Apple is all over...

Did you notice anything about Apple this week? It seems that they are again all over the news for a number of reasons:

1. Announced commercial availability of Leopard, their latest cat, for October 26th. They started a countdown on their homepage from 10 days to the end. They have also published all the 300+ extra features Leopard (OSX 10.5) will bring along. Would this 300 have something to do with Leonidas? Like Leopard/Leonidas? If he only knew, the poor sod!

2. Announced their intent to release an iPhone SDK (software development kit) for developers who want to develop and sell their own iPhone and iPod Touch native applets. For those of you familiar, the only 3rd party apps possible today (not that bad if you have a fast web connection) are actually accessible on the web... you simply connect to a URL with your iPhone and/or (WiFi) iPod Touch and your gadget gets a specially formatted functionality ranging from calculators, horoscopes, news, digg. Mostly it's also free. Apple published a list of those available todate. However, you better have them apps stored in your piece than depend on web connectivity, right? That's what they now make possible. Expect first samples to hit the market from end of Q1, 2008.

3. The biggest news though, and we'll have to see it to believe it is that for Apple to launch the iPhone in France they'll have to comply with local laws prohibiting them from linking (locking) their product to one preferred operator (Orange for that matter). It seems that they agreed to commercialize two versions then, one locked to Orange and one unlocked but more expensive. If that holds true then there is still hope for us morons Belgians, who happen to have the same laws with France on the issue in question.

4. And... the sexiest news are about the growth of their Mac computer market share in the US PC market from 6.2 percent a year ago to 8.1 percent nowadays. To most of you this might sound quite boring, unless you one happy Apple stock owner, like that Saudi prince, Al somethin', who must have made the best part of a gazillion dollars on Apple in the last few years alone... (I remember a few years back when Apple was in shambles, Al 'Z' bought to himself a generous small percent of the total of Apple's outstanding shares... good for him!).

5. And last, but not least, they cut the price of their DRM free songs back to the familiar 99 cents a song. I wish I knew that a few days ago. Anyways...