Apple started the week off with its quarterly earnings call, reporting a record $20 billion in revenue. Apple sold 3.89 million Macs, 4.19 million iPads and 14.1 million iPhones. Most numbers beat Wall Street expectations except the iPad sales numbers which were predicted to be slightly higher.
On Wednesday Apple held its Back to the Mac event, announcing Mac OS X Lion, new MacBook Air models and the iLife 11 suite.
Lion, which will be released in summer of 2011, will incorporate many user interface elements from the iPhone and iPad. One feature, a Mac App Store, will be released as an update to Snow Leopard in about three months. A Mac App Store would provide an alternative distribution model for software over the traditional web site download or in-store purchase. Not all software products will be found in the App Store, however, as programs like system utilities won’t meet Apple’s requirements.
The new MacBook Air models feature flash memory instead of hard drives. There is a 13.3-inch screen model as well as a smaller 11.6-inch model. The smallest is priced at $999.
iLife 11 features updates to iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand. iMovie will have new audio editing options and a built-a-movie-trailer function. iPhoto expands its ability to let you order printed products and has more slideshow themes. GarageBand adds the ability to correct the timing between tracks, and expands the music tutorials. iLife 11 is shipping now at $49 for an upgrade and also comes as part of each new Mac.
Record Earnings, iLife 11, New MacBook Air, Lion in 2011
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I was hoping for an iWeb update that had some cool HTML5 stuff in it. Being that Steve had been promoting that as a Flash alternative. Probably not going to upgrade. Maybe I'll get just the new iPhoto once it's in the Mac App Store.
Which HTML5 stuff in particular are you looking for? The problem is, that if some of the things were added to iWeb, then they wouldn't work for a majority of users (still using old IE browsers). So that would be a disaster.
iWeb would have to allow for backward compatibility, but it would be a great way for Apple to hi-lite the capabilities of HTML5 and their browsers over IE and Flash. Things that come to mind are video and audio streaming, local databases, and advanced form fields. That stuff is really important for making your sites iOS friendly. iWeb should allow us to create a site that renders 'nicely' on multiple platforms. This would require user agent detection and redirects to separate areas of the site. With an App Store on the Mac, Apple doesn't really need to release iLife and iWork as suites anymore. They can release iWeb '11 separately when it's ready. I bought Pages on my iPad separately when I needed it. I thought I was going to buy Number first, but I ended up not needing it. I think the App Store is going to make casual gaming popular on the desktop. Hopefully stuff that is better than Farmville.