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Apple Rules Week with Earnings, Attitude and New Products

Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com Adam Dickter, newsfactor.com Sun Oct 24, 8:17 pm

Apple released a couple of new computers, showed off its upcoming operating

system and launched an updated suite of applications this week. But it also did

what Apple does best: Stay in the headlines.

CEO Steve Jobs began the week by joining in an earnings call with other

executives, media and analysts, gloating about the company's latest

record-setting sales: $20.34 billion in revenue and $4.31 billion in profit,

including proceeds from 3.89 million Macs, 14.1 million iPhones, 4.19 nillion

iPads in the fourth quarter. Although sales of iPods were down 11 percent (with

knowledge of a refresh coming in September), the iPhone's numbers soared 91

percent and Mac sales were up 91 percent.

Jabs From Jobs

In the course of the conversation, Jobs boasted that Apple products had outsold

leading competitor Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices -- "I don't see them

catching up to us in the foreseeable future," he said -- and played down the

surge in phones powered by Google's Android operating system, pointing out the

diversity of devices using the open-source system and the many ways

manufacturers tinker with it, compared to Apple's closed, integrated system.

"In reality, we think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to

try and hide what's best for the customer, fragmented versus integrated," said

Jobs, according to a published transcript. "We think Android is very fragmented

and becoming more fragmented by the day ... We see tremendous value in having

Apple rather than our users be the systems integrator." To make his point, Jobs

noted that when Twitter launched its app for Android "they had to contend with

more than 100 different vesions of Android on 244 different handsets."

For good measure, Jobs then took a shot at the rival manufacturers rushing

tablet devices to the market to compete with Apple's iPad, noting the

difference in quality between a seven-inch and 10-inch screen. "Apple has done

extensive user testing on user interfaces over many years and we really

understand this stuff," he said, according to the transcript. He dismissed the

smaller devices as "tweeners," caught between smartphones and tablets. And then

there's the 35,000 iPad apps ...

Thin Airs

Even as the dust was settling on that unusual move, Jobs was back in the

headlines Wednesday with his familiar black sweater and jeans reaffirming the

company's commitment to the Mac computers that put it on the map, with a

revamped operating system called Lion, iLife 11 for media use, FaceTime Wi-Fi

video chatting for the Mac and, not least, brand-spanking new thinner, lighter

MacBook Air laptops.

The new Air, with a 13-inch screen, has a "younger brother," Jobs said, with an

11-inch screen, and both are 0.68 of an inch thick, tapering to 0.11 of an

inch, and just 2.3 pounds, with Intel Core Duo processors. Jobs said the Air is

twice as fast and duplicates the convenience of the iPad with instant

activation, long battery life, 30-day standby, and solid-state storage with no

optical or hard drive.

"We wanted to see what would happen if an iPad and a Mac hooked up," he said.

But there is no touchscreen on the new computers, only a multi-touch capable

trackpad. Jobs said it would be too ergonomically difficult to reach straight

out to touch the screen for prolonged computer use, as opposed to the more

media-oriented iPad.

The press wasn't as good for Apple later in the week, when the company had to

scramble to fix a security flaw in FaceTime for Mac uncovered by MacWorld

Germany: The applicaton automatically stored usernames and passwords on a

computer and allows signing into the iTunes store from the application without

a separate log-in. The company quickly redirected FaceTime users to a separate

log-in.

One last piece of Apple news rounded out the week when, in Sunday's New York

Times Magazine, Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said her

kids aren't allowed to have iPods.

"I have gotten that argument -- 'You may have a Zune,' " the co-chairwoman of

the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said she told her children. Asked if she

had an iPad or if her husband owns a MacBook, Mrs. Gates said, "Nothing crosses

the threshold of our doorstep." She added: "Microsoft certainly makes products

for the Macintosh. Go talk to Bill."