AllThingsD » Macs

Apple Products Appear Headed for Staples' U.S. Shelves

Ina Fried — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:43:20 +0000

Office products retailer Staples may soon be stocking its shelves with Apple’s products, at least according to tweets from several employees.

As noted by CNET, Apple Insider and others, several Staples employees tweeted on Thursday that the store has landed a deal to carry Apple products in the U.S. (The company already carries Apple gear in Canada.)

Apple and Staples representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Seven Questions for Aaron Levie, CEO of Box.net

Arik Hesseldahl — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:00:03 +0000

Box.net, the enterprise cloud data-sharing service, is on a roll. Today it launched a service that lets Box customers synchronize their data across multiple computers — Macs and PCs. And word also emerged that it is almost ready to close a new round of funding north of $50 million, with Salesforce.com among the investors.

And how often does a start-up host its own conference for partners and developers? Box.net did that today, too. It was from there that CEO Aaron Levie called me today after delivering a keynote address. I began by asking him about the new syncing service, but naturally what I really wanted to know about was the funding.

AllThingsD: Talk about your syncing feature. What’s that all about?

Levie: Basically, in the consumer space you see a lot of technology that helps you synchronize your information. It’s one of the biggest trends in software and the cloud. And so what we’re trying to do here is just do that for the enterprise. You have to take a different approach. The scale of the management and the security and the collaboration and getting it into business work flow, that’s what makes it enterprise ready. We’re syncing on the Mac and the PC and it’s going to work in your enterprise.

And you’re going to get to other devices — the iPad and Android devices — later?

Yeah. Syncing has a different connotation and purpose on a tablet because you’re syncing less data, but core sync for Mac and PC is what’s going to change the game in the enterprise space.

You’ve done some social things, too. We all know there’s a lot of buzz around social collaboration in the enterprise. Where does Box.net fit there?

That relates to two major themes that we’re really focused on. We’re trying to be the most open platform that you can be. That’s really the power of the cloud. So, unlike Microsoft, where they want you to integrate all their technology together so that you’ve got one big Microsoft vertical stack, our vision is that you’ll use different best-of-breed tools to solve different problems. So you’ll use Salesforce.com for CRM and Google Apps, and Workday or Netsuite. And we really want to integrate the content you have in Box securely with all those applications. And that is now a really big deal for the social space. So our vision is to work with Yammer, Jive and Chatter and any other kind of leading service that emerges so you can take your content from Box and use them with those services. And one thing we announced today is that Salesforce has invested in Box and that we’re working on integrating with Chatter. We’re also going to be building some direct social features into Box directly.

So let’s talk about that round of funding. It’s supposedly $50 million and Salesforce is in. Who else is in?

There’s a little confusion about this. The funding hasn’t been announced officially yet. It is more than $50 million. And yes, Salesforce is in. We’ll say more about it after it’s all closed.

You’ve also disclosed new numbers around customers, right?

We have 7 million users and 100,000 businesses, and it’s being used in 77 percent of the Fortune 500.

Let’s go back to the syncing. How does it work in a practical sense?

You install Box Sync on your Mac or PC, you can synchronize that information back and forth automatically to the cloud. If you add collaborators, they can access that information too. And then on top of that are the social features. We want you to be able to comment, and get a work flow going, to see the updates from the people around you.

You had a big conference today, which I think is your first. Isn’t having a conference like this a big deal for a company that’s still really just a start-up? Who’s there and what do they do?

It’s really a customer and partner conference. I think it will evolve over the years. It’s about CIOs and IT leaders who want to be more innovative using the cloud. It’s also for our partners who are are here to support our customers as well. So you’re seeing companies like Google Chrome, Motorola, Okta, Good Data, Netsuite, and Yammer. They all have booths and are talking about how they integrate their data with the cloud.

I understand you’re working with a little company that’s also based in Palo Alto called Hewlett-Packard. What’s that about?

Box Sync is going to be on small business PCs, and then eventually on their enterprise PCs as well. Eventually part of our vision is to get Box Sync on any system that is creating content.

Is it true that you turned down a $500 million offer for your company?

It is true that people are talking about that. We’re not saying much about that. The high level is that it’s a super-exciting space, and there are companies that want to accelerate their growth into it. We’re focused on staying independent and growing Box. We’ve only completed about 1 percent through the vision of this company.

Second-Quarter Mac Sales Likely to Be Magical, Revolutionary

John Paczkowski — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:10:42 +0000

One more quick data point in advance of Apple’s second-quarter earnings report tomorrow: New estimates from the NPD Group show the company’s Mac business gathering considerable momentum.

In January, U.S. Mac sales were up 20 percent year-over-year. In February they were up 12 percent.

And in March?

Up 47 percent, year-over-year.

That’s an average increase of 27 percent for the quarter. An impressive surge–more so considering that growth slowed in February ahead of the debut of the new Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pro line. March was the first full month in which those new machines were available and, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, sales are tracking ahead of the Street’s expectations for 3.6 million Macs sold in the quarter.

As I said yesterday, expect Apple’s second-quarter earnings report Wednesday to be another barn burner.

Working With AirPrint

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:11:52 +0000

How does Apple’s AirPrint work? And what new things would I have to get to make it work?

AirPrint allows certain apps on an iPhone or iPad to wirelessly print to locally networked printers. Officially, it works only on Hewlett-Packard’s new line of networked printers, which use a technology called ePrint. However, various programs have popped up for Macs and PCs that, when installed on a computer on your network, allow AirPrint to work with existing printers that are connected—physically or via a network—to those computers. One example I have tested successfully is Printopia, which works on Macs and is at http://bit.ly/dfjAsl. Others can be found by searching for “airprint for windows” or “airprint for mac” in a search engine. Note that you only need to install a small utility program on your computer, and nothing new gets installed on the iPad or iPhone, as long as you have the latest operating system for those devices.

Is there an external hard disk or other device other than online storage which will back up a usable copy of my entire computer complete with software programs and data? I am basically looking for a usable mirror image which would be available to load on another machine if the current one fails. I am not networked.

You can certainly use an external hard drive for this without having a network, but the key is the backup software. For Windows computers, one popular choice is Acronis True Image Home, though there are others. If your computer is a Mac, the easiest choice is the built-in Time Machine backup software.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, at the All Things Digital website, http://walt.allthingsd.com. Email mossberg@wsj.com

Counting Tablets, Apple Is Third in Global PC Sales

John Paczkowski — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:44:47 +0000

Apple is now the third-largest PC maker in the world, according to research firm Canalys, which has decided to include tablets like the iPad in its definition of a PC. Cupertino shipped 11.5 million Macs and iPads in the fourth quarter of 2010, vaulting it into third place in global shipments, ahead of Dell and Lenovo and behind Acer and HP. While the industry’s PC sales grew 19.2 percent from the same period in 2009, Apple’s PC sales grew a jaw-dropping 241 percent. The catalyst for that growth: The iPad.

“Each new product category typically causes a significant shift in market shares,” said Canalys senior analyst Daryl Chiam. “Apple is benefiting from pads, just as Acer, Samsung and Asus previously did with netbooks. The PC industry has always evolved this way, starting when Toshiba and Compaq rode high on the original notebook wave.”

And to those who contend that the iPad and similar devices shouldn’t be tallied in the same category as laptops and desktops?
“Any argument that a pad is not a PC is simply out of sync,” said Chiam.

[Image credit: Gizmodo commenter Ahubbuch]

A Lot of iSales: Apple Sold 7.3 Million iPads, 16.2 Million iPhones in December Quarter

Ina Fried — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 21:32:00 +0000

Apple sold a whole lot of iOS devices in the December quarter, according to its just-released earnings report. Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, up 23 percent from a year ago. It sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, up 86 percent, and 19.45 million iPods during the quarter, down 7 percent from a year ago. The company also sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter.

All of the device sales appear to be ahead of Wall Street expectations, with Mac sales at the low end of the range of what analysts were looking for.

On the Mac side, laptop sales continued to outpace desktops. Apple sold 2.6 million portables, up 37 percent from a year earlier, as compared with desktop sales of 1.2 million units, a 1 percent drop from a year ago. As for iPods, while total units were down 7 percent from the prior year’s holiday quarter, revenue was actually up 1 percent, indicating users were opting for pricier models, such as the iPod touch.

On the earnings conference call, which just started, CFO Peter Oppenheimer confirmed strong iPod touch sales, saying that the product’s sales were up 27 percent and accounted for more than half of all iPods sold in the quarter.

Google Goes To the Cloud For New Idea In PC System

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 02:03:25 +0000

In the personal-computer industry, where things change fast, one fact has been a constant for years: There are two major, mainstream operating systems for consumers. One, Microsoft Windows, runs on many brands of hardware and dominates sales. The other, Apple’s Mac OS X, runs only on its maker’s Macintosh computers, and has had a resurgence in popularity in recent years. Other contenders, such as various versions of Linux, have remained on the fringes.

[ See post to watch video ]

Next summer, however, Google hopes to add a third broad-based computer-operating system to challenge the duopoly. It’s called Chrome OS, and is based on Google’s Chrome Web browser. With Chrome, Google isn’t just aiming to elbow its way into the OS business. It’s hoping to change the entire paradigm. Instead of storing most programs and files on your computer itself, the Chrome OS will mainly run programs from, and require you to keep your data in, the cloud—remote servers located on the Internet. In effect, it turns your entire computer into a giant Web browser, instead of treating the browser as just one among many local programs.

The Chrome OS isn’t finished, and isn’t ready for broad public testing. Google readily concedes it has lots of bugs and rough edges. But the company has designed a small test laptop with the new operating system installed and distributed “a few thousand” of them to outsiders to try.

A Cr-48 test machine, with Chrome OS installed. Chrome will be licensed to select manufacturers.

I have been using this machine, called the Cr-48, for about a week, and have some explanations and first impressions to share. This isn’t a formal review; that will have to wait till the product is finished and is on commercial computers.

I focused mainly on the software, which is built on a Linux underpinning. That’s because Google doesn’t ever intend to sell the Cr-48 hardware, an all-black, unbranded laptop with a 12-inch screen, a rubbery surface and a large, buttonless touchpad that resembles those pioneered on the Mac.

In my tests, I found this early Chrome OS machine to be fast, with decent battery life and almost instant resumption from sleep. It handled most Web sites fine, and worked almost exactly like the very nice Chrome browser on Windows and Mac.

I also liked the one hardware feature worth mentioning: a radically redesigned keyboard. Instead of function keys, or various legacy keys such as Caps Lock, Chrome OS keyboards feature dedicated browser-oriented keys, like ones for moving back and forth among Web pages and windows, refreshing a page, entering full-screen mode, or quickly opening a new tab and beginning a search.

The Chrome OS will have a big advantage. Because it is mainly a front-end-to-cloud service, if you lose your laptop, you can get another one and just sign into your cloud accounts. You should be able to find all your stuff waiting for you.

However, users of the Chrome OS will have a huge adjustment to make. They will have to give up the rich, local programs they have spent years learning to use and tweaking to their liking. You can’t install local programs on a Chrome OS computer. Instead, Google provides a Web Store inside the browser that allows you to download icons for “Web apps”—mostly websites designed to look and work like standard programs.

Some of these, like Gmail, are familiar and popular. Others are newer. For instance, the New York Times and AOL already designed Web-based news apps for Chrome OS, and there is a Web-based version of the TweetDeck program for Twitter. These apps, and the store’s own icon, appear on the new Tab screen of Chrome OS (and also are available in the current Chrome browser.)

In my tests, I found these apps generally worked fine. But most aren’t as rich and versatile as local Windows and Mac programs. For example, there was no way to play my local, personalized iTunes music collection, unless I spent many hours uploading it to some Web-based service.

I also had to settle for Web-based productivity programs—like word processors and spreadsheets—with many fewer features than standard local ones, such as Microsoft Office.

And I ran into plenty of frustrations. At this stage, Chrome OS can’t do anything with USB flash drives or SD memory cards, and can’t synchronize phones. And it has a very limited ability to store, or allow you to do anything with, email attachments or other files you might download and prefer to keep locally rather than on a server controlled by somebody else.

Printing was a chore, requiring a complicated setup on a Windows computer that Chrome used as a conduit to a printer.

Plus, Chrome OS is hardly stable yet. I suffered numerous crashes of Adobe’s Flash player, and even Google’s own Google Talk instant-messaging service, which appears in a little pop-up window on top of the browser. The company says it hopes to fix these problems by next summer.

Finally, the biggest downside: Because it’s a cloud-oriented system, Chrome OS is almost useless if you lack an Internet connection. Google says it plans to offer some limited offline functionality, and to encourage makers of Web apps to do the same. It will also eventually be able to make some use of some files stored on external hard disks. But the basic operating mode will require you to be connected to the Internet.

To help with this, the Cr-48 has a Verizon cellular modem built in, to supplement its Wi-Fi connectivity. Verizon is offering 100 megabytes of data free, but that is a small amount, and you have to pay for more.

Like the Mac OS, but unlike Windows or Google’s own smartphone operating system, Android, the Chrome OS will be deeply integrated with hardware. So, Google doesn’t plan to distribute or license the new operating system to every hardware maker—at least not at first. You won’t be able to install it on an existing computer. It will be available in 2011 on a limited number of computer models from selected manufacturers.

Google says this is because security is a high priority and requires special hardware designs that tightly bond with the software.

Also, Chrome OS computers will, in some respects, be more like iPads than laptops. They won’t have hard disks, just a limited amount of flash-memory storage, and they won’t have DVD drives.

They are an attempt to realize the old idea of a “network computer,” or one which is mostly a front end for network services.

Of course, many people already spend most of their time with their PCs and Macs connected to the Net. Many use Web-based email programs or streaming music programs instead of local software.

So the time may be right for a cloud computer, a change in the paradigm. Google certainly hopes so.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

The Outlook for Java on the Mac Perks Up

Voices — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:26:07 +0000

The future of Java development for the Mac OS, which was starting to look a little dicey recently, firmed up today with a new deal between Apple and Oracle. Under the agreement, Apple, which has always handled in-house development of the necessary virtual machine software for Java to run on Macs, will now turn those duties over to Oracle, starting with Java Standard Edition 7, and will contribute its Java work to OpenJDK, the open-source project under which Java is developed.

Apple Beats Earnings Estimates, but Low on Guidance, iPad Sales

Peter Kafka — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 20:37:11 +0000

First hit from Apple earnings: EPS of $4.64 and revenues of $20.34 billion. The consensus was $4.05 and $18.8 billion.

The Street won’t like guidance, though: Apple is predicting Q1 EPS of $4.80, below the $5.04 analysts were looking for. They will also sputter a bit on this number: Apple sold 4.19 million iPads, and the consensus was 4.7 million.

And then on the other hand, Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones last quarter, well above both the official 11 million consensus and the 13 million “what we’re really looking for” number.

Ominous/hopeful Steve Jobs quote: “We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”

UPDATE: Live earnings call coverage here.

Other numbers you care about:

Macs sold: 3.89 million.

iPods sold: 9.05 million.

Press release text:

Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
Record Mac, iPhone and iPad Sales
Highest Revenue and Earnings Ever

CUPERTINO, California—October 18, 2010—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2010 fourth quarter ended September 25, 2010. The Company posted record revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $12.21 billion and net quarterly profit of $2.53 billion, or $2.77 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.9 percent compared to 41.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 57 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
Apple sold 3.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 27 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 91 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.05 million iPods during the quarter, representing an 11 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 4.19 million iPads during the quarter.
“We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings—both all-time records for Apple,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”
“We’re thrilled with the performance and strength of our business, generating almost $5.7 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $23 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $4.80.”

Apple's Mac Business Headed for Another Big Quarter

John Paczkowski — Tue, 11 May 2010 11:55:22 +0000

We haven’t even reached the midpoint of the June quarter, but it already looks like Apple’s financials for the period will be as strong, if not stronger than they’ve been in quarters past. In a research note issued this morning, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu says his checks suggest that sales of the iPad and new MacBook Pros are strong.

Evidently there’s quite a bit of sales momentum in the iPad 3G, despite its $129 price premium over the Wi-Fi-only version and monthly data costs. Wu upped his forecast iPads to two million units from one million. Meanwhile, Mac sales have been ramping up thanks to the recent debut of new laptops.

“Our sources indicate that Mac momentum is strong helped by a recent significant refresh of the MacBook Pro to new Intel Arrandale processors, offering much better price-performance and an industry best 8-10 hours of battery life,” Wu writes.

“While it is still early,” the analyst adds, “we believe the Mac business is tracking to its third consecutive quarter of 20%+ Y/Y unit growth indicating further share gains.”

With that in mind, Wu has raised his projected Mac sales for the quarter to 3.2 million, a slight increase from his previous forecast of 3.1 million.

Apple (AAPL), as it always does, left plenty of room for upside surprises to revenue when it last reported earnings. Sounds like the company is more than likely to deliver on them when it next reports.

February Expected to Be a Great Month for Mac Sales

John Paczkowski — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:05:34 +0000

February 2009 was not the greatest month for Mac sales. They were down 16 percent year over year and 10 percent from January. And while that may have been unfortunate at the time, it’s good news for Apple (AAPL) and its investors today, because it provides a particularly soft number for comparing with Mac sales in February 2010.

That soft January 2009 growth rate comp helped January 2010 Mac sales grow an astonishing 36 percent year over year, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster observes in a research brief this morning. It’s likely, then, that an even softer February 2009 growth rate comp will do the same for February 2010 (see table below; click to enlarge).

“The month of Feb-09 was -16% y/y, the softest Mac comp we’ve seen since we began tracking the data 5 years ago,” Munster writes. “We expect the strong y/y growth in NPD data that we saw in Jan. to continue in the month of Feb.”

Munster continues to expect Mac sales ranging from 2.6 million to 2.8 million in first quarter of calendar 2010. That’s an 18 percent to 26 percent increase over the same period in 2009, which was down one percent year-over-year.

More on the Nexus One

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:08:52 +0000

In reviewing Google’s new Nexus One phone, you said its memory is expandable to 32 gigabytes, but that the portion of memory used for storing apps is just 190 megabytes. Is the expandable memory unusable for apps? Is memory for apps expandable?

A: On the Nexus One, the Motorola Droid and other Android phones, there are two main types of memory: one internal, which is fixed, and the other external, in the form of removable memory cards, which the user can increase in capacity. In general, apps can be stored only in a small, restricted portion of internal memory, which on the Nexus One is a meager 190 megabytes. Although there are exceptions, apps can’t generally be stored on the roomier removable memory cards, though some files they rely upon, like graphics, can be offloaded onto the cards.

Google acknowledges this is a limitation, but says it designed the system to protect apps from being copied by merely removing the memory card and inserting it into a PC which could duplicate its contents. The company says it is working on ways to secure the memory cards to the satisfaction of the app developers, so that apps could be stored on them. Meanwhile, Android phones can’t hold nearly as many apps, especially sophisticated large apps, as some users might like.

AT&T and Verizon are each saying that they have wide areas of coverage. Can you tell me who really has the widest area of coverage for cellphone signals?

If you are comparing basic cellphone signal availability, each of the two leaders has a very wide footprint. However, Verizon claims a larger geographic footprint when it comes to 3G networks, which are currently the fastest widely deployed cellular data networks. AT&T claims its 3G is the fastest. But, partly because AT&T has the iPhone, which is both popular and makes heavy data usage very easy, its network too often seems overwhelmed in large cities, in my experience. Verizon so far lacks a specific phone with similar popularity which users employ to consume as much data, and thus network capacity, as iPhone users typically do. However, iPhone-class phones like the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One, if they sell well, will test the Verizon network’s robustness.

Any idea how well or badly the new Google Nexus One syncs with Macs for things like Calendars, Notes, Address Books etc.?

The Nexus One doesn’t come with software for syncing with computers, whether Macs or PCs. It is primarily intended to sync with online calendars and address books, not those stored locally on computers. It also lacks software for syncing even larger files, like music, photos and videos. Its method for transferring those files from Macs and PCs is to connect the phone via a USB cable, causing the phone to appear to the computer as an external hard disk. You then must manually drag and drop files onto the Nexus One’s icon. In other words, Google doesn’t supply any equivalent to Apple’s iTunes or the BlackBerry media-syncing software. However, the third-party program doubleTwist, available at doubletwist.com, is designed to function as a sort of iTunes for syncing Android, Palm and BlackBerry devices. It runs on Macs and PCs and even looks a bit like iTunes. But it only syncs media files, not calendars or address books.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Apple’s New iMac, MacBook Grow Better, Brighter

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:02:03 +0000

This is the week when Microsoft finally starts selling Windows 7, its much-improved successor to the disappointing Vista version of Windows. PC makers, who have suffered from Vista’s poor reputation, will begin touting models that come with Windows 7, which I praised in a detailed review earlier this month.

But Microsoft’s (MSFT) historic rival, Apple (AAPL), isn’t sitting still. After releasing its own new operating system, Snow Leopard, in August, Apple this week is rolling out new versions of two of the best- known Macs: its iconic all-in-one iMac desktop, and its least-expensive laptop, the MacBook.

[ See post to watch video ]

Though both new Macs sport important improvements, they are evolutionary, not revolutionary, and neither follows the industry trend toward bargain-basement prices. The MacBook is still $999, and the iMac still starts at $1,199, though the company is giving users more power and features at those same price points. You can pay much less for laptops and desktops from competitors like Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

Apple is, however, introducing one revolutionary product this week: a $69 mouse called the Magic Mouse. It’s the first mouse I’ve seen whose entire surface acts like a laptop trackpad, and allows fingertip multitouch gestures for scrolling and flipping through lists, photos and Web pages on the screen, while still performing traditional cursor movements and clicking. This mouse comes with the new iMac and will be usable on most other Macs as well, once Apple offers a software update for them. It worked well for me.

I’ve been testing these new computers for a few days, and I can recommend both. The new iMacs have spectacular screens that are larger and sport much higher resolutions than those on their predecessors. They also add more memory capacity, bigger hard disks and faster processors.

The new $999, 13″ MacBook now includes most of the key features of the similar-sized MacBook Pro, which costs $200 more. These include a large multitouch trackpad, significantly enhanced battery life, and a brighter screen. Despite its lower price, the lowly MacBook comes with a 56% larger hard disk (250 gigabytes versus 160) than the Pro model.

The New iMacs

Apple has kept the basic design of the iMac, which looks like a stand-alone monitor but has a powerful computer built in. But the new models have larger, wider screens that have been re-sized to match up with high-definition video. The $1,199 base model has a 21.5″ screen, compared to the old 20″ screen, and has 17% higher resolution.

The highest-priced models, at $1,699 and $1,999, have huge 27″ screens, versus 24 inches for the older models, and they have a 60% increase in resolution.

The $1,199 base iMac has 4 gigabytes of memory, double the amount in the prior base model, and a 500 gigabyte hard disk, up from 320 gigabytes. The costlier editions have a one terabyte hard disk, which is roughly 1,000 gigabytes. The top model has a more powerful graphics card and a heavy-duty processor.

All the iMacs now have slots for SD flash memory cards, and the large-screen models can act as external monitors.

In my tests, using a 27″ model, the machine was fast and the screen was brilliant at displaying hi-res photos and high-definition video. Its width allowed me to treat it like two monitors, with, say a Microsoft Word document on the left and a Web page on the right.

One downside: the $1,499 model now has a smaller screen—21.5″ versus 24″—though it has a larger hard disk and better graphics card.

The New MacBook

This 13″ laptop, like its predecessor, is shiny white plastic, but has been redesigned to have more-rounded edges and a rubbery non-slip bottom. It now has the Pro’s large Apple trackpad, which acts as both a huge mouse button and a surface for fingertip gestures like two-finger scrolling, and resizing and rotating photos. It’s still 1.08″ thick—but is a bit longer and wider than the older model, though it weighs less: 4.7 pounds versus 5 pounds.

Apple has dropped the FireWire port from this machine, as well as its ability to be run via a remote control. And it still lacks an SD card slot. But it now has a large sealed battery that Apple claims can last up to 7 hours between charges. On my tough battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features and play music constantly, the MacBook lasted just over five hours. In normal use, I estimate it could easily top six hours.

In my tests, this MacBook was fast and reliable using a wide variety of programs. It started up cold in a mere 22 seconds, and was ready to go after a restart, with several programs running, in 44 seconds. For anyone on a budget, it’s a better deal than the 13″ MacBook Pro, especially considering its larger hard disk.

These new models now round out a full line of refreshed Macs, but they will face stiff new competition from a horde of PCs running the new and better version of Windows.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

I'm Family Guy, and I'm a PC

John Paczkowski — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:00:46 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

I'm Family Guy, and I'm a PC

John Paczkowski — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:00:46 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Apple's iTunes 9 Makes it Easier to Share, Organize

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:04:03 +0000

Apple’s iTunes program is one of the most popular software products in the world. The company says hundreds of millions of copies of iTunes have been downloaded, far exceeding the 220 million iPod music players it has sold. That’s because many people use iTunes to organize, play and buy music and videos on their computers, or to burn music CDs, even if they don’t own iPods or iPhones. Ironically, the vast majority of iTunes copies are on Windows PCs, not Apple’s own Macintosh computers, because Windows machines are much more numerous.

[ See post to watch video ]

Last week, Apple released its ninth major version of iTunes — which first came out in January, 2001, before the iPod even existed — and I’ve been testing it. This release is the biggest overhaul of the familiar program in recent years, with improvements in the look and functionality of each of the software’s three main portions: the media jukebox, the built-in store and the synchronization features that move media and applications to and from iPods and iPhones.

In my tests, performed on multiple Windows PCs and Macs, iTunes 9 worked as advertised, and I found it to be less cluttered, more intelligent and easier to use than the prior version. It synced music and videos properly for me using both an iPod Nano and an iPhone. It’s available as a free download at apple.com/itunes.

To me, the two biggest new features in iTunes 9 are something called Home Sharing and a new, easier way to organize the apps on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

For years, iTunes users have been able to wirelessly stream music from nearby computers running iTunes whose owners chose to share their music. But Home Sharing takes this one step further, allowing users to actually copy the song files from one computer to another.

Right inside iTunes, you can simply peer into the shared library on another computer set up to allow this, and then select the song you want and drag it into your own library. It doesn’t delete the original from the other computer.

In my tests, this worked perfectly with music, as well as TV shows, movies and audiobooks, and it worked between any combination of my PCs and Macs. You can even configure Home Sharing to automatically transfer to your library new media purchased on another shared computer.

But Home Sharing has limitations. It only works with a maximum of five computers. These computers must be on the same local network, not connected over the Internet. And they must be the same computers authorized to play copy-protected media you buy from Apple.

With 75,000 apps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it has been easy to download so many that your device becomes cluttered, with numerous icons scattered among numerous screens in a manner that isn’t optimal. There’s a way to move them around, or delete them, right on the device, but it’s clumsy, partly because you can’t see all the screens at once, and partly because it’s difficult to move an icon from a location on one screen to another location several screens away.

The new iTunes lets you organize your iPhone's screen right on your computer

Now, in the new iTunes 9, when you plug in your device, the software displays an exact visual representation of your iPhone or Touch screens right on your computer, and allows you to rearrange them with your mouse. When you disconnect, the new arrangement is retained on the phone. It worked fine for me.

In iTunes 9, you also can create up to 12 automated “Genius Mixes” from your personal music library — essentially personal radio stations consisting of songs iTunes considers to be related, that play on and on. I enjoyed this feature, and found it generally made good choices.

There are also a number of small visual improvements throughout the program. In the jukebox, for instance, you can now locate all songs by a particular artist using a Column Browser — an optional left-hand column that lists the artists.

In the store, categories like music, movies and TV shows are now arrayed across the top, with drop-down menus for genres. The store also is generally better organized, with richer graphics, more white space and easier navigation.

A small touch of social networking, not exactly Apple’s historic strength, has been added to iTunes. From inside the store, you can post a link to a favorite title to either Facebook or Twitter, though this of course serves Apple by encouraging others to buy the title.

You can now buy special albums, called “iTunes LPs,” that attempt to replicate the experience of old vinyl albums by including lots of extra material. For instance, for one such title by the Doors, iTunes delivered to me liner notes, digital scans of old posters and set lists, plus photos and video interviews. Another, called Mayhem, by the singer/actor Tyrese Gibson, includes just one song, but also a vivid digital comic book with voiced dialogue.

However, these iTunes LPs take up a lot of space on your hard disk — about half a gigabyte each for the ones I tried.

Overall, iTunes 9 is a nice improvement on a much-used program.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Upgrading from XP to Windows 7

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:54:01 +0000

This week’s Mailbox is devoted to the most common of the hundreds of questions I received in response to last week’s Personal Technology column describing how difficult and time-consuming it will be to upgrade a Windows XP computer to Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 7 operating system.

To avoid the difficulties you described last week with migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7, what do you think about a two-step approach whereby we buy Vista, upgrade from XP to Vista, and then go from Vista to Windows 7?

That would work, since–unlike those running XP–PCs running Vista can be upgraded to Windows 7 directly, without wiping their hard drives, displacing any files or re-installing any programs.

However, you’d be doing twice the work and paying for two new versions of Windows instead of one.

If I bought a Vista computer, but had it downgraded at the factory to XP, will my situation be any different than what you described should I choose to migrate to Windows 7?

According to Microsoft, the answer is no. Your computer is now a Windows XP computer, and thus still has no direct upgrade path to Windows 7. You would still have to remove and later restore your personal files, wipe your hard disk clean, and then re-install all your programs. However, if you received Windows Vista installation disks with the machine, you could upgrade it to Windows Vista first, and then, upgrade it directly to Windows 7, a process that doesn’t require any of those cumbersome steps.

Does the difficult scenario of moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 that you described last week also apply to those of us who run XP on Macs in virtual-machine programs like Parallels or Fusion?

Yes. Microsoft says the same migration steps are necessary whether the Windows XP computer is physical or virtual, and that includes Macs running XP via the Parallels or Fusion software.

It also applies if you are running XP on a Mac using Apple’s Boot Camp program and wish to move to Windows 7.

After Windows 7 comes out in October, will Microsoft somehow force us XP users to stop using it? Is there any reason I have to upgrade, or can I keep using XP, which meets my needs perfectly?

You can keep using Windows XP and all your current programs on your current computer. It won’t suddenly expire.

Especially in light of how hard it will be to upgrade, can you please explain what advantages Windows 7 will have over XP, which is tried and true? I deliberately skipped Vista and am inclined to skip this new Windows version as well.

People should never feel stampeded to upgrade their technology and should keep using whatever meets their needs and makes them comfortable.

However, based on my testing of pre-release versions of Windows 7, I would say it is significantly better than XP, which, after all, was designed a decade ago, an eternity in computer time.

I’ll cite just a few examples. Microsoft says that Windows 7 is more secure than XP, because its underlying architecture allows more defenses against malicious software than in the older product. Microsoft claims, and my tests bear out, that Windows 7 makes networking computers much simpler, quicker and more reliable than XP does. And the company says that Wi-Fi networks work better and faster than they do with XP.

I would add that, if Windows 7 catches on in a way that Vista didn’t, you may gradually find that new software and hardware makers will stop bothering to make their products compatible with XP, though this process will take years.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Wonder if This Has Something to Do With Those Laptop Hunter Ads…

John Paczkowski — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:50:14 +0000

The high-end PC market is not a bad place to be. Just ask Apple, which rules it and with great financial success.

According to new stats from NPD Group, Apple now claims 91 percent of the U.S. retail market for personal computers costing more than $1,000. Nine out of 10 dollars spent on such machines in June went to Cupertino.

Now, granted, Cupertino only sells three Macs priced below $1,000 (the 13-inch MacBook and both versions of the Mac Mini), and Apple’s (AAPL) rivals’ offerings typically price out in the $690 -to-$703 range. Still, that 91 percent metric is impressive.

As Joe Wilcox over at Betanews puts it, “A (higher pricing) doesn’t necessarily lead to B (greater sales). All major Windows OEMs sell PCs in the premium category, too. Apple’s charging more isn’t necessarily recipe for people paying more for Macs, or their capturing big revenue share.”

That said, as NPD analyst Stephen Baker points out, Windows product average selling prices have been falling pretty rapidly over time, especially at retail, so it was inevitable that Apple’s share of the high-end market would rise, since the company hasn’t really altered its pricing philosophy.

Apple Q3: BOOM!

John Paczkowski — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:35:38 +0000

To see Peter Kafka’s liveblog of Apple’s Q3 Earnings Call, click here.

The economy is in recession, consumer spending is down and the PC market is in the worst decline since the Great Dark Times of 2001.

And Apple is doing just fine.

After market close Tuesday, the company reported earnings that crushed the Street’s estimates into a fine iPod-white dust. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters estimated that Apple (AAPL) would earn $1.16 per share on $8.16 billion in sales. Instead, it earned $1.35 on $8.34 billion for a profit of $1.23 billion.

Apple shipped 2.6 million Macs in the quarter just as NPD forecast and it sold 5.2 million iPhones. iPod sales were down seven percent to 10.2 million. Gross margin was 36.3 percent, up 34.8 percent year-over-year, and international sales accounted for 44 percent of revenue during the period. For its fourth quarter, Apple expects to earn $1.18 to $1.23 per share on revenue of $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion.

“We’re making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to have sold over 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter and users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications from our App Store in its first year.”

Clearly, business is good in Cupertino, recession be damned. Apple shares rose two percent to 154.68 in after-hours trading on the news.

Microsoft "Laptop Hunters" Campaign Having No Effect Whatsoever on 13-inch MacBook Pro Sales

John Paczkowski — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:47:20 +0000

Looks like Apple may have another hit on its hands with the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company is reportedly having a hard time keeping the machine in stock as it heads into the back-to-school buying season. And for good reason: It’s a significant upgrade at a lower price. Starting at $1,199, the MacBook Pro is $100 less than the original aluminum MacBook it replaces.

In a message to clients Tuesday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster noted that Apple’s online store is currently showing 7 to 10 day lead times for its new lower-priced 13-inch MacBook Pros, and a number of the company’s retail stores are reporting dwindling supplies. “Our records show that Apple has never had a 7-10 day delay on its most popular 13-inch model, with the most recent significant delay being 5-7 days over 2 years ago,” Munster wrote. “We see this as a sign that demand is outpacing the company’s build expectations, and it may take several weeks to reach supply-demand equilibrium. In addition to delays at its online store, Apple retail stores are experiencing shortages in some 13-inch MacBook Pro models. Of the 10 Apple stores we contacted, 7 are short of at least one 13-inch MacBook Pro model.”

That being the case, Munster said he’s increasingly confident Apple (AAPL) will report sales of 2.2 million Macs for the June quarter. Not quite as high as the nearly 2.5 million Macs the company sold during the same period a year ago, but impressive nonetheless. We are still, after all, in a deep recession. Who said Macs are too pricey?

Microsoft "Laptop Hunters" Campaign Having No Effect Whatsoever on 13-inch MacBook Pro Sales

John Paczkowski — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:47:20 +0000

Hulu: Watch Our Shows on a Big Screen, but not on a TV

Peter Kafka — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:13:25 +0000

Want to watch the season finale of “30 Rock” for free, whenever you want, on a big screen? Go for it, says Hulu–just don’t watch it on a TV.

Confused? Of course. So was I, when I checked out Hulu’s new “Desktop” app, launched today as part of the video service’s new “Labs” collection of experimental offerings.

Basically, it’s downloadable software that makes it easier than ever to watch Hulu’s shows and clips in the same way that you’d watch TV–on your sofa, remote in hand. But Hulu wants to make sure you don’t actually think it replaces TV.

Note how the company describes it: “A lean-back viewing experience for your personal computer” that will work on Macs and PCs with “standard Windows Media Center or Apple remote controls”–but not with Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Media Center machines or Apple’s (AAPL) AppleTV boxes. And it also isn’t designed to work with any other Web-to-TV software or boxes, like Vudu.

To spell this out: I’m writing this post from the “cave” that the All Things Digital team has set up for the D7 conference, and it’s full of gorgeous 22-inch and 30-inch Mac displays that are much nicer than anything that sits in my cramped Brooklyn apartment. Hulu is saying that they’d be A-OK with me watching Tina Fey and crew, via their service, on those monitors. But they don’t want me trying to get that show on an actual television.

Isn’t a screen a screen? Nope. Not to Hulu’s owners: GE’s (GE) NBC, News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, and soon, Disney’s ABC (ABC). To them, it’s important to make the distinction between TV programming, which generates significant ad revenue and/or cable subscription fees, and online video, which generates very little at all. That’s why NBC CEO Jeff Zucker reiterated his opposition to Boxee, the software that makes it easy to move Web video like Hulu to TV sets.

Now all he has to do is convince tech-savvy entertainment consumers to play along. Good luck!

UPDATE: Several readers have suggested to me that Hulu and its owners aren’t as dumb as they seem, and that they do indeed intend to use Desktop eventually, as a Boxee-like product of their own–that is, they will use it to let people watch Hulu on TV. If so, that means that Jeff Zucker wasn’t being honest when he declared that “right now we’re committed to Hulu being an online experience, and that’s where our vision is today, and I think that will continue.”

But for what it’s worth, whenever I’ve talked to anyone at ABC, Fox, NBC or Hulu, all of them have been consistently mindful about not trying to disrupt the existing value chain that supports the cable and broadcast TV business–“the ecosystem” is the euphemism they prefer. So I don’t find Zucker’s comments so far-fetched.

Anyone want to weigh in? If you use your real name you can sound off in the comments below. Or you can drop me a line at peter@allthingsd.com.

PC to Mac: I’m Cheaper

Nick Wingfield — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:52:30 +0000

For months, Microsoft (MSFT) has jabbed at Apple (AAPL) with an, at times, baffling advertising campaign for Windows PCs. Now Microsoft may finally land a solid blow against its rival.

In a new chapter to its ad campaign that will begin airing during the NCAA basketball playoffs on CBS (CBS) Thursday evening, Microsoft will begin hammering on a theme that could resonate in these times of economic hardship: how much less expensive Windows PCs are than Macs. For the commercials, Microsoft’s advertising agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, recruited prospective computer shoppers in the Los Angeles area through Craigslist and other sites, with a tantalizing offer to give them between $700 and $2,000 to purchase a new PC.

According to Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows consumer product marketing at Microsoft, the agency told recruits it was a market research firm and didn’t mention it was working with Microsoft. The recruits were told they could keep whatever money they didn’t spend on a PC so they had incentives to look for good values.

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Apple: Bigger Black Friday Bargains This Year?

Eric Savitz — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:03:51 +0000

So, just how big will be the bargains tomorrow when Apple (AAPL) unveils its pricing for Black Friday?

Bigger than last year, asserts Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu.

Wu, who just yesterday picked up coverage of the stock with a Buy rating, asserts in a research note this morning that discounts on Macs, iPods and accessories this year could be up to 15 percent, compared with discounts of 5-10 percent in previous years. He said it is “unclear” if there also will be discounts on iPhones.

Wu notes that Best Buy (BBY) and Amazon (AMZN) are already selling Apple merchandise at discounted prices.

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Best Buy Up on Deal to Sell iPhone; Radio Shack Slips

Eric Savitz — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:08:52 +0000

Best Buy (BBY) shares are on the rise this morning on news that the company’s Best Buy Mobile stores will carry the Apple (AAPL) iPhone starting Sept. 7.

Pricing will be the same as it is through Apple and AT&T (T) stores: $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for 16GB, with a two-year AT&T service contract. Best Buy stores already sell iPods and Macs.

Meanwhile, Radio Shack (RSH) shares are sliding today. The retail chain already sells AT&T wireless service, but for now at least, isn’t going to be selling iPhones. Also hurting Radio Shack: news that the company has sold $325 million of 2.5 percent convertible senior notes due 2013.

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