Apple earnings; Safari Windows beta; .Mac syncing; iPhone notes
Apple is set to report earnings after the close of the stock market today. Meanwhile, the company has issued a new Safari build for Windows and made changes to .Mac syncing. Also, readers point out that Apple on its website has redacted references to accessing Leopard notes on the iPhone.
Fourth quarter earnings today
Following market close today, Apple will announce results from its fourth fiscal quarter of 2007. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect the Cupertino-based company to report earnings of 85 cents per share on sales of $6.05 billion, compared to a profit of 62 cents a share on $4.84 billion in revenue in the year ago quarter.
Apple will follow up the earnings release with a conference call for analysts and members of the media beginning at 2:00 p.m. PDT/5:00 p.m. EDT. During these quarterly calls, members of the company's leadership sometimes make forward looking statements about future product intentions.
Check AppleInsider in the early evening hours for its usual comprehensive coverage of both the earnings and the call.
Safari for Windows Build 310A18
Apple recently updated Safari for Windows to Build 310A18, which offers significant improvements in performance, stability and compatibility.
More specifically, the release corrects issues with page footers in the print preview, downloads that require HTTP auth, favorite icons, inadvertent link activation in Flash movies, the "show all bookmarks" function, alt and shift based modifiers, horizontal scroll-ball scrolling, RSS preferences, and more.
Safari for Windows runs on XP or Vista, and requires at least 256MB of RAM and a 500Mhz Pentium-class processor or better.
.Mac synching upgrades
Due to improvements made to .Mac Sync on October 19, 2007, Apple recently issued a email to users noting the following changes:
Mac OS X version 10.4 Tiger users:
To ensure uninterrupted service, you must be using Mac OS X version 10.4.10. To check which version you're running, select About This Mac in the Apple menu. If you are not running version 10.4.10, click the Software Update button and install the update to 10.4.10.
Mac OS X version 10.3 Panther users:
To accommodate new enhancements, .Mac Sync will no longer support syncing of calendars between a Panther-based Mac and a Mac running Tiger or Leopard. Syncing calendars between Mac computers running Panther is unaffected.
"These changes will help enable .Mac Sync to do more than ever," Apple said.
iPhone note synching reference removed
AppleInsider recently reported on evidence that Mac OS Leopard would allow users to sync Mail notes to their iPhones. In revealing additional details of Leopard last week, Apple appeared to second this notion, and had posted the following blurb to its Leopard features page:
Write handy notes you can access from anywhere -- including graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that automatically group them. Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC or access them from your iPhone.
To dismay of many, a few eagle-eyed readers have pointed out that Apple has since altered the aforementioned description to omit any reference to accessing Leopard notes on iPhone:
Write handy notes you can access from anywhere -- including graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that automatically group them. Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC.
This could suggest one of several things, including the possibility that Apple may be delaying the feature. It could also mean that Leopard notes may not sync to the iPhone's Notes application and instead be available only via a mailbox in the iPhone's Mail app -- as Leopard notes are essentially specifically formatted emails. However, the latter would still not explain the omission.
Leopard pre-sales double that of Tiger?
Meanwhile, some solution providers say pre-orders of Leopard are more than double the volume for the same time prior to the last major Mac OS release, and point to new features and dissatisfaction with Microsoft Vista as key drivers.
Indeed, Leopard on Monday continued to dominate the Top Seller list over at online retailer Amazon.com, where the single license version maintained the No. 1 spot and was followed closely at No. 2 by the five-seat family pack.
Amazon.com, which does not charge sales tax for most US residents, is offering an instant $20 off Leopard single license and $10 off the family pack, bringing the costs down to $109, and $189, respectively.
Fourth quarter earnings today
Following market close today, Apple will announce results from its fourth fiscal quarter of 2007. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect the Cupertino-based company to report earnings of 85 cents per share on sales of $6.05 billion, compared to a profit of 62 cents a share on $4.84 billion in revenue in the year ago quarter.
Apple will follow up the earnings release with a conference call for analysts and members of the media beginning at 2:00 p.m. PDT/5:00 p.m. EDT. During these quarterly calls, members of the company's leadership sometimes make forward looking statements about future product intentions.
Check AppleInsider in the early evening hours for its usual comprehensive coverage of both the earnings and the call.
Safari for Windows Build 310A18
Apple recently updated Safari for Windows to Build 310A18, which offers significant improvements in performance, stability and compatibility.
More specifically, the release corrects issues with page footers in the print preview, downloads that require HTTP auth, favorite icons, inadvertent link activation in Flash movies, the "show all bookmarks" function, alt and shift based modifiers, horizontal scroll-ball scrolling, RSS preferences, and more.
Safari for Windows runs on XP or Vista, and requires at least 256MB of RAM and a 500Mhz Pentium-class processor or better.
.Mac synching upgrades
Due to improvements made to .Mac Sync on October 19, 2007, Apple recently issued a email to users noting the following changes:
Mac OS X version 10.4 Tiger users:
To ensure uninterrupted service, you must be using Mac OS X version 10.4.10. To check which version you're running, select About This Mac in the Apple menu. If you are not running version 10.4.10, click the Software Update button and install the update to 10.4.10.
Mac OS X version 10.3 Panther users:
To accommodate new enhancements, .Mac Sync will no longer support syncing of calendars between a Panther-based Mac and a Mac running Tiger or Leopard. Syncing calendars between Mac computers running Panther is unaffected.
"These changes will help enable .Mac Sync to do more than ever," Apple said.
iPhone note synching reference removed
AppleInsider recently reported on evidence that Mac OS Leopard would allow users to sync Mail notes to their iPhones. In revealing additional details of Leopard last week, Apple appeared to second this notion, and had posted the following blurb to its Leopard features page:
Write handy notes you can access from anywhere -- including graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that automatically group them. Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC or access them from your iPhone.
To dismay of many, a few eagle-eyed readers have pointed out that Apple has since altered the aforementioned description to omit any reference to accessing Leopard notes on iPhone:
Write handy notes you can access from anywhere -- including graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that automatically group them. Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC.
This could suggest one of several things, including the possibility that Apple may be delaying the feature. It could also mean that Leopard notes may not sync to the iPhone's Notes application and instead be available only via a mailbox in the iPhone's Mail app -- as Leopard notes are essentially specifically formatted emails. However, the latter would still not explain the omission.
Leopard pre-sales double that of Tiger?
Meanwhile, some solution providers say pre-orders of Leopard are more than double the volume for the same time prior to the last major Mac OS release, and point to new features and dissatisfaction with Microsoft Vista as key drivers.
Indeed, Leopard on Monday continued to dominate the Top Seller list over at online retailer Amazon.com, where the single license version maintained the No. 1 spot and was followed closely at No. 2 by the five-seat family pack.
Amazon.com, which does not charge sales tax for most US residents, is offering an instant $20 off Leopard single license and $10 off the family pack, bringing the costs down to $109, and $189, respectively.
Comments
Is it possible that the reason why the notes iPhone statement was redacted is because it isn't quite ready yet?
Syncing notes to the iPhone as an emil account has me quite baffled, as the notes app and iPhone Mail apps are completely separate.
The notes app on the iPhone is separate to the email app, this puzzles me how the whole syncing thing would work.
They must have thought it would, unless it was a simple typo that they just caught up to.
It's hard to see how Leopard pre-sales could have anything to do with people's satisfaction (or not) with Windows. After all, you already need a Mac running OS X to be able to install Leopard. If you were switching from Windows, you'd be buying hardware, not an OS upgrade.
Welcome to the forum Tom.
Maybe people are waiting for Leopard to to finally deploy their dual boot strategy allowing them to be more productive in a Windows-centric work environment. People who are not already running Parallels or Fusion may be waiting for Leopard so they only have to set up the Windows boot partition once. Working in a Vista only mode must be really painful.
That's always a problem, I feel like whenever Apple announces ANYTHING these days people have insane expectations for there to be some huge earth-shattering announcement, thus the stock always dives.
Yep, its simply dumb MS bashing that is making people think that an OS which simply can't run on most computers out there is being preordered more. I think the real reason its selling more is just more people own Macs now.
Sorta like the Vista pre-order reports.
EDIT: I just checked Amazon's Top Seller software list. Wow--LOTS of Apple stuff in the top 25. Where is Windows? Well, XP is found in the top 50, but Vista is nowhere in the top 100.
Syncing notes to the iPhone as an emil account has me quite baffled, as the notes app and iPhone Mail apps are completely separate.
Unless iPhone's Notes app is really a specially crafted version of Mail.app that only allows you to create emails, save them as drafts and not send them.
I think they need to rethink the whole Notes thing(especially the font).
Perhaps they are just going to leave this to 3rd parties to solve.
I'm sure we will see a dozen "Notes" alternatives in the first few days.
I can think of one good reason to remove the iPhone Notes feature from the site: maybe the iPhone update to support that won't be out until after Leopard. So they can't advertise a Leopard feature that doesn't exist. When it exists, they can mention it. Early mention may have been a simple error. (Just look at all the grammar errors on the 300 Features page. Clearly the new Leopard site was a rushed effort!)
EDIT: I just checked Amazon's Top Seller software list. Wow--LOTS of Apple stuff in the top 25. Where is Windows? Well, XP is found in the top 50, but Vista is nowhere in the top 100.
This is largely due to the fact that there are lots of other places to buy PCs and Windows software. There aren't as many choices when shopping for the Mac.
This is largely due to the fact that there are lots of other places to buy PCs and Windows software. There aren't as many choices when shopping for the Mac.
And yet Amazon is still popular for PCs and Windows software. There's a lot of Windows software in the top 100. But Vista is nowhere to be found. SpongBob Typing Tutor is outselling Windows
And yet Amazon is still popular for PCs and Windows software. There's a lot of Windows software in the top 100. But Vista is nowhere to be found.SpongBob Typing Tutor is outselling Windows
THAT is the funniest thing I have read here all year!
I'm SO tired this evening, but WOW thats funny
Wow that's really really impressive, $2B increase in profit compared to last years quarter...that's excellent...hopefully the stock will reflect it and not drone on too much about obscenely high expectations...
Ok, I've now read this several times and I'm not sure what you mean.
Do you mean that this quarters profit of $904 million is $2 billion higher than a years ago's profits for the quarter?
Or do you meant that this quarters $6.22 billion in SALES is $2 billion that last years quarter's SALES?
I'm assuming it's the latter.
And yet Amazon is still popular for PCs and Windows software. There's a lot of Windows software in the top 100. But Vista is nowhere to be found. SpongBob Typing Tutor is outselling Windows
SpongBob Typing Tutor is actually full of cross-platform craziness and I personally love it.
So those sales may also be from Mac users as well.
Ok, I've now read this several times and I'm not sure what you mean.
Do you mean that this quarters profit of $904 million is $2 billion higher than a years ago's profits for the quarter?
Or do you meant that this quarters $6.22 billion in SALES is $2 billion that last years quarter's SALES?
I'm assuming it's the latter.
When you assume...
When you assume...
Well no, I'm not going to turn you into an ass.
But, it is the best idea among the other alternatives.
Better?
And yet Amazon is still popular for PCs and Windows software. There's a lot of Windows software in the top 100. But Vista is nowhere to be found. SpongBob Typing Tutor is outselling Windows
People don't buy Windows: it comes pre-loaded.
Syncing notes to the iPhone as an emil account has me quite baffled, as the notes app and iPhone Mail apps are completely separate.
Yeah, I assume that they'll need to make some changes on the OSX & the iPhone side to make notes seamless.
I use notes (stickies) on OSX all the time, which is different to the Dashboard stickies.. neither of which sync to my iPod's notes (nor .Mac)... and they're likely to be different to my email notes in Leopard (right?), and as you say the iPhone's notes is not part of iPhone email.
I just hope they get it right
People don't buy Windows: it comes pre-loaded.
MS wants people to buy Vista. Why do you think people have bought Tiger, and will be buying Leopard? It also comes pre-loaded, so that's no excuse. MS was even bragging, at first, at how many copies it had "shipped".
People aren't buying Vista in the quantities that MS hoped, because it's perceived as not being very good, and has heavy hardware requirements if one wishes to use Aero.
Businesses are even demanding XP. MS has agreed to continue selling XP to medium and large business for a while longer because of that. Too bad the consumer isn't being given that choice.