The likely result is that Apple will further solidify its position as the platform of choice for software developers—and as a result, many consumers. In just eight months programmers have created 25,000 applications that are available on Apple’s online App Store. Of those programmers, 62% had never written anything for an Apple product. So far, consumers have downloaded more than 800 million of these apps, which include everything from games like Tetris to software that helps diabetes patients manage insulin levels. The wide range of apps is a major reason the iPhone quickly jumped to No. 3 in the cutthroat smartphone market.

Continued iPhone app development is what will keep Apple ahead of their competition. Right now they have an extremely active development community.

Source: Business Week

A new version of iTunes (8.1) is now available for download. According to update the new version of iTunes is now faster, stronger and grows hair on your chest.
Here’s the official fix and feature enhancement list:
• Supports syncing with iPod shuffle (3rd generation).
• Allows friends to request songs for iTunes DJ.
• Adds Genius sidebar for your Movies and TV Shows.
• Improves performance when downloading iTunes Plus songs.
• Provides AutoFill for manually managed iPods.
• Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus.
• Includes many accessibility improvements.
• Allows iTunes U and the iTunes Store to be disabled separately using Parental Controls.

Convinced? Get to downloading, then.

The new iPod shuffle features VoiceOver, which enables the iPod to speak your song titles, artists and playlist names. The shuffle can speak 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Sounds pretty good. But then:

All of the controls for the Shuffle are located on the earphone chord, allow you to play, pause, adjust volume, switch playlists and hear the name of the song and artist. The iPod can also give you information like battery life.

One problem though, you can’t use third party earphones with the Shuffle. This could quickly become a problem in certain scenarious.

The iPod Shuffle is being sold everywhere right now for around $79.00.

Users can launch the application on an iPhone, select a photo by touching it, after which a print command is sent to the inkjet printer over a Wi-Fi network. The software also runs on the iPod Touch device.

Currently, the software enables only 4-by-6-inch (10-by-15-centimeter) photo prints and resizes images accordingly. The application is available for download from the App Store for free.

The only image format currently supported is JPEG.

Apple recently announced the launch of the pink iPod Nano. The 8GB model in pink costs $199. It features a 2 inch screen so you can watch movies purchased and downloaded from iTunes.

“Customers are going to love the gorgeous new pink iPod nano,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod Product Marketing. “The pink iPod nano is perfect for people who want a great new color this spring, or who are searching for a special Valentine’s Day gift.”

The 8GB iPod Nano also comes in in silver, black, blue, green and a (PRODUCT) RED special
edition. There is also a 4GB version of the iPod Nano available for around $149.00.

To find out more, please visit Apple.com

Steve Jobs recently debuted the MacBook Air.

Jobs said it is the world’s thinnest notebook — just .76 inches at its thicket point and .16 inches at its thinnest. “We’re talking thin here,” he said. The crowd went crazy over the the new laptop. There’s no doubt that it looks impressive. It has an 80 gig hard drive and a built in iSight web camera.

The MacBook Air is built to be a wireless machine and does not have a built in optical drive. You can buy a disc drive as an accessory.

Here’s some of the basic features:
Weight: 3 pounds
13.3 inch display
Full sized, backlit keyboard
2 GB memory

Price $1799.00

It’s scheduled to ship in two weeks.

It looks to be pretty cool, even for someone that is used to working on personal computer..

CNN

The new store will have three floors. Two floors are dedicated to products and the third floor is dedicated to services. It will also feature a 46-foot Genius Bar and specially designed areas for workshops and personal training. The Apple Store West 14th Street also introduces Pro Labs where customers can receive free, in-depth training on Apple’s industry-leading pro applications including Final Cut Pro(R).

“We are thrilled to open our third and largest store in Manhattan on West 14th Street,” said Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail. “We think New Yorkers will love this stunning new location and the incredibly talented team we’ve assembled to make the Apple Store West 14th Street a place where people can shop, learn and truly be inspired.”

The Apple Store West 14th Street is located at 401 West 14th St. at 9th Avenue, one block south of Chelsea Market. It joins existing Apple retail stores on Fifth Avenue and in SoHo.

“That category of devices is so nonexistent,” said Ross Rubin, an analyst with The NPD Group, which tracks almost every imaginable retail segment. “It hasn’t really evolved to the point where we’ve been tracking it as a category.”

As a result, it’s difficult to get a sense of how many Apple TVs have been sold. Apple employees were given last week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, and company representatives were therefore unavailable to comment.

Apple doesn’t report shipment totals for Apple TV like it does for Macs, iPods, and iPhones. Revenue from Apple TV is lumped in with a number of other segments on Apple’s financial statements, and it’s also recognized on a subscription basis over a period of two years. But it’s clear that Apple TV is quite a bit lower on the company’s priority list behind the Mac, iPod, and iPhone divisions: Jobs even called it a “hobby” during the D: All Things Digital conference.

Apple, so far, joins a long list of companies that have attempted to sell the same concept to the consuming public. Whether that changes remains to be seen.

The wait for Mac’s newest Operating System, the Leopard OS X is nearly over!

The software will available for purchase on October 26, 2007 and has the following features:

• Improved Parental Controls, aiding parents in managing their kids’ online activities with automatic identification of unsuitable content before allowing website access, plus time limits and activity logs that can be accessed from any Mac on a home network.
• The complete Boot Camp(R) release, previously available only as a beta, making it possible to run Windows natively on Intel-based Macs.
• Web Clip, bringing anything that a user wants from a web page to Dashboard as a live widget.
• New Photo Booth features, helping users create animated iChat buddy icons or fun effects and backdrops with still or video images.
• An enhanced Dictionary with Wikipedia built in, allowing users to access up to date information on virtually any subject in a snap.
• A newly updated iCal with multi-user calendaring based on the new CalDAV standard.
• An updated version of Front Row, making it even easier to play music or watch movies, TV shows and photos on a Mac using the ultra-simple Apple Remote.

To find out more or to order the Mac OS X Leopard Operating System, click here!

Is it time to replace your old laptop computer with something shiny and new? Then consider the Apple MacBook Pro MA895LL. This MacIntosh does it.. and then some. It features a 15 inch LCD screen.

Stylishly and intelligently designed for mobile professionals, Apple’s MacBook Pro gets a serious speed bump with the new, powerful Intel chipset (dubbed Santa Rosa), which provides a faster Core 2 Duo processor, longer battery life, and native support for 802.11n wireless connectivity. This model (MA896LL/A) also includes a new mercury-free, power-efficient LED-backlit display measuring 15.4 inches and a state-of-the art NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT video card for more realistic graphics for animation and gaming. This MacBook Pro is powered by the new 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo T7700 processor and 2 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 memory–the fastest portable computer memory currently on the market (June 2007). But some things haven’t changed: the trademark stunning aluminum enclosure that’s is just one-inch thin, built-in iSight video camera, and Apple’s magnetically connected MagSafe power adapter, which safely disconnects when under strain.

This MacBook Pro measures just 1 inch thin and weighs 5.4 pounds. Other hardware features include a 160 GB hard drive, 8x SuperDrive for burning multiple disc formats, built-in 10/100/1000 BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet for high-speed networking, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), a FireWire 800 and a FireWire 400 port, an ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot for expansion solutions such as 3G wireless networking, and a DVI video output.

It can be used to video conference, has wireless ability, and has plenty of memory and hard drive space.

The Apple MacBook Pro MA89-PARENT can be yours for under $1,400.00.