App Store officially passes 100,000 app mark

We’ve known it was coming for a while now, but the milestone has finally been passed: Apple announced on Wednesday that the App Store now boasts more than 100,000 applications available for download. And download the people have, more than two billion times in 77 countries.

As you might expect, Phil Schiller weighed in on the announcement, calling the App Store “a major differentiator” for iPhone and iPod touch customers, of which there are more than 50 million. (Schiller didn’t comment on rumors that he had also asked his staff to address him as “Major Differentiator.”)

Apple’s App Store has seen tremendous growth, having only been open for business for just over a year and a quarter. The store hit one billion downloads about six months ago, at which point it had more than 35,000 applications. In September, when it hit two billion downloads, Apple said the store then boasted 85,000 applications. [read]

New ‘Get a Mac’ ads take a shot at Windows 7

Microsoft officially unleashed Windows 7 upon the world on Thursday and Apple now has an updated Mac lineup for the holidays—you know what that calls for? Why, new “Get a Mac” commercials, of course. In its usual fashion, Apple released a trio of thirty-second spots yesterday, each one aimed squarely at Windows 7 and all of them ending with a shot of the new iMac.

Two of the spots—“PC News” and “Teeter Tottering”—are about how customers who are planning on switching to Windows 7 might as well just choose to go the Mac route, given that they’re already going to have to buy new hardware and do a clean install to go from XP to Windows 7. I do love how at the end of the “PC News” spot, John Hodgman says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, cut that feed please! Let’s go to a commercial,” only for Justin Long to point out, “We…we are a commercial.”

The best of the three, however, is “Broken Promises,” where PC promises Mac that Windows 7 is not going to have any of the problems Vista had. It’s then followed by a montage of shots from the past where a successively younger (and, er, more “fashionably” dressed and groomed) John Hodgman keeps making the same promise with the release of every major version of Windows. Just check out the 1980s PC from above and tell me that doesn’t take you back to the Windows 3.1 era.

[Source: MacWorld]

Musicians ditch studios, embrace Logic, GarageBand and tech like GiO for Macs

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Forty years ago at Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix stirred the crowd with a rocking version of the American national anthem, full of stinging feedback provided by the walls of Marshall tube amplifiers behind him.

Today, Bob Robles can get similar sounds just by plugging his guitar into an Apple laptop.

“The sound quality is amazing,” says Robles, a Los Angeles studio musician. “I’m just blown away by it.”

Apple has cranked up its offerings for musicians of all kinds — especially guitarists. After a January revamp of its popular GarageBand program, the music-editing software bundled into its iLife suite, guitarists can plug their instruments directly into a Mac via a guitar-to-USB cable and rock out with five simulated amp sounds.

In July, Apple released advanced software ($499 Logic Studio and $199 Logic Express) that includes even more amp and guitar combinations — 25 in all.

And this week, veteran audio gear manufacturer Apogee lets guitarists control their sound hands-free with the launch of the $395 GiO for Mac computers. It lets you tap controls with your feet, like those guitar pedals favored by guitarists going back to Hendrix and his Wah-Wah pedal.

Marrying musical instruments with computers isn’t new. For years, musicians have been able to connect with a variety of interfaces, mixers and other tools for making music. But once connected, musicians had to fiddle with a computer mouse and space bar to control the recording process.

“Now you’re free to play,” says Sean McArthur, director of marketing for Apogee.

Peter Thorn, a Los Angeles guitarist who is currently in Eagle Don Henley’s touring group, has used the GiO and says the big advantage is being able to keep his hands on the guitar and not the mouse.

“It’s just really cool to be able to do it all with your feet, on the floor,” he says. [read: USA Today]

Apple reports $1.67 billion quarterly profit on record Mac, iPhone sales

Apple enjoyed its most profitable quarter ever, as the company set sales marks for both Mac and iPhone sales. The company announced earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter on Monday.

For the quarter ending September 30, Apple reported a net profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per share, on revenue of $9.87 billion. Those numbers blew away analysts’ earnings and revenue estimates of $1.42 a share and $9.2 billion in sales, respectively.

Comparing those numbers to Apple’s year-ago figures, quarterly profit rose 46 percent, while earnings per share jumped 44 percent. Revenue increased 25 percent from the September 2008 quarter. At the end of the corner, the company had $34 billion of cash on hand.

For the full 2009 fiscal year, Apple’s revenue rose 12 precent while its income increased 18 percent from 2008, according to chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer. Those increases come during what the Apple executive called “extraordinary challenging times” which have done little to slow the company’s growth. [read]

Rock Band For iPhone Hits The App Store

The much anticipated and hyped Rock Band for iPhone and iPod Touch is out! We first scooped the news of the launch of the app a few weeks ago. Shortly afterwards, Rock Band for the iPhone/iPod touch was officially announced by Electronic Arts. The app costs $9.99. The game features a multi-player mode (via Bluetooth), allowing up to 4 players to rock out on the go. While you can also play via single-player mode, you can use the integrated Facebook Connect to invite your friends to join in. [read]

Apple Bucks Netbook Trend

Netbooks were instrumental in the increase in PC shipments for most manufacturers during the third quarter, but Apple defied the trend despite offering standard laptops at premium prices, according to figures from analyst firm Gartner.

Apple executives in the past have trashed netbooks as junky devices with cramped keyboards and the company does not yet have a netbook on the market. Most PC vendors, including Acer, Hewlett-Packard and Dell are offering netbooks, which are low cost and designed to perform basic tasks like word processing.

Apple’s PC shipments in the U.S. grew year-over-year by 6.8 percent to total 1.57 million during the third quarter, placing the company fourth behind Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Acer, according to numbers released by Gartner on Wednesday. Overall PC shipments in the U.S. grew by 3.5 percent year-over-year to total 17.82 million. [read: CIO]

Apple’s App Store Downloads Top Two Billion

CUPERTINO, California—September 28, 2009—Apple® today announced that more than two billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. There are now more than 85,000 apps available to the more than 50 million iPhone™ and iPod touch® customers worldwide and over 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program.

“The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate with users downloading a staggering two billion apps in just over a year, including more than half a billion apps this quarter alone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it.” [read]

Unveiling 10 Hidden OS X Shortcuts

If you are new to Mac’s, and there are a lot of you out there, here is a list of 10 hidden shortcuts that you may find useful.

Years have passed since the first time I used my Mac. While using my Mac, by accidentally hitting wrong combination or purposely browsing for it, I’d discovered some hidden keyboard shortcuts.

Shortcut, as the name suggests, should bring us more productivity juice rather than drag us down. However, some shortcuts may suit you well, some may take more time for you to adapt; to adopt these new hidden shortcuts or to drop them, that’s all depend on you.

Source: UsingMac.com

Bugs & Fixes: iTunes 9 and Safari mix it up

After installing iTunes 9, you may find that the updated version refuses to connect to the iTunes Store.

The cause turns out to be a direct link between the iTunes Store and Safari. Specifically, you need to be running Safari 4.0.3 or later to access the Store within iTunes 9. If not, you’ll be greeted with a message informing you that you cannot “use the iTunes Store within iTunes.” You heard correctly: you may need Safari installed on your Mac, in order to use the iTunes Store, even if you otherwise never use Safari.

However, at least based on my testing, you don’t need the actual Safari application for iTunes Store access. For example, I deleted the application from my drive and the iTunes Store worked just fine. My guess is that there is some installed component of Safari, located in a Library folder (WebKit framework?), that is the true requirement. It is this that needs to be the proper version. Unfortunately, I have not yet determined anything more specific.

Reinstall Snow Leopard?

For some users, the news was even worse. They were getting the Safari warning message even though they had Safari 4.0.3 already installed. Based on threads posted in Apple Discussions, most of these users appear to have been running pre-release versions of Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6).

The solution turns out to be to install the release (golden master) version of 10.6. [read]

Apple Logic Studio Technology Spotlight

Logic Studio now features major upgrades to Logic Pro and MainStage.

On September 12, 2007, Apple unveiled the first version of Logic Studio software and it was an immediate success. The product combined the power of its Logic Pro DAW/MIDI platform with the MainStage live performance app, Soundtrack 2 audio post software, 80 studio effects plug-ins, 40 virtual studio instruments, the Studio Sound Library (18,000 loops, 5,000 SFX) and production utilities including WaveBurner CD mastering, Compressor 3 surround encoding and more. Meanwhile, its $499 pricing turned a lot of heads and brought converts into the Logic fold.

All That and More
It was a tough act to follow, but now, two years later, Apple is shipping the next version of its Logic Studio bundle with major upgrades to Logic Pro and MainStage, and more than 200 new features. It’s a lot to go through, but let’s touch on some highlights. [read]