Apple posts 3rd quarter results

The second highest quarterly revenue and earning results in company history

Revenue of $4.37 billion and a net quarterly profit of $472 million, up from revenue of $3.52 billion and a net profit of $320 million in the same quarter last year. That's a revenue growth of 24 percent and earnings growth of 48 percent over the same period last year.

International sales accounted for 39 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 1,327,000 Macs and 8,111,000 iPods in the quarter. 12% growth in Mac sales and 32% growth in iPod sales over the same quarter last year (iPods sales were down 5 % from last quarter).

Over 75% of the Macs sold in the quarter were Intel Macs and Apple increased it's share of the MP3 music player market to 75%. The iTunes Music Store now accounts for 85% of the digital music market, (Nielsen SoundScan)

As of 7:07 PM PST on July 20th, Apple's stock was selling for $60.42, up $6.32, or 11.68%

According to IDC research Apple increased it US computer market-share to 4.8% in the second calendar quarter of 2006% up 16% from the same period last year.

Laptops dominated with sales up 61 percent. Desktop sales declined during the same period. People waiting for Mac Pros.

Revenue results could be attributed to pent-up demand for Intel notebooks.

Apple iPhone alluded to in financial results conference call

Apple's CFO Peter Oppenheimer made an indirect statement alluding to an iPhone during the Q3 quarterly financial call.

"...As regards cell phones, we don't think that the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time, that is likely to change. And we're not sitting around doing nothing."

Fueled speculation that Apple has plans for a product maybe in 2007.

Site report finding "hidden" hooks in iPods software eluding to phone features.

NVidia may power next gen video iPod

In a report in the EE Times an analyst with American Technology Research Inc. claims their research shows that Nvidia is designed into the next-generation video iPod.

Current 5G iPods uses an audio codec processor from Portalplayer and a multimedia chip from Broadcom.

The Nvidia chip would add 3D graphics functionality along with video (H.264) processing.

Rumor: Video rental soon available on iTunes Music Store

Think Secret says the movie studios have won round 1 and Steve Jobs will announce movie rental via iTunes at the WWDC

Consumers could purchase movies on iTunes and they would be viewable for a set period of time or set number of viewings and then expire.

Deals with Walt Disney Studios, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Brothers Pictures are said to be complete, with others in progress.

I don't think this is the way to go. CinemaNow (Windows only) now offered a download and DVD burning service (USD$9-$15) 3 hours to download and burn. includes all bonus feature and printable artwork.

New Apple Store in Miami Beach, FL

The Apple Retail store in Miami Beach, Florida will open at 6:00 PM EST on Friday, July 21. It is located at 738 Lincoln Road.

Apple T-shirt to the first 1,000 people to visit the store.

Intel Quad core processors may arrive early

The Kentsfield (Desktop) and Clovertown (Server/Workstation) chips may show up in 4Q.

They have two Conroe or Woodcrest cores on a single chip respectively, but the Cloverton, like the Woodcrest, support dual processor installations. Can you say Mac Pro Octo-Core?

Nike+ iPod Sport Kit Review

Play review from Bryan

Is the data more valuable to Nike than selling shoes?

Prepping your Mac for Service

Listener Ramiro was wondering what people recommend doing prior to handing your Mac over to AppleCare for service

1) Backup. I like to use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable image of my drive to an external FireWire volume. Benefit that you can boot from another MAc and it's like your system never left.

2) Remove any CDs or DVDs from your optical drive

3) De-authorize iTunes.

4) Remove 3rd party RAM and put stock RAM back in. This is also a good troubleshooting step.

Listener David just had this issue when his MacBook was randomly restarting.

5) Change your admin password

6) This is optional, but you may want to Erase and install a clean copy of OS X. They will probably want you to have re-installed OS X as part of the troubleshooting so why not. Plus now they won't have access to your files. When it returns from service just clone back your drive.

Fonts causing issues launching Word 2004

Listener Brion just loaded a bunch of fonts using FontBook, but now is getting the annoying ' "font name" Font is corrupt and should be removed' messages when launching Office 2004 apps.

Use FontBook or tool like Suitcase to validate, check for corrupt fonts and clean up duplicates

Extensis Suitcase Fusion

FontFinagler or other tool to clean Font Caches

FontFinagler

Remove the FontCacheTool. Applications-->Microsoft Office 2004-->Office:Support
Files-->FontCacheTool

I placed it at the root of the Microsoft Office 2004 folder, so I can move it back if needed.

Follow-up on backup storage options

Play comment from Graeme

ADS Tech

www.adstech.com

ZipZoomFly

www.zipzoomfly.com

WebieTech enclosures, but also DriveDocks 3.5" or 2.5", EIDE, SATA, even have bus powered versions (~USD$100-$150)

www.wiebetech.com

Protecting your data and splitting up image files for backup

Use DropDMG to split up a folder of files into multiple images.

DropDMG

Listener Ross recommends using "sparse" image files

Create a Sparse image (Apple Disk Utility->New image -> Format Sparse Image). Choose AES-128 encryption and select a password.

Set the size to the max you think you will ever use the image for.

The sparse image will hold up to that amount, but only use up the amount that is currently in it.

Sparse images will not shrink automatically.

Understanding OS X user accounts

Play question from Michael

3 basic account types

Standard - Access Applications, Home Directory and non-system wide settings (Desktop, Fonts in home folder, etc.) Needs admin login to install apps, change startup disk, etc.

Use Simple Finder or Parental controls to restrict even further.

Administrator - Can access system wide settings.

System Administrator (root) account. Disabled by default. Can enable via command line or NetInfo Manager (not recommended). Use admin account with 'sudo' command instead.

OpenFirmware password - Protects from startup process changes. Modifier keys to boot from volumes other than internal hard drive. Can be bypassed if there is access to the hardware, (lock the case)

File Vault - Used to encrypt all items in the home folder.

Master password, is a backdoor for administrators to access any FileVault encrypted directory.

Basically uses similar methods as creating encrypted disk images

Generally more trouble than it's worth. Corruption.