the rumored 8/7 date turns out to be true…looks like a new product announcement is scheduled.
AppleInsider | Apple to host Mac event next Tuesday:
By AppleInsider Staff
Published: 07:00 PM EST
Apple Inc. is gathering analysts and members of the media for a Mac-related press event to be held at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino on Tuesday, August 7th, AppleInsider has been told.
Unlike past events in which the company drafted and issued digital invitations through e-mail, word of next week’s event was initially spread Tuesday afternoon via phone calls from Apple’s marketing division.
AppleInsider was told, and Gizmodo confirms, that the event will be restricted exclusively to Mac announcements. In speaking to journalists by phone, Apple representatives were reportedly very clear in expressing that no iPhone or iPod product announcements were in the cards.
The event will begin at 10:00 am PDT at the Apple Town Hall on company’s Cupertino-based campus — the same venue used for the introduction of the Intel-based Mac mini and iPod Hi-Fi last February. Once again, seating is said to be extremely limited.
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is widely expected to use the gather to take the wraps off a new generation of 20- and 24-inch iMacs, which were first detailed back in March and later pinpointed for a release in late-July/early-August. It was also reported by AppleInsider in recent weeks that each new iMac would come bundled with a new super-slim keyboard, photos of which subsequently turned up on the web.
Jobs is also more than likely to use Tuesday’s event to provide demonstrations of the company’s long-awaited iLife ‘08 and iWork ‘08 software suites.
ITunes Surpasses 3 Billion Songs Sold – washingtonpost.com:
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 31, 2007; 5:18 PM
LOS ANGELES — The iTunes Store said Tuesday it had passed a milestone, selling more than 3 billion songs since launching four years ago.
The milestone came just six months after iTunes, Apple Inc.’s online music download service, surpassed the 2 billion tracks-sold mark. The service launched in April 2003 and it took until February 2006 to sell its first 1 billion songs.
In the first quarter of this year, it was ranked the third-biggest overall music retailer in the U.S., behind No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Best Buy Co., according to consumer surveys by The NPD Group.
The ranking was based on units sold, not revenue from sales, and counted every 12 tracks purchased online as equivalent to an album in compact disc format.
Apple’s line of iPod portable music players has been key to iTunes’ popularity.
In April, the Cupertino-based company said it had sold more than 100 million iPods. It reached that milestone in the five and a half years since the first iPod was sold.
Shares of Apple fell $9.71, or 6.9 percent, to $131.72 Tuesday.
no, after all this talk of buying, it’s not a home that we bought…but a rental for at least another year. we decided against buying right now. interest rates aren’t great, prices have started dipping but still have plenty of room to fall, and for our time horizon of waiting another 3-4 yrs to buy our *real* home, it just doesn’t make sense financially. home would have to appreciate at least 4-5%/year to make it worth it.
so about that rental. it’s incredible. it’s the top floor of a Victorian. it’s huge. the pictures in the ad weren’t great, here’s a taste:
that’s the dining room, with the kitchen behind it, and a patio deck outside the door. there’s another 2 large bedrooms, and then a humongo double parlor in front with bay windows looking out over 22nd St. there is, however, only 1 bathroom (with clawfoot tub!) – so we may have to wait in line behind the kitties.
also, it’s right in the middle of the hot Valencia corridor area of the Mission (22nd St & Valencia). great restaurants, bars, and my favorite thing: cafes. it comes with a lease parking space a block away.
there are only 2 downsides i can see so far. 1. it’s 2.7 mi from Caltrain (vs. 1 block right now), so i’ll probably need to get a scooter. 2. there are 2 flights of stairs to get into the place, so i’m not sure how we’ll handle the bicycle situation (there doesn’t seem to be any street-level storage). ah well, we’ll deal.
anyways, we move in 3 weeks! it’s almost a good thing we’re not going to Burning Man this year (i have to work that week & probably Labor Day weekend).
i dunno what’s going on, but tons of friends seem to be joining facebook. i’ve been getting new invites every few days, and from people in all different circles. in the web 2.0 world, they made a big splash with facebook applications, a platform for integrating other sites into it. i haven’t really played with the features much, but i do like the clean layout of the site.
i’m kinda rooting for them, since friendster blew it (friendster is blowing it – 10/29/04), and myspace is owned by News Corp.
Apple stock dropped almost $9 today to $135/share…the cataclysmic news that shaved 6.13% of the company’s value? no, steve jobs didn’t retire…the news is that ‘only’ 146,000 iphones were activated by AT&T by quarter end, June 30. that’s 146k in under 2 days. people who not only coughed up $600 for a phone, but the 50% switching from other carriers were also willing to pay $150-200 early termination fees.
some analysts went nuts estimating up to 700k phones the first weekend. AT&T did have some activation problems the first weekend with overloaded servers (so far almost all the iphone complaints are about AT&T), so the actually number sold may be higher than 146k. regardless, the first 2 days of sales doesn’t make the market. the smart money is looking towards where the market will mature to in ‘09, like Pipar Jaffray’s $205 estimate.
Update (7/25): For those that sold yesterday, big mistake. Q3 earnings were announced today: $0.92/share ($0.72 expected). Shares are up almost $12 in afterhours trading to almost $150.
