The other day, I read an article in which the author demanded that Apple build a new Finder. Before I read the article, I already felt sympathetic, because the Mac OS X Finder is badly broken when it comes to such matters as multithreading, the inability to remember position and view settings, and other annoyances.

However, the article had nothing to do with the Finder, despite its title and the fact that the author kept using that word in the course of the article. Instead, he was complaining about a traditional Mac interface element, the single or monolithic menu bar. You see, he was used to the Windows and Linux methods, which put separate menu bars atop each document window.

Despite the fact that it has been shown to be easier to access a single menu bar than a document-specific variation, which has a different position depending on the location of your document window, it still comes down to a matter of personal preference. One possible suggestion is that maybe Apple should offer an option to choose one or the other. This goes against the simplicity of Mac OS X, but I’ll grant that some of you might like it.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• Newsletter #445 Preview: Can Apple Update the OS Too Quickly?
• The Leopard Report: Does the Finder Make the Grade?
• The Mac OS 10.6 Wish List: Number Two — Bring Back Classic Features!
• Living with Leopard: Book VI — I’ll Never Go Back!
• The Snow Leopard Report: The Irritants Remain

When Apple announced, during its session with financial analysts, that it would apportion income from the iPhone and Apple TV on a subscription basis, some folks started wondering whether they were planning on adding a subscription service to iTunes.

The answer is, of course, no. Apple’s public strategy, at least for now, isn’t changing. They took this action because certain unannounced free features are going to be added to Apple’s newest hardware products over time, so they can’t book all the income at once. I suppose accountants will want to weigh in on whether any of this makes sense, but I’ll give Apple the benefit of the doubt.

At the same time, Steve Jobs is quoted as saying that he still believes that people want to own their music, not rent it, but left the door open, telling Reuters: “Never say never, but customers don’t seem to be interested in it. The subscription model has failed so far.”

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• Newsletter #385 Preview: The Mac Becomes a Low-Key Survivor
• Newsletter #499 Preview: The Latest iPhone Rollout Shows Apple Hasn’t Lost its Mojo
• Apple Confounds the Skeptics All Over Again
• Newsletter #442 Preview: Are Mac Styles in a Rut?
• Newsletter #406 Preview: Apple Converts Rocks Into Gold Once Again

All right, ladies and gentlemen, here’s the good stuff, at least if you’re a Microsoft employee or stockholder: For its fiscal third quarter, ending March 31st, earnings rose to $4.93 billion, or 50 cents a share, compared to $2.98 billion, or 29 cents per share last year. Total sales increased by 32 percent to $14.4 billion.

Indeed, Microsoft earned a whole lot of cash, most likely because of the arrival of Windows Vista and Office 2007, which gave them something new to sell.

So you’d think the company is in wonderful shape, and indeed their stock price jumped $1.05, to $30.15 per share, in after-hours trading. Clearly Wall Street likes the numbers, although not quite as enthusiastically as Apple’s.

On the other hand, when you look past Windows and Office, things aren’t quite so rosy. Take the Xbox 360 game and the Zune music player, which, together, showed a 21 percent decrease in sales to $929 million. As a seasonal decline, maybe that’s not a whole lot. But the problem is that these products have yet to become profit centers. This is particularly true with the Xbox, which has cost Microsoft billions of dollars since it was released.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• Microsoft’s Problems Mount
• The Tiger Report: A Memo to Readers Who Bought a New Mac on April 11th
• Things Change!
• Do You Still Believe the Experts?
• The Snow Leopard Report: The Law of Diminishing Expectations

While considering what I was going to write once Apple’s quarterly financials were released, I thought of what I had said previously, that sales and profits would exceed Wall Street expectations, and that the financial community would react in its usual unpredictable fashion.

Over the past few months, it has been variously claimed that sales of Windows Vista would eat into the sales of new Macs somewhat, all without any real evidence, or that sales would otherwise stagnate. But as reports of first quarter PC sales appeared, it was clear Apple would do far better than expected.

Indeed, Apple has reported their most profitable March quarter in the company’s history. According to their statement for the fiscal second quarter, sales were $5.26 billion, compared to $4.36 billion last year. Net profit was $770 million, or $.87 per diluted share, compared to $410 million, or $.47 per diluted share last year.

Rather than bore you with lots of raw numbers, let me point you to Apple’s site where you can read the official figures for yourself. I’ll refer to some of them, but I’ve a lot more to say about what they mean.

Continue Reading...

Related Articles:

• The Apple Beating the Odds Column
• Apple’s Financials: Wall Street Blows it Again!
• Apple’s Financials: A Conspiracy?
• So Maybe Apple Didn’t Cave on Pricing
• On Raising Unreasonable Expectations