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At a special event held today at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the long-awaited iTunes software for Windows. The service provides not only digital music playback features for Windows users, but also offers them access to the iTunes Music Store. Both iTunes and the iTunes Music Store have hitherto been limited for use by Macintosh users. iTunes for Windows is identical to its Macintosh counterpart. And like its Mac counterpart, iTunes for Windows is available for free download from Apple's Web site. (The site hadn't been updated as MacCentral posted this article.) iTunes...

Buoyed by a rise in sales from a year ago, Apple Computer posted fourth-quarter earnings that narrowly topped expectations. The Mac maker posted a net income of $44 million, or 12 cents per share, on revenue of $1.7 billion, for the three months ended Sept. 27. That compares with a net loss of $45 million, or 13 cents per share, on revenue of $1.4 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

Everyone would love a supercomputer but with a price tag of around $100m each they are not easy to come by. But in the United States staff and students at Virginia Tech have built one of the world's most powerful supercomputers for just $5m by plugging together hundreds of the latest computers from Apple. The project involved placing 1,100 brand new Apple G5 towers side by side, making it the world's most powerful "homebuilt" system. It is capable of 17.6 trillion floating point operations per second, with a combined storage capacity of 176 terabytes. "Each individual G5 is a dual...

Apple Computer Inc. on Wednesday announced the release of Mac OS X Panther and Panther Server, the latest major updates to its Unix-based operating system. The releases come just four months after Steve Jobs demoed the new operating system during his keynote address at the companies Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Both versions will be available on Friday, October 24, beginning at 8:00 p.m. "We made a big bet a while back to go to a whole new architecture and we are reaping the benefits of that right now," Brian Croll, Apple's senior director software, told MacCentral. "We...

To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on it. We've all heard it many times when a new Microsoft virus comes out. In fact, I've heard it a couple of times this week already. Someone on a mailing list or discussion forum complains about the latest in a long line of Microsoft email viruses or worms and recommends others consider Mac OS X or Linux as a somewhat safer computing platform. In response, another person named, oh, let's call him "Bill," says, basically, "How...

Apple Computer on Friday posted a new release of Mac OS X, after an earlier minor upgrade caused some systems to have problems connecting to Ethernet networks. The Mac maker said the new version of Mac OS X 10.2.8 includes an updated Ethernet driver for 450MHz and 500MHz dual-processor Power Mac G4 systems. Apple pulled the original system software upgrade shortly after its release last week, following complaints of networking problems. Apple said the new software includes an updated battery status menu to better reflect the remaining battery life on PowerBook systems. The software has also been made compatible with...

Apple G5: Can You Feel the Power?   - NEWSFACTOR SPECIAL REPORTBy James Maguire NewsFactor NetworkSeptember 25, 2003http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22364.htmlMany computer manufacturers publish statistics about how fast their machines are, and each finds a way to present their box as the most powerful. Informed consumers understand that these vendor-provided benchmarks are best taken with a grain of salt. In the case of the Apple G5, however, the statistics reveal a true speed demon -- even allowing for vendor spin. According to results on industry standard benchmark tests (presented by Apple), the G5 is not only faster than comparable machines, but quite a bit faster. Could...

Apple recalls OS update By Andrew Orlowski Posted: 24/09/2003 at 11:56 GMT Apple has withdrawn the latest update to Mac OS X, 10.2.8, after a few hours. The company doesn't say why, but Ethernet and display problems lead a long list of bugs at MacFixIt. Apple's knowledge base article for the update advises: "This update is temporarily unavailable. Please check back later." The update is the first for G3 and G4 owners since 10.2.6 in June. It combines the 10.2.7 update which is available only with the new G5-only desktops and the revamped iMacs and PowerBooks. 10.2.8 includes a fix...

<p>PARIS: A massive, yet not so enthusiastic applause concluded the surprisingly short keynote speech held by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, at the Apple Expo in Paris yesterday. Something was missing. The charismatic Apple frontman was recieved like a rock star by the thousand-strong audience at Le Palais de Congres, but no applause later on could match the initial excitement.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. said on Monday it has sold more than 10 million songs on its iTunes Music Store since its launch four months ago and announced a new iPod music player that can store as many as 10,000 songs. Apple, which has earned praise for its easy-to-use online music store, said the new iPod, which has a 40-gigabyte capacity, costs $499 and is now available. Cupertino, California-based Apple also sells a 10-gigabyte model for $299 and a 20-gigabyte model for $399. They can all be used with both Apple Macintosh (news - web sites) and...

Using several new technologies and more than 1,000 dual-processor Power Mac G5 computers, Virginia Tech University is building a supercomputer cluster that is likely to rank among the fastest in the world.In addition to the G5 machines, the university said it is using a beta version of the latest release of OS X, new networking hardware from Mellanox and Cisco, and cutting-edge configuration and cooling technologies to build the powerful cluster for a fraction of the price of a traditional supercomputer."The total price tag is probably a factor of 10 lower than a machine in this class in the past,"...

Some companies are finding that OS X and Xserve are a viable, sometimes cheaper, alternative to Windows-based networks. That could be a big help Two years ago, Jon Moog, chief information officer for RiskWise, considered giving Apple Computer the boot. Moog's St. Cloud (Minn.) outfit, which screens credit-card applications and does fraud detection for financial institutions and other companies, had used Apple gear as its primary computer system for years. That put RiskWise out of step with most of its peers -- but Moog's main problem was that his Mac hardware and software was just getting old. He put in...

"Why aren't Apple Macintosh computers more popular in large mainstream organizations? Whatever the gigahertz numbers say, Macintoshes are comparable in performance to Windows or Linux machines. Whatever the conventional wisdom or the Microsoft marketing message, Macs aren't dramatically more expensive to buy and on a Total Cost of Ownership basis they are probably cheaper. Nobody would argue that Macs are harder to use. Clearly, they are easier to use, especially on a network. So what's the problem? Why do Macs seem to exist only in media outfits," asks Robert X. Cringely for PBS? Cringely writes, "Apple is clearly wondering the...

Writing a column containing debatable comments from security experts is nearly as good at filling up your e-mail inbox as the SoBig virus. Last week, I concluded that Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh OS X provided safer computing than Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating systems -- in part because its small market share offers Internet villains too little opportunity to spread mayhem and partly because OS X ships with all of its vulnerable services turned off. This blocks potential attackers from gaining access to the system's software in the first place.

If yours is like most IT departments, you probably aren't deploying Macintosh systems in large numbers. And if you're deploying them at all, you're doing so in niche spaces such as graphic arts, multimedia and publishing. But the truth is that Mac OS has changed quite a bit in the past few years, and today's Apple systems offer a reasonable alternative to Wintel systems for many mainstream uses and are often best-of-breed tools for tasks such as desktop publishing, multimedia and other content creation. OS X, code-named Jaguar, and the recently announced successor called Panther are rock-solid Unix at the...

Re-defining the desktop paradigm By Adamson Rust: Friday 18 July 2003, 08:02 THERE'S A FUN interview with the Apple hierarchy over at Digital Video Editing. After telling interviewee Charlie White all about Mac OSX and the G5, they're challenged about the statement that Apple has released the "first 64-bit desktop". Charlie makes the Apple marketeers splutter when he mentions that BOXX shipped a dual processor 64-bit desktop on June 4th. At first they try and tough it out, but then try and redefine the meaning of desktop. Nor do the Apple folk seem aware that the Opteron is a 64-bit...

Adobe pares Mac support David Becker Staff Writer, CNET News.com July 7, 2003, 10:22 AM PT http://news.com.com/2100-1046-1023167.html Adobe Systems announced new versions of its video-editing software Monday, including a Windows-only application that marks another high-profile defection from Apple Computer's Macintosh operating system. Adobe, a specialist in publishing and imaging applications, announced a new version of Premiere, its main application for editing digital video. The new Premiere Pro will work only on PCs running Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, ending years of support for the Mac OS. Meanwhile, Adobe is updating After Effects, its software for adding visual effects to video....

Apple and IBM Introduce the PowerPC G5 Processor World's First 64-Bit Desktop Processor the Heart of the World's Fastest Personal Computer WWDC 2003, SAN FRANCISCO, June 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple and IBM together today introduced the world's first 64-bit desktop processor -- the PowerPC G5. Based on IBM's industry leading POWER architecture, the new PowerPC G5 processor has been optimized for personal computers and is at the heart of Apple's newly announced Power Mac G5, the world's fastest desktop computer. "The PowerPC G5 changes all the rules. This 64-bit race car is the heart of our new Power Mac...

update SAN FRANCISCO--Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs rolled out on Monday a new crop of Power Macs he says can outperform any Windows-based PC on the market.Speaking at the company's annual developer conference here, Jobs announced that the Power Macs will be built around IBM's new PowerPC 970 chip and come in three flavors--a 1.6GHz model, a 1.8GHz model and a 2GHz model. The machines, available in August, are priced at $1,699, $2,399 and $2,999. Dubbed the G5, the new chip is the successor to the G4 that's now used in the Power Mac lineup. On top of new chip,...

According to a report tonight at MacRumors.com, the Apple website listed the specs (apparently by accident) of the new Macs expected to be introduced on Monday at the Worldwide Developer's Conference. The information was found via the Akamai internet service that Apple uses to accelerate web page downloading. The purported specs are - The world's fastest personal computer. 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz, or Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 Processors Up to 1 GHz processor bus Up to 8GB of DDR SDRAM Fast Serial ATA hard drives AGP 8x Pro3 PCI or PCI-X expansion slots One FW800, two FW400 ports Bluetooth & Airport Extreme...