Experienced Mac users may not have the perspective that it takes to see what makes Windows users stay with Microsoft, and let’s face it, some Mac users (not you or me, of course) are just downright zealots.

4. Price
The perception by Windows users is that Macs are more expensive than Windows PCs. This may have been true in the past, but the new Macs are very comparably priced to similarly equipped PCs. Unfortunately, the perception remains.

5. Lies
Let’s face it: Apple tends to bend the truth once in a while, especially about Microsoft and Windows.

I remember watching the 20 or 30 minute Vista-bashing session at the WWDC conference and wondering why Steve Jobs is so insecure that he has to berate the opposition. Can you imagine shopping for a car and having the salesman only talk about what’s wrong with the competition’s cars?

8. Mac Users
Okay, I’m not talking about you or me here, but there are some Mac users out there who have just a little too much love for Apple. When they are shouting (or typing in all caps) about how much better Macs are, they’re not convincing anyone to switch, they are scaring them away.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod, Mac, PC, Vista

Microsoft had their chance at defining a market. They pushed for the creation of the Ultramobile PCs (“UMPCs”). The Windows-based mini-tablets have not found their market. However, the Apple iPhone (and now the iPod touch) is actually the UMPC done right.

Labels: Apple, Internet, iPhone, Mac, PC

I blame Steve Jobs [for] seduced me into buying his sleek machines, even if their delicate organs seem to fail with alarming regularity, like the beautiful consumptive heroines in Victorian novels.

Steve--we'll call him Steve because he seems like a first-name-basis kind of guy--is the human incarnation of the average Apple product: He's good-looking, he overpromises, and he's notoriously temperamental. He evokes the feel-good indie populism synonymous with the company's brand and manages to retain a solid reputation as a creative person while managing a $118 billion business.

The image is, of course, a facade. The dollar-a-year salaryman has been rewarded with at least one corporate jet.

We forgive Steve in a way that we won't [Bill] Gates. We do this because outward appearances are important to us, and the products are a reflection of how we think of ourselves. Apple products are stylish and innovative. (We're stylish and innovative!) We love Steve for the same reason. He's creative and he seems appealingly antiestablishment. (We're creative and antiestablishment!)

Labels: Apple, iPhone, Mac, PC

The iPhone is a closed system, like the iPods before it, so third parties can only develop software for it if they are EXTREMELY close to Apple. This is an incredibly frightening trend. As Apple gets more and more of its revenue from non-Mac devices, they are also getting more and more of their revenue from devices that simply exclude third parties.

On iPods, Airports, Apple TVs, and now iPhones, Apple wants every app perfect. Which is nice, in theory. In practice, it means innovation only happens at Apple's pace. The marketplace of ideas is much smaller, and the devices are much poorer because of it. (Example: Why can't I stream music from my iPhone or iPod touch to my Airport Express?)

[With] the latest iPods Apple [have] gone a step further, and disabled some docking stations that don't have a special chip in them provided by Apple; forcing customers to use only Apple-approved accessories. Apple's emulating the most pernicious qualities of Nintendo and the Microsoft XBox -- you pay us a tax or you don't work with our systems.

Apple's "approval" just comes from Apple getting a cut. It's a measure of greed, not quality. We're not talking about THX-certification here, we're talking about extortion. This kind of lock-in seems very appealing for the company doing the locking early on, but it always, ALWAYS ends up biting the company in the butt.

Then we come to ringtones. Every phone I've owned in the last ten years has allowed to make my own ringtones. But since Apple is so close to the record companies, and they are already so grumpy with Apple, Apple did a deal that benefits record companies and Apple. Not artists, certainly not consumers.

A million customers don't get to do something cool with their iPhones. Because of greed.

Now we see that iPod owners who upgrade to a newer iPod must re-buy the games they've already bought, because the new iPods are incompatible with the old. No credit given for having already bought an identical game.

Steve ... give up on trying to control everything. It's only going to keep hurting Apple, more and more, to control content and hardware and software. It's going to make them into the kind of mega-monopoly that we always, ALWAYS end up hating. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. 100% of the time.

Apple should license FairPlay, or allow iPods to play PlaysForSure music. Either one. Basically, Apple should allow other music stores to sell DRM'ed music that works on iPods and iPhones.

Faced with the choice between doing what’s right for customers or charging them money for something they shouldn’t need to pay for, Apple chose the latter. There is no middle ground. And any business that hinges on your customers “not knowing any better” is a bad business.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

Apple President Steve Jobs reiterated his commitment to charging the same price for iTunes downloads across Europe as his lawyers defended the company on Wednesday against allegations its prices are not uniform.

"We think prices should be the same. We think anybody in Europe should buy off any store," Jobs told a press conference in Berlin, which he visited in connection with an iPhone deal.

At the same time, Apple officials were defending the company in Brussels.

The Commission charged in April that Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group and Warner Music Group were forcing Apple to curtail cross-border access to iTunes.

Labels: Apple, iPod, iTunes

Randall Stross of The New York Times opines on an issue that was all the rage last year as Apple delayed Leopard again and again, eliminating any possibility that the company could capitalize on Microsoft's own delays:

The Mac's worldwide market share was 3 percent as of June 2007, according to Roger L. Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, a consulting firm in Wayland, Mass. That forlorn number looks even worse compared with Apple's peak worldwide share of 14 percent in 1984, the year the Macintosh was introduced and sales of Apple II computers were the company's mainstay.

Apple's share was as low as 2 percent as recently as early 2004. The increase to 3 percent may be a result of the 'halo effect' produced by the success of the iPod. It could also just as easily be attributed to Apple's simply offering better products at more competitive prices.

Steven P. Jobs, Apple's co-founder and chief executive, can hardly be satisfied with a 3 percent share after more than 20 years of selling the Mac. Consider whether Mr. Jobs would be able to deem the iPod a success if it had gained only 3 percent of the market for portable players. After all, he gave Microsoft's poor Zune exactly one month to succeed before he mocked the Zune's 2 percent market share at the Macworld conference in January.

The best time for gaining market share is when your main competitor stumbles while introducing an entirely new version of its core product. Thanks to Microsoft's lumbering pace, Mr. Jobs had six years to look forward to the moment when XP would be replaced by Vista.

The official line from Apple is that all has gone swimmingly. The company said it shipped 1.52 million Macs in the first quarter of this year, up 35 percent from the year-ago quarter. In the second quarter through June 30, it shipped 1.76 million Macs, up 32 percent from a year ago, an all-time quarterly record.

Funny thing, though: based on the ratio of Windows and Macs actually in use, no gains can be seen for Apple.

The Mac's share of personal computers has actually edged a bit lower since Vista's release in January, and the various flavors of Windows a bit higher, according to Net Applications.

This guy goes out of his way to explain how poorly Vista is doing from both a sales and compatibility standpoint, which is sort of astonishing given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This poor reporting of facts may invalidate the entire article somewhat. (He gets market share data from Endpoint, which presumably measures sales, and then compares it with data from Net Applications, which measures Web usages. These are two completely different things.)

My own analysis of Apple's market share in the PC market shows that the Mac is up, year-over-year, and has been steadily rising for some time. It's hard to grow market share dramatically when you're starting from such a low place, as I've also demonstrated in the past. My conclusion is that the Mac is gaining on Windows at a slow pace, sure, but gaining nonetheless. The reasons are simple: Apple makes good products, people like the iPods are are willing to investigate the Mac, and some Windows customers are tired of the issues that naturally arise in a non-monolithic ecosystem where ever piece of what makes a PC a PC comes from a different company. That Apple bobbled its chance during Vista's innumerable delays in not debatable. But now that Vista is out, there's no change in the big picture, and Apple will simply continue its small market share gains for the foreseeable future. In short, this article is all over the place, and doesn't really hit on the reality of what's happening here at all.

Labels: Apple, Mac

Forbes takes a look at a product Apple seems to have all but ignored since it was first released last year:

iTV is a flat-out iFlop. Renamed Apple TV upon launch, the ballyhooed box has sold perhaps 250,000 units--far behind the 1 million sold for the iPhone, which was priced twice as high and has been on the market less than half as long. Apple ... provides detailed sales data for the iPod and other digital wonders but won't reveal any numbers for Apple TV; apparently the truth is too humiliating.

Jobs' own ambivalence about the iFlop, however, is evident. At a tech conference in May Jobs took the stage and casually dismissed Apple TV as merely "a hobby." In briefing Wall Street on quarterly earnings on July 25, Apple execs ignored the video product.

Jobs confined Apple TV to handling only the content you could get through Apple's own iTunes. This parochial and proprietary approach, in an increasingly open, Internet-infused world, had relegated the company's Macintosh line to a narrow slice of sales. Yet it also had let the iPod dominate online music, which may be why Jobs believed he could pull off the same thing in video. Wrong.

So here's the thing. In the days leading up to the Apple TV's release, I bemoaned the fact that it lacked DVR capabilities and thus could never be real competition for Microsoft's excellent Media Center software (available since 2002) and Media Center Extender hardware (available since 2004). That's still true today, and as I noted in my review of the Apple TV, the device is really just "an iPod designed for your living room instead of your pocket. It is simply yet another way to consume content purchased from Apple's nearly-ubiquitous iTunes Store." I award the thing 3 out of 5 stars and declared that it is "big on hype but short on functionality."

But is it a flop?

Maybe. I do like the idea of the Apple TV, though again, it's hugely diminished without DVR functionality. If you've completely bought into the Apple digital media ecosystem, it works pretty well. But even then there are limitations: You still can't buy any HD content on iTunes, relegating the box's 720p display capabilities moot. And if you rip your own DVDs to MPEG-4 or H.264 you have some choices to make, as the Apple TV can play back 640 x whatever movies aimed at the iPod, but the reverse isn't true of the slightly higher-resolution movies the Apple TV supports, but the iPod does not. The whole thing is kind of a mess. Technologically, the Apple TV is a mixed bag.

If these sales figures are to be believed, the Apple TV is a sales flop as well. If this were Microsoft, we'd all knowingly nod our heads at the notion that the company would simply issue a few upgrades and eventually get it right. But this is Apple, which tends to bolt from defeats, especially the high profile ones, as quickly as possible.And that's a shame, because the Apple TV could have turned into a cool product. For me, the most damning evidence that this will never happen is Jobs himself and his comments about it being "a hobby". It's just too bad.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPod, iTunes

The immediate effect on supply-and-demand is not the only issue at stake when it comes to this (or any other) price-cutting decision: it also impacts the perception of authenticity ... we treat Apple as an exemplar of what we call "original authenticity." Almost everything Apple designs -- from its gorgeous computers and sleek iPods to its retail experiences -- seeks to stimulate in customers a sense of discovery and self-exploration. But what this decision seems to do -- and what the reaction from early iPhone adopters bears out -- is lessen the originality of the concept. It's clearly a swing for the masses, leaving behind those who saw themselves in the uniqueness of the design. It says the iPhone is a commodity like any other phone, not original enough even in its own designer's eyes to maintain a premium price. We thought the real Apple was better than that.

Jobs is being a bit disingenuous when he says, "This is life in the technology lane." No, such an immediate price decrease is highly unusual, smacking of desperation. Perhaps the iPhone isn't really the original breakthrough that Apple says it is -- but an iPhony! In this lies a lesson for all businesses: don't sacrifice long-term authenticity of your brand or your business for short-term revenue gain, as sustaining revenue over time hangs in the balance.

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Early adopters of the iPhone weren't the only ones receiving in-store credit from Steve Jobs. In an overlooked announcement, Jobs said that early adopters of the Apple Lisa would be receiving a $7000 in-store credit.

Apple released the Lisa in January of 1983 for $9,995, and the similar Macintosh was released a year later for $2,495.

"I've felt bad about people who bought the Lisa for a long time. Anybody who bought one of the first Apple Lisas really got screwed," said Jobs. "Now that we've got some cash, I think it's about time we made it right."

Analysts think that Jobs could be setting a bad precedent which could cost Apple millions. "What about Newton owners? Apple III owners? This could quickly get out of hand," said industry watcher Devon Scanlon from Goldman Sachs.

Labels: Apple, Humor, iPhone

Let me get this straight: Steve Jobs insists that songs on iTunes cost 99 cents and television episodes cost $1.99 because consumers crave simple pricing.

Except, of course, when it comes to Apple’s own products.

There were wrinkles created by all the dynamic pricing. Customers who paid $599 when the iPhone came out two months ago saw their status drop from early adopter to, well, sucker, after Mr. Jobs cut the price of the device by a third. After Mr. Jobs was crucified for playing it too cute on the so-called “Jesus phone,” he issued a non-apology apology and a $100 store credit to help those early buyers salvage some dignity.

A pricing error? Absolutely. And when you think about it, the media companies Mr. Jobs is fighting with want the opportunity to make the same mistake.

Apple saying it would not carry television shows from the coming NBC season because the network wanted double the $1.99 price and NBC saying that was not true.

“Apple is not telling the truth. We never asked to double the wholesale price of our shows," said Cory Shields, a spokesman for NBC Universal. “Our negotiations were centered on our request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that could make our content even more attractive for consumers.”

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPhone, iPod, iTunes

Newsweek:

Last Wednesday Jobs donned his costume of black mock turtleneck and jeans-like Olivier dabbing on the greasepaint-and unveiled to a San Francisco crowd of media and employees a bunch of cool stuff. But this time Jobs lost control of his story.

In June, as you can't help but know, the iPhone became Apple's most-hyped product ever, so much so that the company's fate became intertwined with the groundbreaking device.

Before he left the stage, Jobs dropped a bomb: Apple cut the price of the iPhone from $599 to $399. Slashing the price by $100 might have been high-tech business as usual. But slashing the price tag by a third, only two months after hogging high tech's red carpet, was startling. And it became the story of the day. Since reports had been rife that sales of iPhones weren't soaring, some critics opined that this drastic cut was born of desperation. And wouldn't those who bought one at the higher price now feel like suckers?

Jobs ... was making a timely gamble. A lot of people are going to be giving phones as holiday presents, and Apple's research, he says, shows that they want to choose an iPhone but believe it costs too much. Bringing the price down means making the sale. "We have one chance to go out and go for the holiday season," he said to me. "If we don't take that chance, we wait a whole other year. We're willing to make less money to get more iPhones out there." What about people who just bought one for $599? "I feel for them," he said. "But, you know, we're not harming anybody."

(I find it ironic that the same Apple fans who in June were lofting their newly acquired iPhones in the air like they'd won the Stanley Cup are now complaining that they paid too much.)

Then you don't understand the mentality of these people, Mr. Levy. They're proud and defensive about their insular little private club. Now that they've been revealed as stooges, these guys have lost their cachet and thus their sense of self and ego. Not only are millions and millions of people suddenly getting into their club, they're doing so at a vastly reduced price. Imagine buying a Lexus for $40,000 and then watching the company put it on sale for $25,000 two months later. And no, you didn't get $15,000 worth of use out of in two months, delusional self-justification notwithstanding.

Anyway, Levy is right about one thing: The iPhone price cut certainly did overshadow the new iPods. But that's brilliant, because Apple will sell tens of millions of these new iPods this year regardless. Now they can sell millions of iPhone too. Brilliant.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod

Apple announced a variety of new and kinda-new iPods dominated by the iPod Touch (iPhone minus the phone) and an iPod Nano with video (great for watching miniseries). At the very end of the presentation, Jobs announced the iPhone price cut. Why did he wait until the very end? Because he knew the news would be disruptive and might have obscured his presentation of the new products. He KNEW there was going to be controversy. So much for the “Steve is simply out of touch with the world” theory.

So why did he do it? Why did he cut the price? I have no inside information here, but it seems pretty obvious to me: Apple introduced the iPhone at $599 to milk the early adopters and somewhat limit demand then dropped the price to $399 (the REAL price) to stimulate demand now that the product is a critical success and relatively bug-free. At least 500,000 iPhones went out at the old price, which means Apple made $100 million in extra profit.

Had nobody complained, Apple would have left it at that. But Jobs expected complaints and had an answer waiting — the $100 Apple store credit. This was no knee-jerk reaction, either. It was already there just waiting if needed. Apple keeps an undeserved $50 million and customers get $50 million back. Or do they? Some customers will never use their store credit. Those who do use it will nearly all buy something that costs more than $100. And, most importantly, those who bought their iPhones at an AT&T store will have to make what might be their first of many visits to an Apple Store. That is alone worth the $50 per customer this escapade will eventually cost Apple, taking into account unused credits and Apple Store wholesale costs.

So Apple still comes out $75 million ahead, which is important to Steve Jobs.

Steve has a love-hate relationship with, well, everyone. Customers buy Apple products and they appreciate Steve’s design and market sense, but they also have opinions and NEEDS — two characteristics Jobs (and for that matter almost any CEO) would like to do without.

So Steve slapped his customers around a bit and what happened? Apple got free publicity worth tens of millions and the iPhone, which was already the top-selling smartphone in the world, will now sell two million units by the end of the year, up from an estimated one million. And Steve, having deliberately alienated his best customers, now gets a chance to woo them back. He has finally placed millions of people in the role of every key Apple employee — being alternately seduced and tormented. In this case the torment is over and the seduction will come next month when Apple ships OS X 10.5 (Leopard) — the company’s last chance to position its products for Christmas. Look for 1-2 very un-Leopard surprises at that event — surprises intended to get us all dreamy-eyed over Steve Jobs again.

Labels: Apple, iPhone

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it.

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane.

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple's website next week. Stay tuned.

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod, Zune

Apple today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes Store (www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

“We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers.”

Apple’s agreement with NBC ends in December. Since NBC would withdraw their shows in the middle of the television season, Apple has decided to not offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming television season beginning in September. NBC supplied iTunes with three of its 10 best selling TV shows last season, accounting for 30 percent of iTunes TV show sales.

Labels: Apple, iTunes

NBC Universal has decided not to renew its contract to sell television shows on iTunes, becoming the second major media company to challenge Apple Inc's dominance in digital entertainment.

NBC Universal had demanded more control over pricing for digital downloads of its shows, which include "Battlestar Gallactica" and "Heroes," said a source familiar with the matter on Friday, confirming a New York Times report.

A spokeswoman for NBC Universal confirmed it will not renew the contract and declined to elaborate. NBC Universal is the No. 1 supplier of digital video to the online store, accounting for about 40 percent of downloads.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iTunes

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Labels: Apple, iPhone

This update provides important bug fixes and is recommended for 20-inch and 24-inch iMac models with 2.0, 2.4, or 2.8GHz processors.

Labels: Apple, Mac

Apple today unveiled an all new all-in-one iMac line featuring gorgeous 20- and 24-inch widescreen displays encased in elegant and professional aluminum and glass enclosures. The entire new iMac line features the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors and a new, ultra-thin aluminum Apple Keyboard, built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing and iLife '08, making it the ultimate digital lifestyle desktop computer for both consumers and professionals. The 20-inch iMac now starts at just $1,199, $300 less than the previous 20-inch model, and the 24-inch iMac starts at just $1,799, $200 less than the previous 24-inch model.

Apple today announced significant enhancements to its .Mac online service, highlighted by the debut of .Mac Web Gallery, a new feature for sharing photos and movies on the Internet. .Mac Web Gallery lets members easily share photos and movies directly from iLife '08 with anyone on a Mac, PC or iPhone(TM) in stunning quality. In addition, .Mac Web Gallery visitors can download high quality images for printing and even contribute photos using a standard web browser or email. Other new .Mac features include a tenfold increase in .Mac storage to 10GB, support for personal domains for iWeb websites and enhancements to .Mac Mail.

Apple today introduced iLife '08, the most significant upgrade ever to Apple's award- winning suite of digital lifestyle applications, featuring a major new version of iPhoto and a completely reinvented iMovie. iPhoto '08 automatically organizes photo libraries into Events that let users more easily manage their growing photo collections, and iMovie '08 introduces an entirely new way for users to quickly make movies and share them online. Both iPhoto and iMovie integrate seamlessly with the new .Mac Web Gallery, Apple's new service for .Mac members to instantly create and host stunning online websites for their photos and videos. iLife '08 also features iWeb '08, with live web widgets such as Google Maps that let users create even more dynamic websites, and GarageBand '08, with its new Magic GarageBand feature that makes it fun and easy for both musicians and non-musicians to create great sounding songs.

Apple today introduced iWork '08, a significant upgrade to Apple's productivity software suite featuring new versions of Pages and Keynote word processing and presentation applications, and introducing an innovative new spreadsheet application called "Numbers." Numbers introduces the concept of intelligent tables on a flexible canvas, a new approach that makes it easy to organize information, create calculations, analyze results and make spreadsheets look as great as they work. Pages '08 now features distinct modes for streamlined word processing and flexible page layout, a new contextual format bar and change tracking, and Keynote '08 now includes text effects, transitions and themes that help users easily compose spectacular presentations, and Smart Builds with easy-to-set-up A-to-B animations that make impressive animations easy for anyone to create.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, Internet, Mac

Apple today announced that more than three billion songs have been purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store. iTunes is the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store featuring a catalog of over five million songs, 550 television shows and 500 movies. iTunes recently surpassed Amazon and Target to become the third largest music retailer in the US.

Labels: Apple, iTunes

After years of false starts, the Apple "Switch" campaign appears to be finally paying off: In the latest quarter, the company's Macintosh computers garnered almost 3 percent of the worldwide PC market for the first time in a decade and exceeded 5 percent in the US. Apple sold 1.764 million Macs in the quarter, representing growth of 33 percent year over year. Overall, the PC market grew just 12 percent in the quarter.

Labels: Apple, Mac, market share

Labels: Apple, Mac, market share

Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2007 third quarter ended June 30, 2007. The Company posted revenue of $5.41 billion and net quarterly profit of $818 million, or $.92 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $4.37 billion and net quarterly profit of $472 million, or $.54 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.9 percent, up from 30.3 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 40 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 1,764,000 Macintosh® computers, representing 33 percent growth over the year-ago quarter and exceeding the previous company record for quarterly Mac® shipments by over 150,000. The Company also sold 9,815,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 21 percent growth over the year-ago quarter.

Labels: Apple, market share

Microsoft's OS should pass Apple's next month

Windows Vista's share of online users has increased every month this year, while rival Mac OS X -- to which Vista has often been compared -- has shown little, if any, growth, a metrics company reports.

According to Net Applications, in June Windows Vista accounted for 4.52% of all systems that browsed the Web, up from January's 0.18%. Vista has grown its usage share each month since its release to consumers Jan. 30, hitting 0.93% in February, 2.04% in March, 3.02% in April and 3.74% in May. Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, meanwhile, accounted for 6.22% in January and hit its high point of 6.46% in May, but it slipped back to 6% in June.

If Vista's uptake trend continues, it should pass Mac OS X in Web usage share by the end of August.

According to Net Applications' data, the computer maker is not making new Mac converts ... Net Applications' 6% share for Mac OS X jibes with recent IDC sales estimates, which put Apple's portion at 5.6% of all personal computer sales in the U.S.

Labels: Apple, Mac, market share, PC, Vista

Labels: Apple, Mac, market share, PC

Apple CEO Steve Jobs proudly proclaimed the iPhone one of the most intuitive devices ever made. Not so for the iPhone's terms-of-service contract, which at 17,000 words is one of the longest and most complex ever to accompany a wireless gadget, legal experts say.

No one reads such things, least of all early adopters eager to own the summer's most-lusted-after product. So Wired News has done the hard work for you. We read it not just once but several times, with the help of a few good lawyers.

"I think there's no chance whatsoever that a layperson would understand it and I doubt they could get through it. I think most lawyers wouldn't understand it either," says Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who in a past career crafted licensing service agreements for a living.

The iPhone contract is unusual in bundling many separate agreements into a single contract. It comes in six parts, including agreements regarding AT&T's phone service, the iPhone software, the iTunes software, the use of Google Maps and of YouTube in addition to a user's consent that an e-mail from Apple "will satisfy any legal communication requirements."

The iPhone agreement also says Apple may monitor users' iPhones "to verify compliance with terms of this license." It notes that Apple may collect technical information regarding users' iPhones, computers, software and peripherals, as long as such information is not used in a form that personally identifies individual users.

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Developers can create Web 2.0 applications that look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone, and provide seamless integration with iPhone applications and services including making a phone call, sending an email, and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications created using web standards can extend iPhone's capabilities without compromising its reliability or security.

Labels: Apple, Internet, iPhone, Mobile

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iPhone, iPod, Mobile

Labels: Apple, Google, iPhone, Mobile

Labels: Apple, Google, iPhone, Mobile

Verizon Wireless kicked some network sand in the face of AT&T on Friday by announcing its entire EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) network has been upgraded with higher speeds and lower latency.

Although the Apple iPhone going on sale at Apple and AT&T stores Friday has won praise for its design, features and Wi-Fi capability, in its current form the phone uses EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution), a form of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) that falls far short of the nation's fastest cellular systems.EDGE averages 70K bits per second to 135K bps downstream.

Verizon announced Friday that its whole EV-DO network has been upgraded to EV-DO Revision A, which the carrier said offers 600K bps to 1.4M bps downstream and between 500K bps and 800K bps upstream. Its earlier EV-DO network delivered 400K bps to 700K bps downstream and just 60K bps to 80K bps upstream, Verizon said. Revision A is also designed for less latency, a type of delay that can hurt time-sensitive applications such as multimedia.

Labels: Apple, Internet, iPhone, Mobile

Shoppers may have bought as many as 700,000 units over the weekend, Goldman Sachs Inc. analyst David Bailey said, twice his projection of 350,000. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster pegged sales at about 500,000, more than twice his original 200,000 estimate.

Apple Inc. sold about 525,000 iPhones at Apple and AT&T Inc. stores in the first weekend since its June 29 launch, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday, citing an analyst.

According to a Global Equities analyst, Apple sold 200,000 iPhones on launch, which if we average the price between the 4GB and the 8GB models, comes to a tidy $110 million, double the $47.2 million box office of Pixar's Ratatouille over the same weekend. Granted, the iPhone costs a little more than a movie ticket, but if the figures are accurate (Apple has yet to release official numbers) it's a box-office smash for Apple.

This month's launch of Halo 2 was the biggest video game event of all time: In its first day of availability, Microsoft made over $135 million on Halo 2, far more than the opening weekend draw of any Hollywood blockbuster in movie history.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, Video games

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iTunes

Here's one bit of Steve Jobs hyperbole that I completely agree with: The iPhone will do to mobile computing user interfaces what the Mac did to desktop PCs in the early 1980s. This is the line in the sand, folks. You either get it or you don't.

Then again, one you get past the gorgeous UI, the typically elegant Apple design flourishes, and the unnecessary but attention-grabbing on-screen transitions, the iPhone is flawed, man-made technology. (Just like the first Mac, as it turns out.) The more you use it, the more the device's problems and missing functions become apparent. In fact, the iPhone is a paradox. One the one hand, it has completely elevated the bar for mobile computing to epic, almost dizzying heights. On the other hand, once you've experienced what the iPhone does right--and it certainly is successful in many ways--you become all the more frustrated by what it gets wrong. In other words, its sheer excellence makes you start expecting more.

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Labels: Apple, iPhone

A couple of weeks ago ... had an opportunity to give a good workout to something I had received the previous day: a review unit of Apple’s eagerly awaited (boy, that’s an understatement) iPhone. One of the most hyped consumer products ever comes pretty close to justifying the bombast. Apple has a history of using cutting-edge technology, slick design and friendly software to break the common logjam in which our machines have the capability to perform certain tasks, but developers haven’t figured out how to make the experience easy, even pleasurable, for users. That’s one reason why people, especially the tens of millions who love iPods, have been so eagerly awaiting the iPhone.

We have been testing the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the country. Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

I’ve walked around with an iPhone in my pocket for two weeks ... As it turns out, much of the hype and some of the criticisms are justified. The iPhone is revolutionary; it’s flawed. It’s substance; it’s style. It does things no phone has ever done before; it lacks features found even on the most basic phones.

Labels: Apple, iPhone

iPhone goes on sale at 6:00 p.m. (local time) on Friday, June 29 and will be sold in the US through Apple’s retail and online stores and AT&T retail stores. All iPhone monthly service plans are ... based on a new two-year service agreement with AT&T. Individual plans are priced at $59.99 for 450 minutes, $79.99 for 900 minutes and $99.99 for 1,350 minutes. All plans include unlimited data (email and web), Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll over minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile and a one-time activation fee of $36.

Apple and AT&T today announced that iPhone users will be able to activate their new iPhones using Apple’s popular iTunes software running on a PC or Mac computer in the comfort and privacy of their own home or office, without having to wait in a store while their phone is activated. Activating iPhone takes only minutes as iTunes guides the user through simple steps to choose their service plan, authorize their credit and activate their iPhone. Once iPhone is activated, users can then easily sync all of their phone numbers and other contact information, calendars, email accounts, web browser bookmarks, music, photos, podcasts, TV shows and movies just like they do when they sync their iPods with iTunes.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iTunes

Apple Inc.'s digital music store iTunes is now the third-largest music retailer in the United States with 10 percent market share, overtaking Amazon.com in the first quarter, according to a survey released Friday.

The NPD Group report highlights the growing strength of digital music in the U.S. market as physical sales of compact discs continue to slide.

Apple's iTunes is third behind market leader Wal-Mart Stores Inc. with a 15.8 percent share, and Best Buy Co Inc. with a 13.8 percent share, according to the survey of 40,000 people aged 13 and older.

Both of those retailers mostly sell music in the CD format.

Labels: Apple, Digital media, iTunes

The emerging consensus, in fact, is that the [mobile phone makers'] dread is warranted. That Jobs is about to do it again—to unleash another object of overwhelming, consciousness-drenching, culture-shifting desire. That Apple’s past is merely preface to a period of increasing and metastasizing dominance.

Jobs told friends the company was 90 days away from bankruptcy. [As I've said repeatedly, by the way. --Paul]

"He said, ‘We’re going to do just four things,’ and then he drew this grid: laptop, desktop, consumer, business. That was it. And I was, like, ‘Beautiful!’"

The initial hopes for the iPod were modest. It was conceived as simply another part of the company’s “digital hub” initiative: an assortment of features (iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, etc.) intended to make the Mac as mediacentric as possible. At the launch, Jobs touted the iPod’s functionality as a spare disk drive. The notion that it would transform Apple from an also-ran computer outfit into a consumer-electronics powerhouse never occurred to anyone.

The iTunes Store has ... directly contributed next to nothing to Apple’s bottom line. But Jobs never intended to make a bundle by retailing music. The purpose of the iTunes store was strictly to sell more iPods.

The link between the iPod and iTunes is ... designed to limit consumer choice, to foster reluctance among consumers who own iTunes tracks to switch to other devices. It has prompted complaints by European governments to the European Commission—which so far have come to naught.

“Right now, the download model is necessary because I want to take music in the car or to the gym. But once we have true mobile broadband, the streaming model is going to take off. Then there’s never really going to be a need to own files at all. It’ll all just be there in the cloud.” As for music discovery, Wilson says, “I’ve never found one single artist or song on iTunes … It’s an online version of Tower Records, only worse.”

MusicNet’s McGlade, whose products compete with iTunes, agrees. “The issue with download purchases is that every time you want to hear a track, you’ve got to make a buying decision,” he says. “I gotta tell you, once you put people on a subscription service, they can’t go back.”

The joint interview was revealing on other levels, too. Whereas Gates came across as entirely at ease, almost avuncular, Jobs was coiled as tight as a spring. Whereas Gates spoke happily about the marks, technological and philanthropic, he would leave on the world, Jobs squirmed at the notion of bequeathal, with its intimations of mortality.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod

Apple is set to release the much-hyped iPhone Friday, June 29. Here are some of its most highly anticipated features:

Nanotechnology enables it to reassemble itself when thrown against wall

Exclusive link to Google Street View so you can watch yourself using your iPhone at all times

Takes Polaroids

When moved from hand to ear, makes Lightsaber sound effects

Prominent Apple logo

Reproduces through asexual budding

Has way, way more PRAM than the last thingy

Comes with an iPhone hat, so people know you own an iPhone during the brief periods you're not using it

Labels: Apple, Humor, iPhone