I stumbled upon an Apple Developer Connection email, or as they spelled it at the time, “A P P L E    D E V E L O P E R    C O N N E C T I O N” from January 10, 2003. It is stamped Issue 332, and it appeared just after MacWorld. Enjoy:

—————————————-
MACWORLD ANNOUNCEMENTS
—————————————-
[1] Mac OS X Adoption Soars With More Than 5 Million Users

Apple is entering 2003 with more than 5 million active Mac OS X
users and more than 5,000 native Mac OS X applications. This year
also marks the first “All Mac OS X” Macworld Expo with every
developer on the show floor featuring Mac OS X products.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jan/07macosx.html

—————————————-
[2] Apple Introduces X11 for Mac OS X

X11 for Mac OS X allows X11-based applications to run side-by-side
with native Mac OS X applications on the same desktop and makes it
even simpler to port X11-based applications to the Mac. Apple’s
implementation of X11, the common windowing environment for UNIX
operating systems, is easy to install and is optimized to take full
advantage of Apple’s innovative Quartz graphics system.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jan/07×11.html

—————————————-
[3] Apple Delivers AirPort Extreme 802.11g Wireless Networking

AirPort Extreme is the next generation of Wi-Fi wireless networking
technology based on the new ultra-fast 802.11g standard. With speeds
up to 54 Mbps, AirPort Extreme delivers almost five times the data
rate of 802.11b based products, yet is fully compatible with the
millions of 802.11b Wi-Fi devices around the world.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jan/07airportextreme.html

—————————————-

Continue reading »

After Hours $184.10

Change: +9.74 +5.59%

Apple Inc. shares rose $9.06 to $183.42. The company reported fiscal fourth-quarter net earnings $904 million, or $1.01 a share, on revenue of $6.22 billion. Lat year, Apple earned $542 million, or 62 cents a share, on $4.84 billion in sales. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast earnings of 86 cents a share on revenue of $6.07 billion. Among the quarter’s highlights were sales of 2.16 million Macintosh PCs and 1.11 million iPhones.

Early adopters who bought iPhones at $499 and $599 will get a $100 store credit, says Steve Jobs in a letter released today.

Job’s letter, below, comes on the heels of a $200 price drop — and ensuing online firestorm — announced yesterday on both iPhone models. Only those who bought the phone within 14 days (30 if bought from ATT) are eligible for a refund of the difference.

To all iPhone customers:

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it. iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to ‘go for it’ this holiday season. iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers. It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone ‘tent’. We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.

We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.

Steve Jobs
Apple CEO

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/

After Hours: $149.50, Change: +12.24 +8.92%

Goodness gracious.

Apple is on a roll, and the company shows no sign of slowing down.

After the close of the stock market Wednesday, Apple reported profits of $818 million, or 92 cents a share, for its fiscal third quarter. That’s a 73 percent jump compared with last year, when third-quarter profit was $472 million. It’s 9 cents higher than Wall Street was expecting and 26 cents better than the company’s own projections. Strong Mac and iPod sales led the charge, but Apple also has a third business these days.

The company reported selling 270,000 iPhones during the 30 hours before the quarter ended on June 30. That’s at the upper end of what estimates were going into iPhone weekend, though far below some of the extremely high estimates that surfaced following the launch. Still, some were anticipating a smaller number after AT&T reported activating 146,000 iPhones during the same period.

via cnet

That’s right, the Apple Mac browser Safari will be released for Microsoft Windows.

Steve Jobs made it his signature “… one more thing” announcement at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference just 4 minutes ago. More on this later.

Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) — Without a doubt, Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) will take center stage at Steve Jobs’ keynote address.

Secret OS X 10.5 Features
iMacs — or maybe not, after all?
iPhone
Ultraportable
via MacRumors

Watch Apple Inc. stock to jump today on a raft of recent good news, the most recent of which seems small but really is a major event, if true.

…McCartney tells Billboard in an exclusive interview to be published tomorrow (May 11) that a deal to finally make the Beatles catalog available for sale online is “virtually settled.” [Billboard]

Also very substantial:

According to NPD Group Apple’s MacBook and MacBook Pro made up 9.9 percent of all notebook sales at U.S.-based retail stores during March. MacBooks combined with strong iMac sales pushed Apple into the top five desktop manufacturers for the first time this year, according to the NPD report. [my bold] [zdnet]

Before market, May 14:
$108.74

No big deal right? Usually no, but this guy blogged about it (and well, it’s a good read).

Buzz Andersen talks about his love for Apple, and how he lost it. It’s a peek inside Apple Inc. and a look at the rise and fall of a software developer.

Perhaps most importantly of all, though, I began to feel more and more that my job at Apple, once a source of such growth, was now holding me back creatively.  The natural curiousity, drive, and entreprenurial spirit that had once led me to develop two significant Mac applications, write a widely read weblog, and explore a variety of experimental side projects, had been all but crushed under the weight of a gigantic bug queue and long commute.  My well respected side projects were rapidly turning into abandonware, and my once compelling web profile had been reduced to a trickle of Twitter and Flickr posts.

Apple, Inc.’s legal department reached in February an agreement with the Beatles’ record label Apple Corps Ltd. It frees Apple Inc. to load music onto its products. It could have an interesting effect on how iPods are sold (or possibly even Macs or AppleTV).

The old agreement (at Sections 1.3 and 4.3) seemingly prevented Apple from selling music on physical media, such as CDs, even though it could sell music through the iTunes Store. On paper, this seemed like a simple limitation: Apple could sell music-playing hardware like iPods, but it couldn’t sell you the discs full of music to play on the iPod.

Apple’s iTunes Store – the subject of the 2003 lawsuit – successfully stepped around this limitation by using the Internet to distribute music, but it left Apple with two major limitations: Apple couldn’t pre-install music on iPods, or otherwise sell it on any physical medium, such as discs. This was one of the reasons that the prior U2 Special Edition iPods didn’t actually include U2’s music – Apple’s contract with The Beatles forced you to buy it separately online.

This would be a big boost to very specific, niche iPod sales outlets like airport iPod vending machines. Can you imagine being able to get an iPod at airport terminal loaded with Celine Dion, saving you the trouble of ripping your vast Dion collection while trying to pack?

As Apple CEO Steve Jobs defines one hot consumer product segment after another, slowly, almost imperceptibly, Apple is assuming the dominant position in the world of consumer tech.

And with its rise, so rises the lightning rod of criticism.

Continue reading »

USA Today reports that cell phone carrier had the opportunity to ink a deal as the sole Apple iPhone service provider contract two years ago but rejected it over financial terms.

Among other things, Apple wanted a percentage of the monthly cellphone fees, say over how and where iPhones could be sold and control of the relationship with iPhone customers, said Jim Gerace, a Verizon Wireless vice president. “We said no. We have nothing bad to say about the Apple iPhone. We just couldn’t reach a deal that was mutually beneficial.”

Apple is notorious for controlling its brand and the “customer experience” that goes with it, once having ended Apple stores-within-stores in large electronics chains because the customer experience was sub par. I don’t blame them; I visited some and they were ghetto. Continue reading »

Apple has a major announcement due to be aired in a Superbowl ad spot on February 4th.

Touchscreen iPod ala iPhone? Beatles catalog in iTunes Store? OS X 10.5 Leopard shipping?

via Digg

The Apple Store has new deals, including the Refurbished MacBook Pro, 15-inch, 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo for $1299 (36% off) and the 30-inch Refurbished Apple Cinema HD Display for $1699 (an eye-popping 49% off). That’s the big one, people.

via Gizmodo

With great fanfare, Steve Jobs yesterday announced the iPhone, Apple TV and a surprising name change for the company: Apple, Inc.

Apple TV works with Macs or PCs and is intended to fill the gap between the television and computer (now that we’re keeping movies and shows on our Macs and PCs). It’s connected to your television, and can hold 50 hours of movies and television shows. But the real juice here is that it integrates with your home WiFi network, so that content can be streamed to it from your computer.

Apple TV features:

• Intel processor
• 40GB hard drive for storing content locally
• Up to 50 hours of movies and TV shows
• Up to 9,000 songs
• Up to 25,000 pictures

Apple is no longer Apple Computer, Inc. The name change reflects the shift from computers to a much broader array of consumer devices that started with the iPod in 2001.

In addition, Apple quietly replaced its Airport Extreme product with the new AirPort Extreme, featuring the 802.11n protocol for 5X speeds over the current 802.11g standard.

Steve Jobs today unveiled the long-awaited Apple iPhone, available in June for $499 (4GB) and $599 (8GB). It will run a stripped-down version of OS X, and service will be provided by Cingular (in the US).

It will have “desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching,” according to Jobs. Of course it has all the capabilities of an iPod, most notably widescreen video for TV shows and movies.
Features:

• 3.5″ Widescreen touch-sensitive display
• 11.6 mm thin
• 2 megapixel camera
• proximity sensor, accelerometer, and ambient light sensors
• GSM/EDGE
• WiFI
• Bluetooth
• Battery Life: 16 hours audio, 5 hour

While clearly labeled a concept, the phone device looks about right for the intersection of Apple design, rumored features, and the rumored ~$500 price tag. Continue reading »

Someone I know who works in [Apple] shipping said they recieved a high number of shipments, more then the usual amount, of apple products. But they weren’t allowed to open the boxes at all to count the number of products in their to be sure none were missing.

… from a forum post at insanelymac.com

Of course the most important question — what is it? — remains unanswered.

Other things MacWorld:

• The AV kit Jobs will use tomorrow for his keynote [video]
• List of live MacWorld coverage sites
  
• MacWorld 2007 predictions thread [AppleSwitcher forum]

With less than a week until Steve Jobs takes the stage for a longer-than-usual 2 hour keynote speech at MacWorld 2007, rumors of new Apple products are in full banshee wail. As AppleSwitcher’s very own Fred N. remarked, even Apple seems to be hinting this MacWorld will be on par with the biggest MacWorlds in recent years.

iPhone? This would be the biggest announcement of any. The market for an iPod that takes calls is estimated to be massive. If it’s done right. Big if, but of all companies that can do it, Apple’s most likely to.

iTV? Also very big, if it were to occur, would be Apple’s full entry into the living room. The device would merge the PC with the television with the stereo with the movie and music collection with the iTunes Store. Not a small job that.
(Google search results for “iphone rumors” vs. “itv rumors” are currently running 4.5:1)

Neither? Something else? The iPhone rumor has been echoing through these halls for over 2 years, and every time it’s next year.

Certainly OS X 10.5 “Leopard” demonstrations will be in order, as will the usual announcements of upgrades to Apple products like the iLife family, iWork family, .Mac service, and Apple’s not-insubstantial line of professional creative software titles like Aperture and Final Cut. Mac Minis and Mac Pro lines stand to see a processor upgrade also.

In a way, Apple doesn’t have to release a thing this MacWorld because the massive attention from all the product release speculation (this very post, natch) and publicity will surely sell more iPods and Macs as is. But that’s part of the fun of early January every year — Apple raises the bar for itself, Jobs puts himself on the spot, and we see if he can possibly rise above it and top the speculation.