If you’re still running an old Mac PowerBook 550c or something similar, it must be really annoying to not be able to use Twitter via a native client. That’s probably your No. 1 concern, in fact, on your OS 8.1-running machine. You could always use the web interface, but that’s not really a fair solution, is it?

Now, thanks to Grackle68k, Mac users who are still running Macintosh System 6, 7, 8 and 9 can have a dedicated Twitter client of their very own. Personally, I think the release of this app was just timed to steal the spotlight away from Seesmic for Windows. Obviously this is much bigger news!

Twitter is available to pretty much any platform, and that’s no accident. The technology behind it is relatively lightweight, with clients only really needing the ability to make API calls to be completely functional. The memory footprint of clients differs depending on what developers choose to add on the client side of things, but little is needed to make one actually functional.

That’s the idea behind Grackle68k, a labor of love for a small group of programmers who realize that there’s still quite the classic Mac enthusiast crowd out there who actually use their well-aged machines for some basic tasks in addition to just keeping them running (myself included). The program lets you tweet, but if you want it to remember who you are on each startup, you’ll have to break out the ResEdit and make a change to a resource by adding your login information. It’s an added step, true, but a fun one that should bring back memories, so hey, I’m not gonna complain.

Snow Leopard has barely gotten its paws wet, and now news comes that Apple is already working on its replacement. It’s not really surprising, since Apple is basically always either working on the next iteration of its products or releasing them, but still, it does whet the appetite for the next version of OS X.

The suggestion of the new operating system appeared in an entry posted early this morning in a change database for “launchd,” an open source framework that controls the booting of OS X and administers running processes. The new entry includes an error message with the string “11A47″ in it, which is a reference to what version of Mac OS X is being used.

Previous versions of OS X have all followed the same numbering scheme. The number at the start of the string references which version of OS X is being used, with the letter indicated the minor release number and finally another number at the end indicating the development progress of said minor release. So, for example, Snow Leopard at release was represented by the string 10A432, and Leopard was 9A571. 11A47, then, would seem to indicate that an early build of 10.7 was being used.

According to MacRumors, the “47″ part of that number would suggest that Apple has already been working on the new version of OS X for at least a couple of months now. It’s still very early days, though, and probably even a long way off from a release to the developer community. We saw a two-year span between 10.4 and 10.5, but only a one year gap between the release of 10.5 and 10.6, because 10.6 represented mainly performance upgrades and refinements. Chances are, 10.7 is at least another year and a half off.

No news yet on what to expect in 10.7, although there is reason to believe that the upcoming iteration of OS X will bring more major changes than the last update. Traditionally, Apple introduces far more GUI and basic functionality changes in major point releases, but Snow Leopard was a special exception to that rule, a fact reflected in the price. It’s possible that Apple will release OS 11 at some point, but as of right now, it seems likely that it will continue with the current numbering scheme.

Anything in particular you’d like to see in 10.7? Maybe something you were disappointed wasn’t there in OS X 10.6? Personally, I still think Finder could use some further fine-tuning, but otherwise I’m at a loss at the moment.

If you’re planning your holiday shopping but want to get a good grasp of the budget available to you in advance, it helps to know what kind of deals you’re going to get. Luckily, Apple’s Black Friday discounts have been leaked early, so you can factor in those price reductions while you’re figuring out how pinched you’re going to be financially come January.

Boy Genius Report got the early tip-off, from an anonymous source. It comes in the form of what looks like a flyer image, detailing some pretty significant discounts on all things Apple, basically. They’re deep enough that you’d probably do well to hold off any Mac or iPod-related purchase for at least another 10 days just in case.

Here’s what we’re looking at, if the rumors prove true:

• Up to 30 percent off all iPods (excluding iPhone and iPod shuffle)
• Up to 25 percent off all Macs
• Up to 15 percent off all accessories, Apple software and Apple hardware

The sales seem to be available in Apple retail stores only, since the poster also states that “Select Apple stores open at 6 am,” and a line at the bottom advertises the new availability of in-store gift-wrapping. Last year we saw online Black Friday discounts, though, so it’s possible we’ll see them again.

If these deals do indeed come to pass, they would be pretty significant compared with previous Black Friday sales by the Mac maker. Twenty-five percent off of all Macs is a very good discount, for example, and would result in a $500 discount on the Core i5 27-inch iMac, or a $250 discount on the entry-level MacBook. Compare that to a $101 discount on the MacBook last year, and a $101 discount on the top model iMac.

The teaser image leaked by BGR is fairly convincing, in that it does seem to use design cues and aesthetics currently favored by Apple in its marketing materials, but it’s hard not to be skeptical in the face of sound business sense — considering Apple’s previous Black Friday discounts, and the fact that last time I checked, it really wasn’t in a position to need to offer big price cuts to bolster sales.

If these do prove true, I’ve been putting a new Time Capsule or Airport Extreme purchase on the back burner for quite some time now, and that 15 percent off is nothing to sneeze at, given Apple’s usual reluctance to offer any kind of price cut at all. Anyone else planning on making a purchase if these discounts really do apply? Something you wouldn’t buy otherwise, perhaps?

Apple apparently isn’t exclusively devoted to the idea of finger-based multi-touch input on all its devices, a recent patent applications shows. The patent application, found by Apple Insider, describes the use of a pen-like stylus to operate an “ink information” input system, and references tablet computing applications for the new tech by name.

“Ink information” refers to handwriting technology, specifically. The patent describes that previous attempts in this field, including in Apple’s own Newton device, have been insufficient to the task in the past. It suggests that the addition of an “ink manager,” a kind of go-between interpretive process, might reduce the occurrence of mistaken or misplaced ink detection.

Here’s the exact wording of Apple’s description of both the problem of ink detection and its proposed solution:

Even systems that attempt to improve this situation by using each stroke to determine the input field anew, such as the Apple Newton from Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., can suffer from failure modes that make the situation difficult for both end users and for application developers. For example, a word that accidentally spans two input fields even a tiny amount (due, for instance, to a stray ascender, descender, crossbar, or dot) may be broken up into multiple sessions, causing misrecognition and invalid data entries that must be manually corrected.

The ink manager interfaces between a pen-based input device, one or more applications (pen-aware or not) and one or more handwriting recognition engines executing on the computer system. The ink manager acquires ink information, such as ink strokes, entered at the pen-based input device, and organizes that information into ink phrases.

Along with the patent description, Apple included an image of the proposed system in the application. The graphic is very reminiscent of prototypes and concepts of the as-yet unannounced tablet computer that has the Apple community bubbling over with excitement. Note the bar at the bottom, which resembles the dock on the home screen of the iPhone. I’d also like to point out that the device looks a lot like a reader, given the scroll buttons at the bottom. Maybe Apple is planning to change the game by making sure its reader doubles as a writer, too.

Ideally, the digital ink and stylus input tech described in the patent would operate alongside touch input. This application will no doubt bring a lot of hope for digital artists hoping to work with the device, for whom pen input is infinitely preferable to touch control. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait long to find out if a pen system makes it into a production device, since the tablet is rumored to be unveiled in the first quarter of 2010.

The second minor incremental update for OS X Snow Leopard was released today, and it contains the usual expected bug fixes. It is also is said to contain built-in support for Apple’s new Magic Mouse, and may or may not remove support for Intel Atom processors. If you happen to be using a hackintosh and can confirm or deny whether or not the latest update breaks your system, please comment below and let us know.

You can download the update via Software Update now, or get it directly from the Apple Support site. Here’s Apple’s rather lengthy description of the update, including major bug fixes:

The 10.6.2 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:

• an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly
• a graphics distortion in Safari Top Sites
• Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts
• a problem that prevented authenticating as an administrative user
• issues when using NTFS and WebDAV file servers
• the reliability of menu extras
• an issue with the 4-finger swipe gesture
• an issue that causes Mail to quit unexpectedly when setting up an Exchange server
• Address Book becoming unresponsive when editing
• a problem adding images to contacts in Address Book
• an issue that prevented opening files downloaded from the Internet
• Safari plug-in reliability
• general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk
• an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3874.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

Security firm Symantec is warning computer users about a new Mac-specific Trojan that deletes files on the user’s hard drive, according to Techworld.com. It has dubbed the piece of malware “OSX.Loosemaque,” and uploaded a YouTube video of how it goes about its nefarious purpose.

Basically, it’s a Space Invader clone wherein when you kill an alien, a file in your home folder is deleted. It looks like it’s evil — and designed to perform such a task without the knowledge of the Mac owner on which the program resides. But it isn’t. It’s an art project that clearly advertises its purpose and nature to all who would wish to use it.

The game, dubbed Lose/Lose, is the brainchild of Zach Gage, who created the program as part of an online art installation and released it for public download in September. It’s intended purpose is not to dupe unsuspecting gamers, but to pose questions about the relationship between killing in video games and real-life moral issues. Gage says as much in a statement on his web site:

By way of exploring what it means to kill in a video-game, Lose/Lose broaches bigger questions. As technology grows, our understanding of it diminishes, yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly important in our lives.

Even if a user were to download the game from a different, less well-intentioned place, the game itself warns users right when it opens, stating that “Killing in Lose/Lose will likely result in files on your hard drive being deleted. You have been warned.” Of course, that doesn’t mean that an intelligent programmer couldn’t remove or change said message, and redistribute the game themselves with the intent of causing harm.

That’s what Symantec’s worried about, and why the firm decided to issue its warning about the so-called Trojan. Of course, the company took the opportunity to recommend installing security software as a means to protect against this kind of dangerous artistic expression, seeing as that’s the business it’s in.

Should you worry about this game or threats derived from it? Not unless you are one of the slim few whose retro Mac gaming addiction is so acute that you feel the need to hunt around the digital frontier in suspicious and shady locations looking for independent games of questionable quality and without any sort of legit distribution channels. Or if you happen to be a devoted patron of the arts, and therefore can’t resist the urge to download software you know full well will harm your computer and destroy your files, all for the sake of the artistic effect it has. In either case, anti-virus software won’t help.

Apple has released its Form 10-K (PDF) for the fiscal year 2009, the annual report providing a summary of the company’s performance. A number of interesting details can be found within the long and tedious document, but the biggest news is the increasing importance of the iPhone to Apple’s bottom line.

Apple sold 20.7 million iPhones in the fiscal year, $6.75 billion in net sales, which includes accessories and carrier agreement revenue. Comparing that with just $123 million in 2007 shows just how important the iPhone is to Apple. The iPhone now accounts for about 18 percent of Apple’s sales revenue, but that’s using subscription accounting to spread the revenue over 24 months. Using non-GAAP numbers, the Mac and the iPhone now each account for about a third of Apple’s net sales.

As for the Mac, during the fiscal year Apple sold 10,396,000 computers, a new base-ten record, while the iPod continues to sell around 54 million units a year. However, unlike the iPhone, both the Mac and the iPod apparently have been affected by the recession. Of the other product categories, the iTunes Store, or “other music and product related services,” and software continue to show steady growth.

Browsing the rest of the Form 10-K, a few other points of interest for fiscal year 2009 include:

• Net sales were $36.5 billion for the fiscal year, $5.7 billion in net income, bringing Apple’s cash on hand to $34 billion.
• Apple has 34,300 full-time employees.
• R&D has grown from $782 million in 2007 to $1.3 billion in 2009.
• Apple spent half a billion dollars on ads, up slightly from the previous year.
• Regarding the patent lawsuit with Nokia, Apple “intends to defend the case vigorously.”
• An investment of $100 in AAPL in 2004 would be worth $957 today.
• The Americas account for 44 percent of net sales.
• Unit sales of Macs were up 40 percent in Europe.
• The total number of Apple Stores was 273, up from 247 and 197 for the previous two years.

2009 was an amazing year for Apple by pretty much any metric. However, the introduction of the iPhone in China and possible end of carrier exclusivity in the U.S., the addition of a tablet product, and continued growth in Mac sales all suggest 2010 will be even better.

VMware Fusion 3 for Mac is now available. That’s right, new virtualization software for your Mac, conveniently timed for the release of Windows 7. Actually, it’s very likely the release of VMware’s latest iteration of its OS virtualization software, Fusion 3, got its release date precisely because of Microsoft’s street date for its latest operating system, because Fusion 3 is specially designed to support Windows 7.

Fusion 3 comes just over a year after VMware released Fusion 2, in September 2008. A year is a long time in the life cycle of a piece of software, and in the case of Fusion, the lapsed time between versions shows in the numerous improvements made to the program that allows you to run another OS on a virtualized machine inside of OS X.

As mentioned above, Fusion 3 goes out of its way to make sure your Windows 7 virtualization experience is as seamless as possible. That includes things like support for Windows Aero, Flip 3D and Windows Aero Peek visualization effects, and the ability to run OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c, which should help with some of your gaming needs, especially if you’re into older MMOs that don’t have a native Mac client.

VMware’s sales tactics for Fusion 3 also focus on recent switchers who are having trouble adjusting to their new and unfamiliar environment on a Mac. For example, the improved Migration Assistant helps you copy your entire PC onto a virtual machine on your new Mac hardware quickly and easily using an Ethernet connection. VMware goes as far as to say it works “just like” Apple’s own Migration Assistant for setting up or restoring a Mac-based computer.

There’s also a lot of improvements under the hood, including a new 64-bit native core engine for Macs that can handle it. That means that Snow Leopard users will be getting the most bang for their buck with the latest version. Memory usage on all Vista and Windows 7 machines is also greatly reduced, so in general, you should experience much snappier performance.

Finally, a lot of improvements have been made to VMware Fusion’s Mac Unity mode, which makes the virtualization experience much more integrated than it is in its default, windowed configuration. The list of new features is long, but some highlights include the ability to search for Windows apps like Mac ones, assigning the new always-on Applications menu to a hotkey of your choosing, accessing recently opened documents using Windows apps, full Exposé and Dock Exposé support for all Windows apps, and 3D gaming/1080p video playback while in Unity mode.

Fusion 3 retails for $79.99, but if you’re upgrading from Fusion 1 or 2, you qualify for a special price of $39.99, or $59.99 with a subscription that includes major version upgrades for the next 12 months. Judging by the last upgrade schedule which saw Fusion 3’s release falling one month outside that bubble, that subscription option isn’t looking all that appealing. If you’re picking it up, let us know how you find it.

Apparently not content with just selling cloned Mac hardware in the form of PCs built out of components that are OS X friendly, Psystar, that perennial legal foe of Apple, has now released a software program, too. The program, dubbed Rebel EFI, perhaps in an effort to stir the patriotic hearts of American and Star Wars fans alike, “allows for the easy installation of multiple operating systems on a single system.”

Despite the odd syntactical choice made by Psystar’s copy editor, the ramifications are clear: you should, in theory, be able to install Mac OS X on any old PC hardware. Not only that, but Rebel EFI also reportedly scans your system for compatible hardware and downloads all the appropriate drivers where they are available.

Of course, Psystar is in the business of making money (though sometimes I wonder how it thinks that’s possible when tangling with Apple in court), so Rebel EFI isn’t free. It’ll cost you $49.99 to get the full version, which ships as a direct download.

You don’t have to dive in blind, though. Anyone can download and use Rebel, but the trial version limits some hardware features and only works for two hours. To prevent piracy, you see, or the unlicensed use of Psystar’s software. Yes, the irony is delicious.

Psystar bundles the Rebel EFI with the Darwin Universal Boot Loader, or DUBL, which allows for users to install multiple operating systems on the same computer on different drives. It supports up to six, so you could have OS X, Windows, and any number of Linux builds all running on the same machine, for example.

Rebel also uses the same “Safe Update” method Psystar includes on its pre-modded hardware, which automatically screens updates from Apple and lets you know if they’re safe to install. The same tool also checks with Psystar’s servers to make sure all your hardware is using optimal drivers.

Finally, Psystar has even introduced a new “home certification program.” The program encourages users of the Rebel EFI software to send in hardware components that aren’t fully compatible with the tool, so that the clone-maker’s engineers can correct the problem for all users affected. To me, sending your own hardware components in to a company with a questionable track record which could, theoretically, close its doors any day doesn’t seem like the wisest course of action, but to each his own.

If anyone is planning on purchasing the Rebel EFI, or even just downloading and trying out the demo ISO, we’d welcome an account of your trials and tribulations in the comments.

Microsoft may have only just launched Windows 7, but Apple isn’t sitting back and letting Redmond enjoy its time in the spotlight. Instead, last night it revealed three new ads in the popular “Get a Mac” series featuring John Hodgman and Justin Long, all of which go after Windows 7 by name.

The three ads, “Broken Promises,” “Teeter Tottering,” and “PC News” all have a slightly different take on what’s wrong with Windows, but they all manage to find fault. And they all do so without actually citing anything concrete about Windows 7, which really hasn’t been around long enough to generate the kind of widespread complaints that plagued Vista.

PC News

It’s the Windows 7 release news coverage, except the excited masses aren’t on board with Microsoft. They’re taking advantage of the call to upgrade to Macs instead. The theory being, if MS is saying “All right everybody, ditch Vista!” they might as well switch to an OS they know for a fact actually is user-friendly. Not the best of the bunch, and the logic behind it is kind of a stretch.

Teeter Tottering

Sort of like a single case study of one PC user from the first ad, this one follows an XP user getting ready to switch. To Mac, not Windows 7, despite PC’s repeated overtures to try to get her to stay. What’s great about this commercial is that Justin Long as Mac never says a word, and instead the only debating that goes on occurs between the PC user and Hodgman, so the customer ends up convincing themselves. Hence, the real benefits of Mac are self-evident.

Broken Promises

Only the basic Mac/PC duo are featured in this third new ad, unless you count the inclusion of their former selves from years gone by. This is my personal favorite of the bunch. It uses fictional remembered exchanges between Mac and PC over the years as each iteration of Windows was released, all the way back to Windows 2. A nice visual touch on the part of Apple’s advertising team is the way Apple’s outfit changes only minimally from clip to clip, while PC seems to be a slave to the fashion trends of the time. It paints PC as dated and Mac as timeless.

PC users probably haven’t even had a chance to become disillusioned with Windows 7 yet, but Apple is doing the smart thing by not letting them get the chance. These ads say it all: If Microsoft’s laid the groundwork for an upgrade mentality, best to swoop in and grab a few switchers while the getting’s good.

Pascal Cagni, Apple vice president and general manager for Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, did in an interview with Katie Allen of the Guardian. Speaking after Apple’s earnings report for the fourth fiscal quarter, Cagni was optimistic on the Mac in Europe, guarded about the iPod, and enigmatic about “surprises” in the future.

Questioned on Apple’s success in Europe during the recession, Cagni responded that the Mac is “typically above 20-25 [percent] market share in each of the countries.” That’s about twice the market share in the U.S., and you have to wonder how the numbers add up to worldwide figures that put the Mac under 5 percent. Still, at Monday’s conference call, it was noted that Mac growth was around 40 percent in Spain, Germany and France, so the Mac is doing very well indeed in Europe. Less so, the iPod.

On declining sales, Cagni stated that Apple needs “to carry the message out there much better” regarding the new iPod nano, and that the decline has not yet hit Europe. Again, this is in keeping with comments from the conference call, in which it was stated that the iPod is gaining market share year over year in nearly every country tracked. While Apple does not break out iPod sales by geographic region, 40 percent of all revenue comes from North America, so it would seem then that the decline is largely in the U.S. It’s possible the iPod has hit a saturation point, though another possibility would be cannibalization of iPod sales by the iPhone.

As for the iPhone, the question was whether multiple carriers in the UK will affect pricing in the future. Again, the response lined up with the conference call. Apple does not “dictate” price. Personally, I wonder if AT&T feels that way.

Besides a non-response to the Beatles for Christmas at the iTunes Store — “nothing to announce” — the most interesting comment was another oblique reference to new products in 2010. While Apple executives routinely talk about the great and mysterious “product pipeline,” chief Steve Jobs elevated that hype in Apple’s press release for the fourth fiscal quarter. Cagni echoed that in the interview:

And guess what, as Steve stated, we are going to continue to surprise you in the year to come.

It doesn’t take 20 questions to get to the tablet, the only question now is when?

Today Apple revealed the Magic Mouse — the world’s first multi-touch mouse. Inspired by the multi touch technology in the iPhone and trackpad on modern MacBooks, Magic Mouse is the zero-button, gesture-sensing, wireless pointing-device of your dreams.

Its design is quintessentially Apple. The sleek, minimal lines of Magic Mouse definitely look like something straight out of Jonathan Ive’s workshop. Apple describe it as an “entirely new kind of mouse” that’s “Intuitive, smart [and] dynamic.”

But unlike its distant (and ill-received) ancestor the Mighty Mouse, this new pointing device really does do things no other mouse has ever done before. Apple says “We’ve built a better mouse” and, if you hated the Mighty Mouse, you’ll be hoping Apple isn’t exaggerating, but have got things right this time!

The top shell of Magic Mouse is one huge seamless multi-touch sensor that does away entirely with buttons and scroll-nubs. (Great news for those frustrated Mighty Mouse users with gunky nubs. You know what I mean.)

Magic Mouse tracks and clicks like a regular mouse, but since the entire shell is touch-sensitive, it’s possible to click practically anywhere along its upper surface. That said, Secondary-click (right click) functionality is achieved, as you’d expect, by clicking in the top-right area of the device.

Click Anywhere

Scrolling is achieved by sliding, or swiping, a finger along the surface, rather like you would on an iPhone or iPod touch. Magic Mouse even senses the speed at which you ‘scroll’ — Apple calls this “momentum scrolling.” Scrolling is also supported horizontally and also through 360 degrees.

360° scrolling

Just like an iPhone or a MacBook’s trackpad, Magic Mouse detects and tracks the number of fingers you are using at any given time. So, two finger swipes allows a user to move between albums in iTunes, web pages in Safari, pictures in iPhoto…you get the idea.

Two finger gestures

My immediate concern was room for misinterpretation; a dumb, regular two-button mouse can’t get all clever and start deciding it knows what I want to do. Those clunky buttons have to be pressed. That’s the only option. It might be dumb, but it’s predictable. However, Apple assures us Magic Mouse is smart enough not to be too clever.

Inside Magic Mouse is a chip that tells it exactly what you want to do. Which means Magic Mouse won’t confuse a scroll with a swipe. It even knows when you’re just resting your hand on it.

If, for some unfathomable reason, you don’t like your fancy new multi-touch mouse offering multi-touch functionality, you can choose to disable some, or all, of those features.

Magic Mouse supports all the old mousey tricks you’ve come to expect on the Mac; for example, holding Control and “scrolling” vertically will zoom in and out just as it always has with a wheel or nub-wielding mouse. Like the wireless Mighty Mouse before it, this one connects to your Mac via Bluetooth, enjoying a 33 foot radius. Unlike the Mighty Mouse, this one uses laser tracking technology which is far superior to the old optical tracking method. This provides far higher tracking resolution, which means far higher tracking accuracy across almost any surface.

Bluetooth wireless, laser tracking, and multi-touch goodness sucks down a lot of juice. Apple says Magic Mouse makes the most of its two standard AA batteries by employing power management features, making it more energy efficient. But Apple also doesn’t say how much life you can expect from your batteries. I’m not sure yet whether that ought to be cause for concern, but in any case, no one really takes Apple’s battery-life claims seriously, particularly on a first-generation device.

Magic Mouse requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later. Starting today it comes as standard with the new iMac, or for $69 is now available to order on its own via Apple’s online Store. Get all the juicy details, and watch a video demonstration here on Apple’s Mighty Mouse website.

If you’re like me, you have so many white plastic Apple Remotes scattered around your living space that visitors ask if they’re part of the decor. And they were quite stylish, once upon a time. But Macs started being less about plastic and more about aluminum long ago, and the Remote has languished at the back of Jonny Ive’s design studio, disregarded. Until today, that is.

Along with new iMacs, Mac minis, mice and MacBooks, Apple also quietly unveiled a made-over Remote. It still does the same thing it always has, which is control you Mac or dock-connected iPod remotely, but now it does it with a different aesthetic and improved usability.

The new remote, as you can see from the picture accompanying this post, has an aluminum enclosure and black plastic buttons, borrowing a cue from the design of recent iMacs and MacBook Pros. Note also the button layout change. The Play/Pause button now resides beneath the directional/volume/skip radial button, a new neighbor for the Menu button. The positioning should be better for folks who use Front Row, in which they activate back/forward functions, but I think I prefer the old layout myself, being strictly a VLC guy.

I am happy about the change in the battery door location. You can now use a coin to swivel out the battery cover, sort of like you do on an Apple wireless keyboard. Much better than old bottom-loading batter drawer on the plastic model, which was prone to popping open and just felt generally unstable.

I’m surprised by Apple, which has demonstrated a clear distaste for buttons recently with the iPod shuffle and the new Magic Mouse. It’s only be a matter of time before the Remote gets redesigned as a touch-sensitive slap of nondescript solid aluminum, mark my words.

Capping the most profitable quarter ever with the most Macs sold in a quarter, the conference call to discuss Apple’s fourth fiscal quarter for 2009 may have been the most boring ever, too. However, distilling the tedium into bullet points is more interesting.

iPhone

• Total sales for the year were 21 million, up 78 percent, average selling price around $600. There are more than 85,000 apps in the App Store, 2 billion downloads, 500 million in the last quarter.
• The iPhone 3GS, available in 64 countries last quarter, will match the iPhone 3G with availability in 80 countries by year’s end.
• China gets the iPhone on October 30 with approximately 1,000 points of sale to begin with. Plans will range from the equivalent of $18 to $85 per month, the phone being free at the higher end.
• Korea will be getting the iPhone soon, and there will be multiple carriers in Canada and the UK.
  The iPhone 3GS shortage over the summer may have been the result of sales exceeding Apple’s expectations. Changing the inventory mix between the 3G and the 3GS may have caused component issues, but those were solved as of early October.
  According to Apple, “people are trying to catch up with first iPhone,” so apparently no worries about Droid, Storm2, and the Pre.
• In some instances, the benefit of exclusive carrier agreements allows for greater levels of innovation, like visual voicemail, and in some cases exclusive carriers “invest more.” Apple execs must be using jailbroken phones on carriers besides AT&T.

Mac

• 3.05 million Macs sold, up 440,000 YOY. For 19 out of the last 20 quarters, the Mac grew faster than the rest of the market. For the quarter, 74 percent of Macs sold were portables, up 35 percent YOY — wow.
• Snow Leopard has twice the upgrade rate of Leopard over its first five weeks. In response to a comment about the lower price working for Snow Leopard, the reply was, “yes, it did.”
• The Back-to-School promotion was the strongest ever for the Mac.
• Due to demand for the new portables last quarter and Snow Leopard being launched, it wasn’t quite hinted that sales of Macs might be down for the holiday quarter.

iPod

• The iPod controls over 70 percent of the media player market, and is gaining YOY in every country tracked.
• 50 percent of buyers are purchasing their first iPod.
• iPod touch sales were up 100 percent YOY — again, wow.

Finally, there were two interesting comments, the first being about the Apple Stores and Mac sales. For the first time I can recall, an Apple executive did not say “half or more than half” of Mac buyers were new to the platform. This time it was “about half.” Interpret freely.

Besides that, the most interesting comment came regarding expected margin declines. The rationale included the seasonality of greater iPod sales, fewer Snow Leopard sales than the previous quarter, higher component and other expenses, and this quote:

For the new products we have and will announce, we are delivering greater value to our customers, and these products have lower gross margins than their predecessors.

That would be in keeping with rumors about price reductions on some Macs, including the Mac mini. Start refreshing your browser window on the Apple Store tomorrow, early.

Reporting results for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, Apple sales and profits continue to defy a moribund economy, and for the first time in the company’s history ten million Macs have been sold in a fiscal year.

Apple reported revenue of $9.2 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 earnings per share (EPS), handily beating consensus estimates with the most profitable quarter ever. Apple CEO Steve Jobs issued the expected statement high-five.

“We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010.”

While the great financial news is the primary indicator of the strength of the company, for the consumer the strength of a platform is in the number of units sold. For Mac and iPhone owners, the fourth fiscal quarter was great, but iPod numbers are more nuanced.

While the 3.05 million Macs sold was a record number for Apple in a single quarter, there is another milestone to ponder. For the fiscal year—and likely calendar year—of 2009, laptops account for two out of three Macs sold. Considering that it was only 2002 when that ratio was reversed, the conclusion that we are nearing the end of the desktop era, at least for Macs, seems inescapable. Another apparently inescapable conclusion is that the iPod has peaked.

Unlike the iPhone with vast arid wastes of China to sell to, and the Mac with vast arid wastes of Windows market share to take from, the iPod already owns somewhere over 70 percent of the portable media player market. Where do you go from there? Nowhere, hopefully. Even taking into account last quarter’s numbers, Apple will sell more than 50 million iPods in 2009, just like the last two years. One could even argue that potential iPod sales lost are becoming actual iPhone sales. In that scenario, lost iPod sales are actually a benefit to Apple, as the average selling price for the iPhone is higher than the iPod. If that is the case, there was much of such benefit to be had in the fourth quarter.

More than any other Apple product, iPhone sales rise and fall with new models. As the chart shows, after the introduction of each new iPhone sales surged, then dropped, albeit at significantly higher sales levels after each cycle. The question now becomes whether iPhone growth is leveling off, like the iPod, or whether the apparent plateau in sales is a pause before continuing the climb with the release of the iPhone in China.

Regardless, only the most pernicious of anti-Apple hater can see these results as anything but the staggering success they are for a company that nearly went out of business just over a decade ago. What’s more, 2010 is shaping up to be even better, with what was hopefully a thinly-veiled reference to the tablet by Steve Jobs. Expect analysts to futilely attempt to pry more information from Apple during the conference call, and TheAppleBlog to duly report the obfuscations.

The good news is that preliminary estimates from both IDC and Gartner for the third quarter have Mac sales up and Apple ranked fourth in overall PC sales. The potentially bad news is that Apple will probably drop in ranking next quarter due to the increasing popularity of netbooks.

Nonetheless, despite more unemployment and less consumer spending, Apple managed moderate year-over-year growth in both reports. Although neither Gartner nor IDC ranks Apple in worldwide PC sales, the U.S. market accounts for about 40 percent of Macs sold, so the numbers are instructive of the overall health of the platform. Of the two reports, IDC  shows more robust growth for Apple during the last quarter.

According to IDC, Apple shipped some 1.64 million Macs in the third quarter, up from 1.467 million for the same period last year, a growth rate of 11.8 percent. That puts Mac share of the overall market at 9.4 percent, verging on double digits not seen since the halcyon days of the early 90s. However, like 1994, before the deluge of cheap PCs with Windows 95, there may be danger for the Mac from cheap PCs with Windows 7.

While HP sales were up only 3.2 percent, and Dell saw its sales drop 13.4 percent, both Toshiba and Acer are up, up, up. On the steroidal strength of netbooks, Toshiba sales jumped 37 percent. With an 8.1 percent share of the market, the company will likely pass Apple in ranking next quarter. As impressive as Toshiba was, Acer was even more so. With sales up nearly 50 percent, Acer has already passed Apple and now holds 11.1 percent of the US market. Gartner tells a similar story.

For Apple, Gartner estimates 1.572 million Macs sold in the third quarter, up from 1.471 million for the same period last year, a 6.8 percent increase. Apple’s share of the U.S. market is now at 8.8 percent, barely up from 8.6 percent last year. While both Dell and HP declined slightly, once again Toshiba and Acer are the big winners in market share because of netbooks, Toshiba up 45.8 percent, and Acer up 61.4 percent — that’s like iPhone growth.

The question then becomes: is the lack of a MacBook mini hurting Apple? In terms of market share, definitely, but as Mikako Kitagwa of Gartner points out, “preliminary research shows consumer mobile PC ASPs declined more than 20 percent compared to a year ago.” Netbooks are clearly hurting HP and Dell, both in terms of market share and profit. In contrast, Apple is slowly making gains in market share and continues to profit handily from its portable lineup, which starts at $999. Apple’s move to counter Toshiba and Acer will likely be the long-rumored tablet device, anxiously anticipated for the first quarter of next year.

As for the quarter just ending, Apple will announce its official numbers on Monday. As always, TheAppleBlog will have the numbers and pretty graphs, as well obfuscating quotes from Apple executives about future products.

We’ve covered doubleTwist in the past, and for a time I even used it as my primary media management solution on my Mac, until iTunes 9 drew my wondering eye back to familiar territory. Now there’s even reason to go back to the iTunes competitor, as doubleTwist has just introduced Amazon MP3 store compatibility.

doubleTwist already offers the ability to sync with pretty much any device, instead of just your standard Apple i-devices. And with Amazon support, there’s little reason for many to venture back to iTunes, especially since Amazon’s prices are often better than those found in Apple’s own online store.

It wasn’t too long ago that doubleTwist’s “DVD” Jon Johansen was taking flack from BART for buying legit advertising space at a very conspicuous location, and then using it to promote the iTunes competitor. With the introduction of the Amazon store, we should see that competition heat up even further.

The new Music Store looks like a very stripped-down iTunes store, and though it isn’t as fancy as Apple’s, it is clean and functional, and it doesn’t cause the program to occasionally fail, as iTunes has been known to do. It pales in comparison to the iTunes store in terms of navigation options, though, with a search bar and two small Top Albums and Top Songs lists providing your only means of browsing the Amazon catalog.

The main advantage, of course, comes for people who don’t own an iPod or iPhone (some really do exist, honest). Plug in your BlackBerry, PSP, Android phone, and any number of other supported devices, and you can immediately copy over your purchased media. You miss out on Genius playlists and other iTunes niceties, but if you don’t have an iPod, that probably isn’t an issue anyway.

It may be a small step towards making doubleTwist a full-fledged competitor to iTunes, but having a major player like Amazon onboard is nothing to sneeze at. Ideally, the next step for DVD Jon and his open alternative for the i-device deficient would be to form a partnership with major video media distributors, especially given that doubleTwist automatically converts video when it syncs to most major devices, including the PSP and the Palm Pre.

In fact, Palm could do far worse than doubleTwist in an official partnership to provide its users a dedicated software solution for syncing media instead of continuing to play leapfrog with Apple over iTunes. I’m sure something could be arranged, so long as Palm agreed to keep the software open to other devices as well.

For now, the Amazon store is only available for the OS X version of doubleTwist, but a Windows version is coming soon. You must have an Amazon.com account with a registered payment method in order to use the service.

Mac users may be getting soft on Windows machines as time moves on, according to a recent report by consumer research firm NPD Group. It found that of those polled, a whopping 85 percent admitted to owning both Mac and Windows PC computers.

That’s a far cry from the polarized days of yore, when even joking that you had a Windows PC, even if you actually did, would get you banned from the local Mac user group. But is the reason less die-hard Mac heads, or more PC users flirting with and even giving comfort to the enemy?

The stat was one of the headliners of NPD Group’s dubiously named “2009 Household Penetration Study,” which was released yesterday. PC World lists the details of the report, which includes statistics regarding the presence of PCs and Macs in U.S. households.

Mac ownership is up to 12 percent from only 8 percent in 2008, a 4 percent increase over the course of only one year. A lot of those new Mac owners probably aren’t in the habit of throwing away perfectly good computers, even if they are Windows machines, which could account for some of that 85 percent.

The study also found that Mac owners are unusually covetous of gadgetry. Two-thirds of Mac-owning households have three or more computers, and they also generally own at least twice as many electronic devices as the average PC owner. Specifically, Apple fans generally own 48 gadgets vs. the average of 24. Finally, I can tell my friends and family that what they think is a tech addiction is actually par for the course among people with Mac love.

Apple owners are also much more likely to go mobile, with 72 percent going with a notebook, vs. only 60 percent in Windows households. Sort of explains why the Starbucks window always looks like a Macbook showroom.

By comparison, the number of Windows PC households that have more than three computers stands at only 36 percent, which is almost three times less than their Mac counterparts. If I was in Windows marketing, I’d probably ask why Mac users feel that they need more than three computers to do the same work as just one or two of their PC equivalents. I suspect the real reason has more to do with Mac users loving their computers as objects, independent of what they can do with them.

So I feel pretty pigeonholed following this report. I own five computers, one of which is a PC, and at least 48 gadgets are scattered around my apartment. I also own three notebooks. Anyone else feel like the nail being hit on the head after reading this?

Of all the file syncing solutions available, one of the most popular is Dropbox. As one of the solutions that is also cross-platform compatible, many Mac users have embraced Dropbox as a more reliable and robust solution than other alternatives, like MobileMe’s iDisk. Diehard Dropbox users can now rejoice as the Dropbox team is at it once again with the release of a native iPhone app, allowing users to access their dropbox on the go.

For a while, Dropbox has provided users with an iPhone-optimized web site for accessing their contents on the go, but that left many users desiring more. Even with 3G speeds, web browsing through Mobile Safari is not as fast as an application that can read/write to its own resources and sync with a server.

Native App, Native Features

With a native application, the Dropbox team has managed to provide full access to your dropbox contents as well as several interesting iPhone-specific features.

One of these is the ability to take photos or video directly within the application (or use existing content on your device) and have those photos synced to your dropbox automatically. Dropbox then gives users quick access to generate an email with an appropriate link to view the content and share it with others.

The application itself is very usable and functions like most other native apps. As expected, you can delete items from your dropbox just as you would an email (swipe to delete). To prevent users from experiencing lag (as would have happened with a web app), the application caches a copy of the directory structure once you’ve viewed it at least once. (This later is re-synced if changes occur elsewhere.)

Typical application file types that are supported on the iPhone (images, PDFs, Keynotes, Pages documents, Word documents, etc.) are all supported within the application. Word documents even support copy and paste! If you have video files that are of a supported type (QuickTime and the like), they will also stream from your Dropbox. For those who love sharing content, just like the aforementioned photos, a mail icon in the lower left corner allows users to generate emails for any content stored on their dropbox.

Dropbox also supports a “Favorites” feature which allows you to sync your favorite files directly to your iPhone, even further speeding up response time. To favorite a file, simply tap the star icon at the bottom of the screen when viewing the file.

A Few Shortcomings

One little complaint that I have is that Dropbox uses its own picture browser. As such, when I load an image, I’m unable to pinch to zoom like what happens when browsing photos elsewhere on my phone. Support for the accelerometer is present, though, as rotating my phone allows the photo to reorient itself. I’m assuming this is just a bug and something the Dropbox team will work out in a future update.

Another interesting piece that is missing is the fact that Dropbox supports Growl on its desktop version. Though it may be annoying, some users may be wishing for push notifications for any updates to their dropbox. Again, as this is an initial release, this is something that could come in a later update.

Dropbox is a free download from the App Store but does require a valid Dropbox account. Users can sign up for a free Dropbox account (limited to 2GB), and there are paid options for greater storage (50GB or 100GB). As someone who has used Dropbox for over a year now, it’s a very robust solution for file syncing and in my tests, a lot more stable than MobileMe’s iDisk. If you’ve used Dropbox or the new Dropbox app and have thoughts on the matter, tell us your experience!

We reported earlier that BlackBerry would be delivering its Desktop Manager software for Mac in September of this year. Keen readers will note that, in fact, that was not the case, since it is now the last possible day for that software to appear, and that software isn’t coming.

It is, however, going to arrive just a little outside of the originally announced release window. On Oct. 2, which is this Friday, BlackBerry customers who are also Mac users will finally be able to enjoy equal status with their PC counterparts. About time, RIM. Be honest, you were just holding a grudge about the iPhone’s success, weren’t you?

As of this Friday, you’ll be able to use BlackBerry’s own software to sync contacts, calendar items and appointments, notes and task from sources such as iCal, Address Book, and Entourage, among others. You can also add and remove software downloaded via BlackBerry’s App World using the Desktop Manager, which is good news for people who’ve been trying to manage their fledgling collections all via the device itself.

BlackBerry users will also be able to sync playlists from iTunes, so long as the format is compatible. Last time I checked (just last week), the Tour still didn’t play back .m4a files. It recognized them and was able to retrieve track information, but it wouldn’t actually play them.

People with RIM devices will also be able to schedule and encrypt backups for their phones, and install software updates from the desktop. BlackBerry Desktop Manager is designed to run on OS X 10.5.5 and above. BlackBerry devices used with Desktop Manager for Mac must be running OS 4.2 or higher. Set your alarm for 10 a.m. PDT on Friday, because that’s when the download goes live at the official BlackBerry site.