Cult of Mac

Apple’s stock reached it’s all time high today, leaping just over the $208 mark. The rally caused investors to dance in the aisles over the company’s astonishing rise to a Wall Street darling. This is the same company that most people doubted would even survive, back in the late 90s.

“I’ve made over $1,500 in two days… Thank you aapl”, said @jherrdog on Twitter.

The happiest investors were those AAPL veterans who bought the stock at its all-time low — around $12 in 1997. Several were also celebrating their good fortune on Twitter.

“Oh, look! Time for my quarterly brag about buying a bucket of AAPL in 1997. Translation: Suck it, Ballmer,” said @guywithabike (Tyson) on Twitter.

Investors like Tyson  have seen their AAPL shares grow to about 70-times their inital value. In the last decade, the stock has split twice and risen almost 200x in value.

That means $1,000 invested in Apple stock in 1997 is worth around $70,000 now. And $10,000 — the kind of sum that professional investors typically put into company stock — is worth a cool $700,000 — almost enough money to buy a house in posh Palo Alto where Steve Jobs lives.

And for those wondering how much Steve Jobs made, thanks to his 5.4 mil shares of AAPL and 138 mil shares of Disney (DIS), he made more than $90 million today. On paper, of course.

Anyone notice that the Apple Store in Tokyo’s Ginza district looks like the new iMac?

Here’s another view, courtesy of of Google Street View.

Thanks Nobi.

A day after Apple’s big announcements come the discounts. First on the list is the 24-inch 2.66GHz iMacs. We also have three more iMac bargains. Our top trio also features Apple’s new Bluetooth Magic Mouse and updates of the Time Capsule and Airport Extreme. Along the way we also include Apple’s new remote, plus a 90% off deal on iPhone cases.

For details on these and other Mac bargains, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

Europe is “not doing justice to the nano,” Apple’s general manager and vice president for the region told a British newspaper Tuesday. The comment came as Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said “customers love the iPod nano.”

“We believe it [the market] is not doing justice to the [iPod] nano, where for £115 ($190) you’ve got 8GB plus a camera,” Pascal Cagni told the Guardian newspaper.

“Our job is to better carry the message. We need to express it better so that people get convinced of what we do,” Cagni said.

UPDATE: Microsoft has canceled the legal threat. I just got an email directly from DtecNet, the anti-piracy company working with Microsoft, saying they have formally withdrawn the notice. There was no explanation why — or why it was issued it in the first place. “After careful review, we sent the below retraction notice below to your ISP,” DtecNet said. “We apologize for any inconvenience.” The problem is that without an explanation of why CoM was targeted, I don’t know what the best response is. It looks like DtecNet made a mistake with us, but the DMCA is a draconian law and easily abused. How many other sites and ISPs have complied to bogus notices like this?

On Tuesday morning, Microsoft sent a DMCA takedown notice to our Web host concerning a post we published back in January about loading the Windows 7 beta on a MacBook.

The DMCA notice demanded we remove the post because it allegedly makes Windows 7 available for “copying through downloading.” (The full text of the notice is after the jump).

Trouble is, we have no idea what Microsoft is talking about. We presumed the post may contain a link to a pirated copy of Windows 7. But the only download link is to Microsoft’s official Windows 7 beta. Surely Microsoft isn’t trying to remove all links to its beta a few days before the final product goes on sale on October 22?

Apple has updated the list of products it considers “vintage” or “obsolete”  and will no longer provide service, parts or documentation for as of next month.

The Cupertino crew defines “vintage” as products discontinued over five but less than seven years ago.  (One notable exception: California residents can still get service and parts from Apple Service Providers in the state).
Obsolete products are any product discontinued over seven years ago, no exceptions.

Hit the jump for the complete list of the walking dead, updated from the last list published in February.

New and updated iMacs, as well as Mac minis could turnaround sagging Apple desktop sales, providing a “tailwind” heading into the all-important December quarter, Wall Street analysts told investors. Desktop sales were down 16 percent during the quarter ended September 30, the Cupertino, Calif. company announced Tuesday.

In a note to investors, Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Gene Munster said the new iMacs is helping desktop sales reverse course. “The headwind that existed in the Sept. quarter due to aging Mac desktops has now been turned into a tailwind for Mac units in the December quarter.

Condé Nast announced that it will launch a digital version of men’s mag GQ on November 18 in tandem with the print issue.

The digital version available on iTunes will cost $2.99, half of the newsstand price, and there’s no word on whether snail mail subscribers get a discount. Condé says digital GQ be a perfect clone of the dead tree GQ, right down to the ads.

The beat goes on in the emerging battle between Internet giant Google and Apple. The latest volley comes in the form of a report claiming the Mountain View, Calif. company is preparing an iTunes rival possibly called “Google Audio.”

Google has spent the “last several weeks securing content for the launch of the service from the major music labels,” claims TechCrunch, citing several unnamed sources.

Philip Dow, the developer behind Journler, has announced that work on the app is at an end. While he will continue to provide support for users, there will be no new releases.

In a brutally honest and open blog post, Philip spells out precisely what brought an end to Journler – its own success.

Is Crumpler’s oddly-named Considerable Embarrassment messenger/laptop bag an embarrassment? Hardly.

The bag has a quirky name — as do all of Crumpler’s products. I won’t even try to understand what it means. What I do know is that looks are deceiving. Meaning that it can hold a ton of stuff, despite it’s slim profile. It doesn’t look like it should.

iFixit’s teardown of the new white polycarbonate MacBook reveals nice, tight construction, but also some scrimping.

Apple has added a faster processor, a bright LED display, a big new built-in battery that adds two  hours of extra life (Apple claims) and an improved Bluetooth antenna that promises to improve reception. The MacBook also has a space-age heat sink to cool the faster chip.

But Apple giveth, and Apple taketh away. Gone is the FirWire port and IR sensor, making it the only shipping Mac portable with no remote control.

Gone also are the two fake screws on the left side of the old MacBook that Steve Jobs insisted on to make the machine look symmetrical.

Announced today, the new MacBook costs $999, the same as the machine it replaces.

Hit the jump for more teardown action.

Apple does an excellent job of making all its products look beautiful, and these latest new products are no exception. Even the inside of the new MacBook is lovely.

Canon Tuesday released its EOS-1D Mark 4, a $5000 DSLR aimed squarely at Nikon’s line of D3 pro shooters. The central attraction for the EOS-1D Mark 4: video. The camera can capture either standard or high-definition video at 50 or 60fps. Nikon’s equal-priced DS3s only shoot 720p video using jpeg files.

Also of interest, 39 of the 45 autofocus points are low-light sensitive compared to 15 of the DS3’s 51 AF points.

We start our daily deals with a package of bright, shiny iMacs hot off the Apple rumor mill. The new 27″ and 21.5″ iMacs include 3.06GHz processors along with Apple’s new Multi-touch Magic Mouse. If a previous iMac is more your style, we have bargains on those, as well. Along the way, we check out a 50%-off deal on iPod touch accessories and dip into the latest App Store price drops.

For more details on these and other gadgets, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page.

Apple has created a video showing the new multi-touch Magic Mouse in action. Check it out below.

The mouse looks incredibly easy to use. It has several gestures built-in, including clicking, right clicking, zooming and swiping to backwards and forwards in Safari and iPhoto.

Apple isn’t done yet. The company also quietly put up for sale a brand new Apple Remote, the first revision since Fall 2005. It’s longer and aluminum, and now features good control of docked iPods and iPhones.

Though it looks like it has a scroll wheel, it doesn’t appear to. Still, nice industrial design.

Thanks, Guido!

Apple has upgraded its current line of Mac mini computers, plus added a server version. The base mini ($599) gets a slightly faster Core 2 Duo processor (2.26GHz versus 2GHz), double the previous memory (2GB, up from 1GB) and a beefier hard drive (160GB versus 120GB.)

If you want to meet with Apple tech evangelists to discuss your iPhone apps —  get a move on.

Dates for the second iPhone Tech World Tour were announced yesterday; spots are already scarce.
The full-day conferences, free but with a limited number of participants, kick off in San Jose on October 29.

There’s still space in Silicon valley, but London (Nov. 11) New York (Dec. 1) and Tokyo (Dec. 15) are already full.

Sessions include user interface design essentials, working with core data, testing and debugging your iPhone app and something new: adding “in app” purchase to your app.

To end your day with Apple, there’s even a wine and cheese wrap-up. (If you go, send us pics.)
You’ve still got a chance to hobnob with Apple and other devs in Seattle, Toronto, Bejiing, Paris and Hamburg.

Though the Apple Store isn’t back up yet, Apple has officially confirmed the announcement of new iMacs, a plastic unibody MacBook and the Magic Mouse, a stunningly proportioned wireless multitouch mouse. The iMacs include an awesome-looking 27-inch widescreen model; the high-end machine comes with quad-core processors, which Apple says boosts performance 2x over the previous generation.

The unibody MacBook is a nice consumer take on the new design language first established by the MacBook Air and then refined in the unibody aluminum MacBook Pro.

The Magic Mouse is…interesting. Will have to use one to get a sense for how well it handles gestures. I’ll be back with more analysis once the store’s back and I have more time for reading, but it looks like a solid refresh a day ahead of Windows 7.

Two days after the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said it would launch an investigation into iPod battery issues, Apple updated its support document on battery overheating.
Here’s the main update:

iPod nano (1st generation): Rare cases of battery overheating
Apple has determined that in very rare cases, batteries in the iPod nano (1st generation) sold between September 2005 and December 2006, may overheat and prevent the iPod nano from working and deform it.

Apple has received very few reports of such incidents, and the issue has been traced to a single battery supplier. Additionally, there have been no reports of such incidents with any other iPod nano model. If your battery shows signs of overheating, such as discoloration or deformity, stop using the iPod nano immediately and contact AppleCare as soon as possible for further assistance.

It’s an acknowledgment, but just, that comes two months after the EU announced it was going to investigate exploding iPods — and iPhones.

And what about the advice? Easy enough to spot an overheating device (as it melts and changes color) in hand, but if you’re jogging or have it in your back back, good luck.

Apple, often in the vanguard of coolness, is just now catching up with Internet social-networking. The Cupertino, Calif. company since March has joined the ranks of a multitude of companies seeking to boost awareness through Twitter. Apple is using Twitter to promote iTunes movies, music and podcasts. The oldest account, iTunesTrailer, has gained 1.2 million followers, reports said Tuesday.

Apple’s Twitter presence also includes iTunesMusic, iTunesMovies, iTunesTV and iTunesPodcasts. The Twitter accounts have made only a few tweets and attracted “thousands” of followers, collectively. One of Apple’s latest tweets, in iTunesMovies, promoted “Away We Go,” a movie by “Where the Wild Things Are” co-screen writer Dave Eggers.

A CoM reader just posted details of Apple’s new products to the comments on our earlier “store’s down” post.

It looks legit — a 21-inch iMac, three Mac Minis, two dualband Time Capsules and an Airport Extreme.

Plus a mystery product called K84 BEST BTR.

UPDATE: K84 is probably a keyboard. There are 84 keys on a compact keyboard.

UPDATE 2: AppleInsider is reporting the same information, but is saying the info came from “reliable sources” instead of admitting it’s an pseudonymous post on the site’s forums.

MC207LL/A – K84 BEST BTR- USA
MC238LL/A – MAC MINI 2.26/2×1GB/160/SD/AP/BT-USA
MC239LL/A- MAC MINI 2.53/2×2GB/320GB/SD/AP/BT-USA
MC340LL/A – AIRPORT EXTREME (SIM DUALBAND) – USA
MC343LL/A – TIME CAPSULE 1TB (SIM DUALBAND) -USA
MC344LL/A – TIME CAPSULE 2TB (SIM DUALBAND) – USA
MC408LL/A – MAC MINI 2.53/2×2GB/1TB/NO ODD/AP-BT-USA
MC413LL/A – IMAC 21.5″/3.06/2×2GB/1TB/4670-256MB-USA
MC434LL/A – APPLE VESA MOUNT ADAPTER
MC461LL/A – MACBOOK 60W MAGSAFE POWER ADAPTER – USA

In spite of early morning reports to the contrary, you may still want to hold onto your seats for new Apple product. Why?

1. The Apple Store is down
2. It’s Tuesday

I think that’s an indisputable case.

Don’t get out the party hats and sparklers yet, Apple may not have a big announcement today or tomorrow. At least that’s the word from an anonymous source claiming to know Cupertino’s intentions.

“Nope,” was the one-word comment Stuff got when the site attempted to confirm or refute the various rumors swirling online of some hardware announcement.