Apple Autumn Announcements
Today has been a good day for Apple. They started by reporting their most profitable quarter ever, with revenues of nearly $10 billion yielding a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion. Even in this day and age with banks being bailed out across the planet, these are mind blowing numbers.
Where has this dramatic increase come from? Well the iphone sales go from strength to strength which are obviously part of it. However it would appear that Mac sales have also seen a year on year increase and have contributed to this growth as well.
How did they follow that? Well by announcing their usual pre-holiday season refresh of their Mac& Macbook range and launching an innovative new version of the Mighty Mouse, the Magic Mouse.
Other announcements included updates to their wireless networking peripherals with speed boosts for both the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule. There was also the introduction of a new Aluminium Apple remote which works with the iPhone, iPods with the Universal Dock, and post 2004 iMacs with the built-in infrared receiver
New Mac’s
Apple have taken the opportunity to refresh the iMac’s, entry level Macbook and Mac Mini’s.
The entry level Macbook moves even closer to its Aluminium Unibody Macbook Pro stable mates. It gains its own polycarbonate version of the unibody, still in the standard white. It also gains the 7 hour battery that was recently added to the Macbook Pro’s, LED-backlit screen and the multi-touch track pad.
The iMac line was completely revised. Dual and Quad core processors were added, along with the choice of 21.5 or 27 inch LED-backlit screens with edge to edge glass design and sealed aluminium enclosure. Many people on the blogs are already debating the demise of the 24 inch display as a real loss.
Finally the Mac Mini’s were given a general speed bump. However the biggest surprise here was the inclusion of a new 1TB model of the Mac Mini, complete with Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server.
Magic Mouse
The most interesting announcement is the new Magic Mouse. This now comes as standard with all iMac’s, meaning that the trusty old Mighty Mouse has been, or soon will be, dropped entirely from their range. Judging by the fact you can no longer find it in the Apple store, this will be sooner rather than later.
The key feature here is the introduction of multi-touch technology to the mouse. This is something that users of the new unibody Macbooks will already be familiar with and it will be interesting to see how well this technology transfers from a flat glass trackpad to the curved back of the Magic Mouse.
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