World of Apple

Apple is set to open its Liverpool One Apple Store in the UK this coming weekend.

The Apple store situated in the Liverpool One shopping development will open this Saturday at 9am.

Join us for the Grand Opening and get the chance to win a Digital Lifestyle Collection that includes a black MacBook and a silver iPod nano. The first 1,000 people through the doors will receive a free Apple T-shirt.

The Apple store represents the first for Liverpool, a city with over 800,000 residents.

iPhoto 7.1.4 - 74MB

This update contains new holiday greeting card and postcard themes for use with Apple print products.

This update also addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.

This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.

iWeb 2.0.4 - 35MB

This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.

iLife Support 8.3 - 10MB

iLife Support provides system software components shared by all iLife ‘08 applications.

This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues. It is recommended for all users for iLife ‘08.

Apple today announced their third quarter 2008 financial results posting revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion (or $1.19 per diluted share).

Apple also held a conference call covering the details of the quarter as well as answering questions from analysts.

Notes from Conference Call

• Highest June quarter earnings in Apple’s history
• Highest quarterly Mac shipments in Apple’s history
• 38% growth in revenue year-over-year
• 11 million iPods sold, up 12% year-over-year
• iPhone 3G off to great start, 1 millionth iPhone sold in just 3 days, available in 22 countries
• Over 900 applications on App Store, 20% free, 90% under $10. Over 25 million apps downloaded so far
• iTunes now offers 8 million songs, 20,000 TV shows, and 2,200 movies, with 450 of those movies offered in HD
• 476,000 Macs sold via retail stores, over half sold to customers new to Mac
• 216 retails stores around the world at the end of quarter, stores coming to Switzerland and Germany in coming months
• Expect to sell more iPhones in Q408 than any other quarter
• Gross Margin expected to be down to 31% in September quarter, in part because of new product introduction, no further details available

Question and Answer Session Highlights

• Beijing Apple store doing very well already
• 170 Best Buy stores added in quarter. Total of 570 currently, 600 by the end of the Summer
• Steve Jobs has no plans to leave Apple and his health is a private matter
• Apple continues to invest in Apple TV, even though it remains a “hobby”
• iPhone 3G sold out due to overwhelming demand. Pleased with production ramp, trying to catch the demand by shipping units as fast as they can
• iPhone 3G launching in additional 20 countries on August 22
• Reiterated that Apple will introduce state of the art new product at prices their competitors can’t match
• App store not a huge revenue generator, instead makes the iPhone and iPod touch more attractive

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 third quarter ended June 28, 2008. The Company posted revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $5.41 billion and net quarterly profit of $818 million, or $.92 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.8 percent, down from 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 42 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 2,496,000 Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing 41 percent unit growth and 43 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 11,011,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 12 percent unit growth and seven percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 717,000 compared to 270,000 in the year-ago-quarter.

“We’re proud to report the best June quarter for both revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We set a new record for Mac sales, we think we have a real winner with our new iPhone 3G, and we’re busy finishing several more wonderful new products to launch in the coming months.”

“We’re extremely pleased with the growth of our business and the generation of almost $5.4 billion in cash in the first three quarters of fiscal 2008,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $7.8 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.00.”

Apple will be live streaming its Q3 2008 financial results. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT on Monday, July 21, 2008 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq308/

According to MobileMe’s support site around 1% of users are unable to access MobileMe mail, according to some the outage has lasted for around 4 days.

CNN Money is also reporting the issues:

The Cupertino, Calif., company has been migrating its .Mac pay email service to an upgraded version, called MobileMe. But in doing so, it has run into problems including service outages and customers losing access to their accounts. It’s the latest in a string of issues that have cropped up since the launch of the latest iPhone, an unusual turn for a company known for its attention to detail in its products and services.

The launch of MobileMe has been tarnished by a poor initial rollout and slow response in the past couple of weeks.

Within the next few hours Apple will unveil its third-quarter results and many analyst are expecting a strong performance from the company despite poor results from industry giants such as Microsoft and Google.

On average analysts appear to be reporting that Apple will earn $1.07 a share on $7.36 billion in sales, up from 92 cents a share on $5.41 billion in revenue during the same period a year ago. Apple itself has said it expects to earn $1 a share on $7.2 billion in revenue.

Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray has recently stated in a research note that Mac sales will be “the key to the quarter,” and that he expects Apple to report Mac sales of 2.35 million units during the quarter.

Andy Zaky of Bullish Cross, a blog on Apple’s financial dealings expects Apple to report $1.20 in EPS on $7.720 billion in revenue along with sales of 2.54 million Macs, 10.5 million iPods and 700,000 iPhones in the quarter.

Apple is set to open its newest Apple store in Leicester on September 4 this year.

The store which will reportedly take up 577 square metres will be located in the Highcross shopping development in Leicester, UK.

Apple is continues recruiting staff for stores in Liverpool, Belfast, Bristol and White City, London.

During the transition from .Mac to MobileMe it appears Apple has inadvertently charged customers signing up for a free trial. When customers sign up for a trial of MobileMe Apple pre-authorises a charge but it appears that many customers had that charge removed from their accounts, Apple is working to reverse the charges and sent out an email of apology to those affected offering a 30-day extension to their trial period.

Dear MobileMe Member,

Sincerely,
The MobileMe Team

Last week Apple sent out an email apologising for the problematic and slow transition from .Mac to MobileMe and offered every user a 30-day extension to their subscription.

On Thursday Apple showed off its first Apple Store in China to the media. The store which is situated in a new retail development known as the Village at Sanlitun Northeast of Beijing.

Beijing Apple Store | Courtesy of WSJ China

The Wall Street Journal has posted some pictures from the media opening day and as always ifoAppleStore is offering complete coverage of the store opening.

“This is the first of many stores we will open in China,” said Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, in remarks at the store. He later added that Apple will open stores “in Beijing, in Shanghai and beyond,” and confirmed that another store will open in Beijing’s Qianmen area, a shopping street south of Tiananmen Square that has been renovated ahead of the Olympic Games, which begin next month.

Over the last 24 hours two big names in research have released figures for the PC industry, one putting Apple in third place the other just behind.

Gartner is reporting that Apple is sitting pretty at number three on the U.S. shipments chart shipping 8.5% of the countries PCs in the second quarter of 2008. That represents 38.1% growth over the same quarter in 2007 for Apple. The industry growth pace is said to be around 4.2%.

Although Gartner is placing Apple ahead of Acer in third place, IDC is putting the two companies in joint third position, giving Apple a 7.8% market share. IDC puts Apple’s year-over-year growth at 31.7% against an industry average of just 3.6%.

These figures just represent shipments in the U.S., Apple is yet to break into the top five vendors worldwide.

Gartner U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q08 (Thousands of Units) | Courtesy of AppleInsider.com

IDC U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q08 (Thousands of Units) | Courtesy of AppleInsider.com