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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Apple Quarterly Earnings Steamroll Analyst Estimates

Regardless of how much Steve Ballmer is cackling about Apple’s problems from charging a premium, the company’s performance suggests that the House That Steve Built is extremely well-adapted to thriving in the current recession.

Over the past three months, Apple enjoyed its best-ever non-holiday quarter. $8.16 billion in revenue, up 9 percent from last year. Profits of $1.2 billion, up 20 percent from a year ago. Apple beat consensus estimates by about 24 cents per share.

Mac sales did slow down a bit, but iPod sales were up 3 percent and iPhone sales an astounding 123 percent.  The company is delivering results like no one else right now. The fact that the analysts were so pessimistic (they predicted a drop in revenue and profit) should elevate the price further.

Remember — this is the first quarter without Steve Jobs in charge since his cancer treatments five years ago, and Apple did better than ever before. And we’re six to ten weeks from a new version of the iPhone. Apple is sitting pretty, and no one can touch them right now.

Steamroller, all over again.

About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is the communications lead for growth strategy firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

Email the author | Read more posts by Pete Mortensen.

One comment

    For some reason I was waiting for the steamroller to try to crack the Powerbook

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