2007, The New York Times' David Pogue published a list of questions about the new iPhone. The last question on the list was: "Who on earth would buy this thing?"
It's a question nobody would ask today. The phone, and Apple's other mobile devices that run the iOS are succeeding beyond anyone's predictions. Apple says the iOS is currently installed on more than 200 million devices.
Another small thing happened in 2007 that has become a big thing: Apple filed a patent request for the capacitive touch screen used by the iPhone, iPad and, in fact, by nearly all of Apple's competitors in the market. That patent was granted this week.
One possible outcome of the inevitable court cases to come is that competitors may have to pay Apple a licensing fee for every non-Apple smartphone or tablet shipped.
Since its 2007 launch, there has always been a lot of hype around the iPhone far beyond actual market share. The many brands that run the Android OS collectively own more market share both globally and in the U.S. than the iPhone. And internationally, handsets from giants like Nokia have maintained more sales than those from Apple.
But all this appears to be changing. In the first quarter of this year, Android phone market share declined nearly 3%, while iOS's share rose by more than 12%. Android still has nearly half the smartphone market, and Apple significantly less than that (about 30%.)
These changing fortunes could represent a temporary blip caused by Apple's availability on Verizon. Or it could be a trend.
Another possible trend is the decline and fall of Nokia. That company's smartphone handset market share dropped from 24% to 16% in one year. Apple remained at 17% share while the overall pie grew significantly.
When the iPhone shipped in 2007, nobody -- and I mean nobody -- predicted that Apple would sell more handsets worldwide than Nokia within four years.
A recent survey measuring Web traffic by various devices found that some 97% of all tablet traffic in the United States comes from iPads. And if you think that's high, the number is 100% in Japan and 99% in the UK. (The global average is 89%.)
All these market share and traffic numbers mask a stark business reality: Apple makes vastly more money from mobile devices than its competitors.
Firstly, Apple makes money from handsets, which Google no longer sells. Secondly, Apple makes money from apps -- far more per app than any other platform, and far more apps. For example, last year Google earned about $102 million from apps sales, while Apple raked in $1.7 billion.
Apple's iOS is even more profitable than Microsoft Windows -- 2.3 times higher.
App developers point out that iOS is easier to develop for and monetize than the Google Android platform, and presumably other competitors as well.
The success of iOS devices thus far is nothing compared with what's coming. One report says Apple has ordered two manufacturers to build enough iPhone 5 handsets to sell 15 million in the first month of sales. The new phone is expected to launch in August or September.
A study coming from the Yankee Group next month finds that about 40% of all smartphone buyers in Europe say they intend to buy an iPhone next time they buy a phone.
A reasonably credible rumor from a blogger in China says that China's biggest carrier, China Mobile, will soon announce a deal to sell the iPhone 5.
The current iPhone is available in China only from the No. 2 carrier. Such an announcement would suggest a radical increase in iPhone sales in the world's largest country, and one with an incredible 910 million mobile phone subscribers, where the iPhone is very popular.
Apple currently dominates the tablet market, having sold 25 million iPads to date and possibly over 14 million more iPads in the third quarter. But one analyst believes Apple will sell a billion of them.
OK, OK. It's clear that Apple's iOS is beyond successful, and threatens to dominate global mobile sales in the foreseeable future.
The reason this is significant is that as Apple comes to dominate mobile computing, mobile computing increasingly dominates computing in general.
Over the next five years, we'll see more people using phones and tablets as their main computing device. And I think we can also expect to see current desktop platforms like Mac OS X, Windows and Linux replaced by touch-friendly interfaces like iOS, Android, Metro and so on.
In other words, Apple's iOS is poised to take over mainstream computing.
Mike Elgan writes about technology and tech culture. Contact and learn more about Mike at Elgan.com, or subscribe to his free e-mail newsletter, Mike's List
[Plenty of internal links in the original article.]
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9217929/Elgan_The_rise_and_rise_and_rise_of_Apple_s_iOS?taxonomyId=15&pageNumber=1
Microsoft’s confusing, buggy Sync sinks Ford’s J.D. Power quality ratings
Thursday, June 23, 2011 · 2:32 pm · 44 Comments
“Ford tumbled from a fifth place ranking in last year’s J.D. Power Initial Quality ranking all the way down to 23rd this year,” Peter Valdes-Dapena reports for CNN Money. “Ford Motor Co.’s luxury brand, Lincoln, dropped, too, but not quite as far. Lincoln dropped from 8th place in the survey last year to 17th this year.”
“Much of Ford’s trouble has to do with the latest version of its Sync entertainment and phone system, said David Sargent, vice president of global vehicle research at J.D. Power. The latest version of Sync is incorporated into a complex new interface called MyFord Touch,” Valdes-Dapena reports. “‘People were finding several problems with the system in that it would crash, freeze, black out,’ said Sargent. ‘Beyond that, people complained that it was more complex to use than they would like.’”
Valdes-Dapena reports, “Ford has said that it is working to fix the bugs in the MyFord Touch Sync system created in partnership with Microsoft…”
David Pogue on Final Cut Pro X:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/professional-video-editors-weigh-in-on-final-cut-pro-x/?ref=personaltechemail&nl=technology&emc=cta1
A little bit more measured take than the previous one. (Conan O'Brien? Really?)
"The Bottom Line: Apple has followed the typical Apple sequence: (1) throw out something that’s popular and comfortable but increasingly ancient, (2) replace it with something that’s slick and modern and forward-looking and incomplete, (3) spend another year finishing it up, restoring missing pieces.
"Professional editors should (1) learn to tell what’s really missing from what’s just been moved around, (2) recognize that there’s no obligation to switch from the old program yet, (3) monitor the progress of FCP X and its ecosystem, and especially (4) be willing to consider that a radical new design may be unfamiliar, but may, in the long term, actually be better."
That would be OK by me.
The Magic of iOS 5!
The Henry Blodget byline on that one is about all you need to know.
WWDC Live Coverage here:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/06/live-from-san-fancisco-steve-jobs-unveils-the-icloud/
LOL! I've got the old version w/o camera. But I'll keep that in mind when I upgrade.
iPad's best kept little secret...
Best throne room computer ever!
Seriously!
Yeah, sweet, innit?
Now where's my damn iPhone5?
Apple Acquires 200+ Patents from Freescale Semiconductor
Monday May 23, 2011 2:58 pm PDT by Arnold Kim
According to PatentlyO, Apple has recently recorded the receipt of 200 patents and pending patent applications from the electronics company Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. Freescale was originally a division of Motorola but was spun off in 2003. The patents reportedly represent a wide range of topics related to computer hardware and wireless devices.
it is unclear from the information now available whether (1) Apple obtained full title to the patents and (2) whether Apple purchased the rights or obtained them through some other type of transaction.
It's not clear what Apple's intentions are with the patents or if they were part of some sort of settlement.
[via iPodNN]
I have no idea what this implies. Could mean Nothing, could be Big.
How to avoid or remove Mac Defender malware
Last Modified: May 24, 2011
Article: HT4650
Summary
A recent phishing scam has targeted Mac users by redirecting them from legitimate websites to fake websites which tell them that their computer is infected with a virus. The user is then offered Mac Defender "anti-virus" software to solve the issue.
This “anti-virus” software is malware (i.e. malicious software). Its ultimate goal is to get the user's credit card information which may be used for fraudulent purposes.
The most common names for this malware are MacDefender, MacProtector and MacSecurity.
In the coming days, Apple will deliver a Mac OS X software update that will automatically find and remove Mac Defender malware and its known variants. The update will also help protect users by providing an explicit warning if they download this malware.
In the meantime, the Resolution section below provides step-by-step instructions on how to avoid or manually remove this malware.
Products Affected
Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.6, Mac OS X 10.5
Resolution
How to avoid installing this malware
If any notifications about viruses or security software appear, quit Safari or any other browser that you are using. If a normal attempt at quitting the browser doesn’t work, then Force Quit the browser.
In some cases, your browser may automatically download and launch the installer for this malicious software. If this happens, cancel the installation process; do not enter your administrator password. Delete the installer immediately using the steps below.
Go into the Downloads folder or your preferred download location.
Drag the installer to the Trash.
Empty the Trash.
How to remove this malware
If the malware has been installed, we recommend the following actions:
Do not provide your credit card information under any circumstances.
Use the Removal Steps below.
Removal steps
Move or close the Scan Window
Go to the Utilities folder in the Applications folder and launch Activity Monitor
Choose All Processes from the pop up menu in the upper right corner of the window
Under the Process Name column, look for the name of the app and click to select it; common app names include: MacDefender, MacSecurity or MacProtector
Click the Quit Process button in the upper left corner of the window and select Quit
Quit Activity Monitor application
Open the Applications folder
Locate the app ex. MacDefender, MacSecurity, MacProtector or other name
Drag to Trash, and empty Trash
Malware also installs a login item in your account in System Preferences. Removal of the login item is not necessary, but you can remove it by following the steps below.
Open System Preferences, select Accounts, then Login Items
Select the name of the app you removed in the steps above ex. MacDefender, MacSecurity, MacProtector
Click the minus button
Use the steps in the “How to avoid installing this malware” section above to remove the installer from the download location.
Note: Apple provides security updates for the Mac exclusively through Software Update and the Apple Support Downloads site. User should exercise caution any time they are asked to enter sensitive personal information online.
May 25, 2011SAN FRANCISCO—An analyst raised his earnings estimate and price target forApple Inc. Wednesday, citing demand for the iPad and expectations for the release of a new iPhone by early next year.
In a client note, Wedbush analyst Scott Sutherland reiterated his "Outperform" rating for the stock and increased his price target by $5, to $450. The analyst also raised his fiscal 2011 net income estimate to $24.71 per share from $24.30 per share and revenue estimate to $103.5 billion from $102.9 billion. Sutherland said he would buy shares due to continuing demand for Apple's products and the stock's value.
Expectations for beating earnings estimates are "becoming rightfully subdued" and an all-new iPhone probably won't be launched for another six months, with a slightly updated version in the meantime, he said. Still, "we believe Apple still has enough horsepower to drive continued revenue growth" and higher earnings estimates, he said.
For the past several years, Apple has released a new iPhone during the summer, but this year it is expected to arrive later than usual. Sutherland expects a slightly improved version of the iPhone to arrive in September that includes features such as a more powerful processor. He's expecting a more overhauled version by January that can work on Verizon's and AT&T's high-speed "4G" networks and that has an improved user interface and includes access to some sort of cloud service for data access and storage.
Sutherland raised his shipment estimate for the existing iPhone to 18.6 million devices for the quarter that ends in June, up from an earlier estimate of 17.7 million devices.
The analyst raised his iPad shipment estimates too, due to high demand for the tablet computer, but said this is "tempered by supply constraints," which could be restricting growth. He expects the company will have shipped 5.5 million iPads in the quarter that ends in June, compared with an earlier estimate for just over 5 million.
Gene Munster: At $340 Apple Still Dirt Cheap
Published: Wednesday, 25 May 2011 | 6:26 PM ET Text Size
By: Michelle Fox
Apple [AAPL 336.78 4.59 (+1.38%) ] is “just dirt cheap,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said Wednesday. “This is a great time to own it.”
Munster dismissed issues surrounding the tech giant that include the delay in releasing the iPhone 5 and its iPad supply issues.
“People are going to buy their products anyway,” Munster said. “They’re the best products on the market, so these delays don’t impact demand.”
And the analyst, who reiterated his 'overweight' rating and $554 price target Wednesday morning, believes there is still room for growth. He anticipated 20 to 30 percent earnings growth in a couple years. He also said AAPL can earn $48 in 2014, which he calls a conservative number.
Not only is there room for expansion in the iPhone and iPad markets, Munster expects Apple to come out with a television within the next two to three years. And once people start talking about that new product category, it should send the multiple higher. But even if the multiple doesn’t move up, Munster said you can still own it for positive earnings revisions.
However, “Fast Money” trader Guy Adami feels rather differently. “Up until today,” he said, “I think you can say that the price action over the last month, month and a half has been disappointing.”
He believes AAPL will be tethered to moves in the S&P and should the market make a sharp move lower, Apple will make an even larger percentage decline.
What do you think? Vote in our poll now!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43173091/
Google is your friend.
Or not.
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=apple+%2B+kodak+%2B+patent&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Apple itself rarely comments on such matters for public consumption.
Google and Amazon suffer a setback as the music industry, once again, puts its trust in Steve Jobs
Apple inks deals with 2 music labels, 2 more set to sign
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt May 19, 2011: 7:56 AM ET
CNET's Greg Sandoval, who reported last month that Warner Music (WMG) had signed a deal with Apple (AAPL) to make its content library available on a new music streaming service, broke the newslate Thursday that EMI had also come on board and that deals with Sony (SNE) and Universal could be wrapped up as early as next week.
If this plays out as Sandoval predicts, Apple may be in a position to announce at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6 that it has done for music stored on third-party servers (A.K.A the "cloud") what it did for music stored on personal computers: Persuade the big four labels -- who control 80% of the U.S. music market but whose revenue stream is being drained by music piracy -- to put their faith in Apple.
It was on the strength of the deals Steve Jobs signed with the labels nearly a decade ago that iTunes became the world's largest music store and the foundation on which Apple built the iPod into a multibillion-dollar hardware franchise -- one that now includes the iPhone and the iPad.
In the new version of the iTunes store, high-quality copies of the music labels' songs would be stored on Apple's servers. Apple, with the users' permission, would scan their Macs or Windows PCs to see what songs they owned. The users would then have free access to those songs on Apple's servers whenever they wanted and on any device they owned.
Amazon (AMZN) this year launched a similar service and Google (GOOG) is testing another (both are reviewed by Walt Mossberg in Thursday's Wall Street Journal). But neither Amazon nor Google were able to come to terms with the music labels, which meant that to get the same streaming access, users would first have to upload their entire music libraries, a process that can take days.
Ironically, Amazon and Google's preemptive strikes may have driven the labels into Apple's arms.
According to CNET's Sandoval, "The hope in the music industry is that Apple's music service will make the competing offerings look shabby by comparison and force Amazon and Google to pay the licensing rates the labels are asking."