Briefly: Intel Mac sales, iWeb, Aperture, Thunderbird
Intel Mac sales ahead of expectations
Reliable sources this week are corroborating reports of strong Intel Mac sales. According to these sources, sales of both the iMac Core Duo and MacBook Pro are coming in ahead of Apple's initial internal expectations. Apple executive vice president Tim Cook -- pretty much the man in charge these days -- is said be thrilled with the numbers and mounting orders for the soon-to-be-released 15-inch MacBook Pro.
iWeb and iLife driving .Mac sales
Apple last week filed for a trademark on the term "iWeb" with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The filing is in reference to the company's Web site creation and publishing software, introduced earlier this month as part of the new iLife '06 digital lifestyle software suite.
As previously reported, Apple developed iWeb with the intent to leverage and boost sales of its .Mac Internet service, which recently surpassed the 1 million mark in active subscribers. If initial sales are of .Mac 4.0 are of any indication, the new version of iLife with iWeb is doing just that.
Tipsters tell AppleInsider the new version of .Mac is selling extremely well, with some Apple retail and reseller locations running out of their initial supply of the retail-boxed copies. It's the "iWeb halo effect," they say.
Aperture "Crossgrade" now free
Meanwhile, Apple has felt the heat from some of its professional photography customers and has decided to abandoned plans to charge current Aperture owners a fee to obtain the Universal Binary version of the application.
Earlier this month, the company said it would charge $49 for the "crossgrade" update that will allow Aperture to run natively on both PowerPC Mac and Intel Macs.
A message on Apple's Aperture Web site now reads: "A Universal version of Aperture, which will run natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Mac computers, will be available before the end of March 2006. New and existing owners of Aperture will be able to crossgrade to the Universal version at no additional charge via Software Update."
Several Logic Pro customers are equally displeased with Apple's plans to charge $49 for the Logic Pro 7.2 Crossgrade upgrade package and are now demanding in Apple's online forums that they receive the same treatment as Aperture users.
Mozilla Thunderbird to gain Address Book integration?
Based on this Mozilla bug fix filing, it appears that some folks are rallying to add integration of Apple's Address Book application into a future version of the Thunderbird E-mail client. Thunderbird is an alternative E-mail client to Apple's Mail.app and Microsoft's Outlook Express.
Reliable sources this week are corroborating reports of strong Intel Mac sales. According to these sources, sales of both the iMac Core Duo and MacBook Pro are coming in ahead of Apple's initial internal expectations. Apple executive vice president Tim Cook -- pretty much the man in charge these days -- is said be thrilled with the numbers and mounting orders for the soon-to-be-released 15-inch MacBook Pro.
iWeb and iLife driving .Mac sales
Apple last week filed for a trademark on the term "iWeb" with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The filing is in reference to the company's Web site creation and publishing software, introduced earlier this month as part of the new iLife '06 digital lifestyle software suite.
As previously reported, Apple developed iWeb with the intent to leverage and boost sales of its .Mac Internet service, which recently surpassed the 1 million mark in active subscribers. If initial sales are of .Mac 4.0 are of any indication, the new version of iLife with iWeb is doing just that.
Tipsters tell AppleInsider the new version of .Mac is selling extremely well, with some Apple retail and reseller locations running out of their initial supply of the retail-boxed copies. It's the "iWeb halo effect," they say.
Aperture "Crossgrade" now free
Meanwhile, Apple has felt the heat from some of its professional photography customers and has decided to abandoned plans to charge current Aperture owners a fee to obtain the Universal Binary version of the application.
Earlier this month, the company said it would charge $49 for the "crossgrade" update that will allow Aperture to run natively on both PowerPC Mac and Intel Macs.
A message on Apple's Aperture Web site now reads: "A Universal version of Aperture, which will run natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Mac computers, will be available before the end of March 2006. New and existing owners of Aperture will be able to crossgrade to the Universal version at no additional charge via Software Update."
Several Logic Pro customers are equally displeased with Apple's plans to charge $49 for the Logic Pro 7.2 Crossgrade upgrade package and are now demanding in Apple's online forums that they receive the same treatment as Aperture users.
Mozilla Thunderbird to gain Address Book integration?
Based on this Mozilla bug fix filing, it appears that some folks are rallying to add integration of Apple's Address Book application into a future version of the Thunderbird E-mail client. Thunderbird is an alternative E-mail client to Apple's Mail.app and Microsoft's Outlook Express.
Comments
If it's the SAME version all over again, it should be free (or nominal DVD charge if too big for Software Update). Apple made money on the sale of the new Mac already, and on that same app already.
i wouldn't doubt that a lot of newer customers have made up their own mind that the .mac should be purchased with ilife. i'll be interested to come back in a year and see how many people thought they got decent use from .mac to justify renewing the service.
Originally posted by brentonbrenton
i suppose the updated .mac/iweb thing could be great for podcasts; but still i think its over priced and can't see myself using it for along time to come.
i wouldn't doubt that a lot of newer customers have made up their own mind that the .mac should be purchased with ilife. i'll be interested to come back in a year and see how many people thought they got decent use from .mac to justify renewing the service.
Over-priced? .Mac is what, $100/yr? Typical webhosts charge that for "basic service". Now to create a website you would need Photoshop and Dreamweaver, those are hundreds of dollars. Mom and Pop aren't going to handcode, let-alone learn an application like PS or DW. iWeb, along with the whole suite is $79. I don't understand where you're over-priced logic is coming from. And this is coming from a web developer.
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0601intelearly.html
who to believe?
Unfortunetly both ends leaks...
[...]Tim Cook -- pretty much the man in charge these days[...]
Care to expand Kasper
Originally posted by ecking
Is it possible to buy a .com .net .org or whatever for your .mac site?
No you have to use forwarding. But it works. Hopefully in the future this will be possible.
Originally posted by Mark10ant
hmmmmm....... interesting
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0601intelearly.html
who to believe?
Well TS' MWSF06 predictions were way off the mark, whereas AI got many things right even though they predicted them way back in November. Maybe TS is paying Apple back for the lawsuit last year? 8)
In any case, Apple will be glad to roll out their own products (iWork, Aperture, Final Cut Studio) that blow away competitors and are native on Intel. With each passing year, Adobe & MS become less important to Apple's success.
Originally posted by nagromme
If it's an update with new features (not just Universal, not just bug fixes) then I can see justifying the $49.
If it's the SAME version all over again, it should be free (or nominal DVD charge if too big for Software Update). Apple made money on the sale of the new Mac already, and on that same app already.
This is the perfect excuse for Apple to release a universal binary of Aperture 1.0.1 (bugs and performance problems and all) for free, and then to release Aperture 1.1 or 1.5 a couple months later for an upgrade fee.
Mail seems to false negative just as much junk as Thunderbird, so there's a lot of junk mail that needs to be deleted, and that task is far easier in Thunderbird. The just-released version 1.5 seems to be a lot better too.
Somehow, I had heard that Aperture was shipping as Universal when it first shipped, I suppose that turned out to be wrong. It's not as if the program itself was so inexpensive or has a major update so as to justify a paid crossgrade. I think it is funny that the recommended (not minimum) memory to operate Aperture is the max of what can be put into the current Intel Macs.
Anyhow, with all the Pro apps being available for crossgrades in March, is that a possible indication that the PowerMac replacements will be available around that time?
Originally posted by bikertwin
Well TS' MWSF06 predictions were way off the mark, whereas AI got many things right even though they predicted them way back in November.
**Maybe TS is paying Apple back for the lawsuit last year? 8)
In any case, Apple will be glad to roll out their own products (iWork, Aperture, Final Cut Studio) that blow away competitors and are native on Intel. With each passing year, Adobe & MS become less important to Apple's success.
You may well be right on that first thought there.
Adobe is pretty important to Apple, with the Macromedia web development tools, and PS, or CS. It would be interesting to hear internal Adobe conversations at the decision making level, to learn how important a Mac intel native application is to them. They say it is important to make for Apple. I would think it would be. There are still so many publishing houses that use Macs, it has to be, it is blindness to not think it is important.
With this effort ms has going to squeeze Apple users from web development, I can only have renewed hatred of them.
Originally posted by Anders
Care to expand Kasper
I second that motion.
Originally posted by crees!
Over-priced? .Mac is what, $100/yr? Typical webhosts charge that for "basic service".
Whatever. If you're paying $100/yr for your basic webhosting (basic IMHO includes at least 1 database, unlimited email accounts, PHP and Perl support etc.) you might want to google around for a cheaper alternative. Currently I'm paying a little over $30/yr for that with a hosting company whose severs are even in the same country (Switzerland in my case).
Now, if Apple gives me all features my current host does (I DO NOT want to have to use domain forwarding, but I do need my database and all the shebang you can get from your average Apache based hosting) AND all the extras .Mac offers I'll consider paying $100/yr.
I really don't see why Apple doesn't make their web hosting (yes, .Mac is nothing else than web hosting with proprietary software integration) more professional. It wouldn't hurt them. It would just make it a great alternative for all of us who need the usual standard features.
Originally posted by Mark10ant
hmmmmm....... interesting
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0601intelearly.html
who to believe?
I'd believe AI before ThinkSecret. ThinkSecret has had a poor accuracy record in the past 2 years.
Besides, just looking through forums, it seems like a shitload of people have bought iMac Core Duos. And while I shouldn't be counting the handful of people turning them into large paperweights by dicking around in the EFI, these people surely are having trouble returning their Macs to Apple (assuming Apple is bright enough to not send a new Mac without first checking if these guys voided their warranty by changing the EFI.)
Originally posted by NordicMan
You may well be right on that first thought there.
Adobe is pretty important to Apple, with the Macromedia web development tools, and PS, or CS. It would be interesting to hear internal Adobe conversations at the decision making level, to learn how important a Mac intel native application is to them. They say it is important to make for Apple. I would think it would be. There are still so many publishing houses that use Macs, it has to be, it is blindness to not think it is important.
I agree. Adobe is clearly very important to Apple now. But they are getting less important as time goes by and as Apple comes out with more and more applications of its own.
Within 5 years, there will be only 3 choices: A Microsoft vertical integration stack (Intel hardware with Windows and mostly Microsoft apps); an Apple vertical integration stack (Apple hardware and mostly Apple apps); or a Linux stack (Intel hardware with Linux applications from various vendors). There won't be many 3rd party apps in the Microsoft or Apple stacks. Adobe and Intuit will be much less important 5 years from now than they are now.
Originally posted by bikertwin
I agree. Adobe is clearly very important to Apple now. But they are getting less important as time goes by and as Apple comes out with more and more applications of its own.
Within 5 years, there will be only 3 choices: A Microsoft vertical integration stack (Intel hardware with Windows and mostly Microsoft apps); an Apple vertical integration stack (Apple hardware and mostly Apple apps); or a Linux stack (Intel hardware with Linux applications from various vendors). There won't be many 3rd party apps in the Microsoft or Apple stacks. Adobe and Intuit will be much less important 5 years from now than they are now.
I think the ono-os-dependat devs like Adobe will go to linux, if they are run off of windows and Mac, but they will still have presents in those areas, they will not stop windows and mac production for at least 5-7 years unless something other than software releases happen...look at Avid, they still make money on Mac against FCP/Logic
I do think it is eerie that slowly Apple took over my dock. After Safari and iWork they OWN my Dock. A year or two ago I still had 3rd party browser and text editor and AIM client and mail client. Now they own it, all of it. Is this good or bad? Who knows. All I know is competition is always good. I think the one place open source is doing good is Firefox and Thunderbird and maybe their calendar app. But Linux for desktops? Haven't we been hearing about that since like last century?
Originally posted by a_greer
I think the ono-os-dependat devs like Adobe will go to linux, if they are run off of windows and Mac, but they will still have presents in those areas, they will not stop windows and mac production for at least 5-7 years unless something other than software releases happen...look at Avid, they still make money on Mac against FCP/Logic
It would take five years for either Apple or Microsoft to make a complete pro creative tool suite, so by then, maybe Linux would be a worthwhile platform for such tools. Right now, too many Linux users are vehemently against commercial closed source releases, and there are too many issues with being compatible with more than one major distribution.