What's New - May 21, 2008

By: Benjamin Martin - Revised: 2008-06-10 richard

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Introduction

What's new for the Mac in the previous month:
  • General issues, workarounds and fixes
  • New Software and hardware
  • Software and hardware updates/patches
  • Apple Inc. related news

Contents

  1. Apple's Mac Sales Up 50% year over year in april
  2. Apple's Second Quarter Report
  3. Mac's Defy Windows' Gravity
  4. 3G Rumor-Mongering
  5. Latest iPhone deals nearly quadruple Apple's addressable market
  6. AT&T to have full HSPA coverage by late June
  7. WWDC Sold OUT!
  8. KeyNote Bingo
  9. Napster claims launch of world's largest MP3 store
  10. Firefox 3.0rc1
  11. Office 2008 Service Pack 1
  12. Netflix Launches Movie Streaming Set Top Box

Apple's Mac Sales Up 50% year over year in April

Reference: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/05/20/apples_mac_sales_up_50_percent_in_april.html
  • Revenues up 46% (year over year)
    • 17% increase in the broader market
  • Sales of iPods up 10% by revenue
    • 4% increase in the broader MP3 player marktet
  • iPods expected to slip slightly while Mac growth to remain strong

Apple Second Quarter Report

Reference: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/04/23/apple_posts_profit_of_1_05b_ships_nearly_2_3_million_macs.html
  • $1.05B profit, 2.3 million Macs shipped
    • $1.16 / share
  • $7.51 billion in revenue
  • International sales account for 44% of total
  • Apples piggy bank?  $19.4 billion dollars
  • Stock price has almost returned to previous highs

Macs Defy Windows' Gravity

Reference: http://blogs.eweek.com/applewatch/content/channel/macs_defy_windows-gravity.html
  • Macs completely dominate the expensive PC Marktet!


3G Rumor-Mongering

  • "Citing a reliable source familiar with the matter ... "" - AppleInsider
  • "... someone very, very close to the 3G iPhone launch has told me ... " -Gizmodo
  • The stars have aligned, the prophets have prophesied, the nerds have mobilized ... and all roads point to San Francisco June 9th

Latest iPhone deals nearly quadruple Apple's addressable market

Reference: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/05/16/latest_iphone_deals_nearly_quadruple_apples_addressable_market.html
  • Currently Apple's total addressable market includes 153 million subscribers in 6 countries
  • The new announcement increases these numbers to 575 million subscribers!

AT&T to have full HSPA coverage by late June

Reference: http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/05/21/att.full.3g.by.late.june/
  • HSPA (high speed packet access)
    • 1.4Mbps downloads, 800Kbps uploads
  • Should have 3G in all its markets by the end of the year
  • In 2009 HSPA+ will begin its rollout offering 20Mbps downloads

WWDC Sold OUT!

  • 5,000 attendees last year => how many this year?




Napster claims launch of worlds largest MP3 store

Reference: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/05/20/naspter_claims_launch_of_worlds_largest_mp3_store.html
  • Actually it's the same size as iTunes (but sells MP3s vs. AACs hence the claim)
  • iTunes continues to have an 85%+ share of the legal digital downloads
    • 50 million customer accounts
  • Will it reduce Apple's "stranglehold?"

Firefox 3.0rc1

  • Firefox 3.0rc1 is now available for public testing (final release sometime in June)
  • A veritable plethora of features and enhancements
    • Anti-virus integration, password management, resumable downloading, improvements to the JavaScript engine, uses the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform ... and more

Office 2008 Service Pack 1

Reference: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=395D1487-A3A6-4106-A0F8-4D6E1D6D89D2&displaylang=en
  • 180.1MB
  • Security, stability and performance
  • Microsoft Office needs to be in "/Applications" on the startup volume
  • If you have problems after the update restart.  If you continue to have problems reinstall Office from CDs and then reapply update

Netflix Launches Movie Streaming Set Top Box

Reference: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/05/review-roku-net.html
  • Hard-drive less
  • Streaming only via ethernet and WiFi (b/g)
    • Recommended connection > 1.5Mbps
  • $99
  • Got good reviews on Wired