Apple Computer News - SVDaily.com

Apple continues to sell millions and millions of iPads, iPhones and iMacs which means billions and billions in revenue. The company just reported sales and earnings for its fiscal second quarter ending March 31.

The Company posted quarterly revenue of $39.2 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.6 billion. These results compare to revenue of $24.7 billion and net profit of $6.0 billion in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 47.4 percent compared to 41.4 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 64 percent of the quarter's revenue.

The Company sold 35.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 88 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 11.8 million iPads during the quarter, a 151 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4 million Macs during the quarter, a 7 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.7 million iPods, a 15 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

"We're thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you're going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver."

Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer expects revenues to be in the $34 billion range in the third quarter.

Apple now has $110 billion in cash, short- and long-term securities.

Apple's new iPad, the third generation of its tablet device, will go on sale in 21 additional countries by the end of the month.

Beginning on Friday, April 20, the new iPad will be available in South Korea, Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela.

On Friday, April 27, the new iPad will go on sale in Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.

Apple said it sold 3 million units of its latest iPad in the first weekend it went on sale on March 16. The new iPad features a sharp Retina display, Apple's new A5X chip with quad-core graphics and a 5 megapixel iSight camera with advanced optics for capturing photos and 1080p HD video.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will be the keynote speaker at the All Things Digital Conference on May 29. This will be Cook's first onstage speaking event as CEO outside of Apple since he took over last August for the late Steve Jobs.

This will be the 10th All Things Digital Conference which is hosted by the Wall Street Journal and Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg.

Steve Jobs made several appearances at the AllThingsD conferences with the last being in 2008.

This year's conference will be from May 29-31 and held at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA.

Cook headlines an all-star list of tech speakers and dignitaries including: Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle; Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City; Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, Entrepreneur Sean Parker; Tony Bates, CEO of Skype; and Dr. Ed Catmull, President of Disney and Pixar Studios.

Apple announced it has sold three million of its new iPad tablets since its launch on Friday, March 16 and will begin going on sale in 24 more countries this week. The new iPad features a sharp Retina display, Apple's new A5X chip with quad-core graphics, a 5 megapixel iSight camera with advanced optics for capturing photos and 1080p HD video, and still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G supports ultrafast 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada, and fast networks around the world including those based on HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA.

"The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold -- the strongest iPad launch yet," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can't wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday."

The new iPad is already available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland, UK and the US Virgin Islands and will be available in 24 more countries starting at 8:00 a.m. local time on Friday, March 23 through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

AT&T, a carrier for Apple's iPad on 3G and 4G networks, said that it had a record number of activations for a single day last Friday with the iPad. It did not disclose actual sales numbers.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced that the company will offer a dividend for the first time since 1995.

The Company will begin paying a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012.

Additionally, Apple's Board of Directors has authorized a $10 billion share repurchase program commencing in fiscal 2013, which begins on September 30, 2012. The repurchase program is expected to be executed over three years, with the primary objective of neutralizing the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs.

"We have used some of our cash to make great investments in our business through increased research and development, acquisitions, new retail store openings, strategic prepayments and capital expenditures in our supply chain, and building out our infrastructure. You'll see more of all of these in the future," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "Even with these investments, we can maintain a war chest for strategic opportunities and have plenty of cash to run our business. So we are going to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program."

"Combining dividends, share repurchases, and cash used to net-share-settle vesting RSUs, we anticipate utilizing approximately $45 billion of domestic cash in the first three years of our programs," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "We are extremely confident in our future and see tremendous opportunities ahead."

Apple has about $100 billion in cash available and is now the most valuable company based on stock-market capitalization.

Apple plans to expand its presence in Texas with a $304 million investment in a new campus in Austin that will create more than 3,600 new jobs. The new campus will more than double the size of Apple's workforce in Texas over the next decade, supporting the company's growing operations in the Americas with expanded customer support, sales and accounting functions for the region. In exchange for Apple's commitment to create these new jobs in Texas, the state has offered Apple an investment of $21 million over ten years through the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF).

"Apple is known for its bold innovation and game-changing designs, and the expansion of their Austin facility adds to the growing list of visionary high-tech companies that have found that Texas' economic climate is a perfect fit for their future, thanks to our low taxes, reasonable and predictable regulations, fair legal system and skilled workforce" Texas Gov. Rick Perry said. "Investments like this further Texas' potential to become the nation's next high-tech hub."

The project is supported by an investment from the TEF, which offers companies incentives to invest in Texas. When completed, it will be one of the largest job creation projects in TEF history, and one of the largest capital investments by a TEF recipient. The agreement is contingent upon the finalization of contracts and a local incentive agreement with the City of Austin and Travis County.

According to Austin American-Statesman, Apple will build its Americas Operations Center there which will focus on customer service and support. Average annual wages for workers hired by Apple will be $63,950.

Apple showed off the latest version of its iPad which will go on sale March 16. The new tablet won't be called iPad 3 or iPad HD as reports claimed but simply the iPad.

The latest iPad will sport a new Retina display with 3.1 million pixels and one million more than an HDTV according to Apple. The iPad will be powered by an Apple-designed A5X chip with quad-core graphics and a 5 megapixel iSight camera to capture photos and 1080p HD video. The new iPad will also have options to connect with Wi-Fi + faster 4G networks worldwide, including AT&T's and Verizon's 4G LTE networks.

The new iPad will be slightly heavier and thicker than the iPad 2 version.

The new iPad Wi-Fi models will be available in black or white on Friday, March 16 for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model and $699 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G for either AT&T or Verizon will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. The iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland, UK and the US Virgin Islands on Friday, March 16.

"The new iPad redefines the category Apple created less than two years ago, delivering the most amazing experience people have ever had with technology," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "The new iPad now has the highest resolution display ever seen on a mobile device with 3.1 million pixels, delivering razor sharp text and unbelievable detail in photos and videos."

Apple said that more than 25 billion apps have been downloaded from its App Store. There are over 315 million users of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices worldwide according to the company.

The 25 billionth app downloaded, Where's My Water? Free, was downloaded by Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China. As the winner of the App Store Countdown to 25 Billion Apps, Chunli Fu will receive a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card.

"We'd like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve this historic milestone of 25 billion apps downloaded," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that mobile apps would become the phenomenon they have, or that developers would create such an incredible selection of apps for iOS users."

Apple's App Store offers more than 550,000 apps to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users in 123 countries around the world, with more than 170,000 native iPad apps available. App Store customers can choose from a wide range of apps in 21 categories, including Newsstand, games, business, news, sports, health & fitness and travel. The App Store has paid out more than four billion dollars to developers.

Apple released a developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of the OS X operating system, which brings popular apps and features from iPad to the Mac and accelerates the pace of OS X innovation.

Mountain Lion introduces Messages, Notes, Reminders and Game Center to the Mac, as well as Notification Center, Share Sheets, Twitter integration and AirPlay Mirroring. Mountain Lion is the first OS X release built with iCloud in mind for easy setup and integration with apps. The developer preview of Mountain Lion also introduces Gatekeeper, a revolutionary security feature that helps keep you safe from malicious software by giving you complete control over what apps are installed on your Mac. The preview release of Mountain Lion is available to Mac Developer Program members starting today. Mac users will be able to upgrade to Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store in late summer 2012.

"The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "The developer preview of Mountain Lion comes just seven months after the incredibly successful release of Lion and sets a rapid pace of development for the world's most advanced personal computer operating system."

The developer preview of Mountain Lion features the all new Messages app which replaces iChat and allows you to send unlimited messages, high-quality photos and videos directly from your Mac to another Mac or iOS device. Messages will continue to support AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk. Reminders and Notes help you create and track your to-dos across all your devices. Game Center lets you personalize your Mac gaming experience, find new games and challenge friends to play live multiplayer games, whether they're on a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Mountain Lion presents notifications in an elegant new way, and Notification Center provides easy access to alerts from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party apps. System-wide Share Sheets make it easy to share links, photos and videos directly from Apple and third party apps. Twitter is integrated throughout Mountain Lion so you can sign on once and tweet directly from Safari, Quick Look, Photo Booth, Preview and third party apps. Mountain Lion also introduces AirPlay Mirroring, an easy way to wirelessly send a secure 720p video stream of what's on your Mac to an HDTV using Apple TV.

Apple has announced that John Browett will join the company as senior vice president of Retail, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Browett comes to Apple from European technology retailer Dixons Retail, where he has been CEO since 2007. Beginning in April, he will be responsible for Apple's retail strategy and the continued expansion of Apple retail stores around the world.

"Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we've met,: said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We are thrilled to have him join our team and bring his incredible retail experience to Apple."

Prior to joining Dixons Retail, Browett held a series of executive positions at Tesco plc including CEO of Tesco.com. Earlier in his career he advised retail and consumer goods clients at Boston Consulting Group. He holds a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University and an MBA from Wharton Business School.

Previous retail VP Ron Johnson left Apple and is now CEO of JCPenney. Apple has a total of 361 stores worldwide and they are the highest grossing stores per square foot.

Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 first quarter which spanned 14 weeks including the Christmas holiday season and ended December 31, 2011.

The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $26.74 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter's revenue.

The Company sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple still sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

"We're thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "Apple's momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline."

"We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50."

Apple this week unveiled iBooks 2 for iPad at a special presentation at Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The new iBooks 2 app features iBooks textbooks, an entirely new kind of textbook that is dynamic, engaging and truly interactive. iBooks textbooks offer iPad users fullscreen textbooks with interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, unrivaled navigation and much more. iBooks textbooks can be kept up to date, don't weigh down a backpack and never have to be returned. Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore with most priced at $14.99 or less. The new iBooks Author is a free authoring tool now available that anyone with a Mac can use to create their own iBooks textbooks.

"Education is deep in Apple's DNA and iPad may be our most exciting education product yet. With 1.5 million iPads already in use in education institutions, including over 1,000 one-to-one deployments, iPad is rapidly being adopted by schools across the US and around the world," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "Now with iBooks 2 for iPad, students have a more dynamic, engaging and truly interactive way to read and learn, using the device they already love."

The iBooks 2 app is available as a free download from the App Store. With support for new features including fullscreen books, interactive 3D objects, diagrams, videos and photos, the iBooks 2 app will let students learn about the solar system or the physics of a skyscraper with amazing new interactive textbooks that come to life with just a tap or swipe of the finger. With its fast, fluid navigation, easy highlighting and note-taking, searching and definitions, plus lesson reviews and study cards, the new iBooks 2 app lets students study and learn in more efficient and effective ways than ever before.

iBooks Author is also available now as a free download from the Mac App Store and lets anyone with a Mac create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books and more, and publish them to Apple's iBookstore. Authors and publishers of any size can start creating with Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. iBooks Author lets you add your own text and images by simply dragging and dropping, and with the Multi-Touch! widgets you can easily add interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations and 3D objects.

Apple also introduced an all-new iTunes U app giving educators and students everything they need on their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch to teach and take entire courses. With the new iTunes U app, students using iPads have access to the world's largest catalog of free educational content, along with over 20,000 education apps at their fingertips and hundreds of thousands of books in the iBookstore that can be used in their school curriculum, such as novels for English or Social Studies.

Even though Apple's iPhone is made in China, the latest version iPhone 4S, will finally begin hitting Apple store shelves next Friday, January 13.

"Customer response to our products in China has been off the charts," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "With the launch in China next week, iPhone 4S will be available in over 90 countries making this our fastest iPhone rollout ever."

In addition to China, 21 other countries will get the new iPhone 4S beginning Friday, January 13. These countries are Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Guam, Guinea Conakry, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos and Uganda.

The iPhone 4S features Siri, a voice operated assistant, is currently available in English, German and French languages. The iPhone 4S first went on sale in the U.S. on October 14.

Apple says Siri will support additional languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish this year.

Apple has released the iTunes Rewind of 2011 feature where it highlights the best apps for 2011.

Photo app Instagram was named iPhone App of the Year. Runner ups were VidRhythym and Band of the Day. All three are free.

Tiny Tower was named iPhone Game of the Year and it's available free of charge. Tiny Wings ($0.99) and Touchgrind BMX ($4.99) were runner ups.

On the iPad, photo and video app Snapseed is the App of the Year and priced at $4.99. Runner ups were djay ($19.99) and Jamie's Recipes (free). Dead Space by EA was named Game of the Year (99 cents special) and Contre Jour HD ($2.99) and Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery ($4.99) were the runner ups.

Apple plans to open one of its largest stores in NYC's historic Grand Central Terminal on Friday at 10 a.m. Grand Central serves trains heading to NYC's wealthy suburbs in Westchester County and Connecticut with over 250,000 commuters per day.

This will be the fifth Apple store in Manhattan and the 361st Apple store overall.

This one-of-a-kind Apple retail store is 23,000 square feet and overlooks the historic Main Concourse from the East and North East balconies of Grand Central Terminal. It also has two Genius Bars for free tech support and advice.

Convenient services at the Apple Store Grand Central include Personal Pickup, a feature of the free Apple Store App which lets iPhone users shop and buy from anywhere they are, then pick up their purchase when they reach the terminal. Customers using the Apple Store App can even scan and pay for accessories with their iPhone using the new EasyPay function. And new 15-minute Express Workshops offer tips and tricks in a streamlined format to serve customers on a tight schedule.

The store will have 315 employees. The Apple Store Grand Central will be open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Friday, Saturday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Apple was ranked the fifth most-visited shopping website on Black Friday according to research analytic firm Comscore.

Fifty million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday reports Comscore, representing an increase of 35 percent versus year ago. Each of the top five retail sites achieved double-digit gains in visitors vs. last year, led by Amazon. Walmart ranked second, followed by Best Buy, Target and Apple.

"Each of the top online retailers generated significantly greater Black Friday activity compared to last year," said Comscore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. "Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year. However, it is telling that the top multi-channel retailers also showed strong growth in visitors, demonstrating the importance of the online channel to the retail industry as a whole."

Black Friday (November 25) saw $816 million in online sales, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011 and representing a 26-percent increase versus Black Friday 2010. Thanksgiving Day (November 24), while traditionally a lighter day for online holiday spending, achieved a strong 18-percent increase to $479 million.

Apple offered special one-day only discounts on Black Friday for most of its computers and the iPad.

The top sites for shopping on Black Friday were:

1. Amazon.com
2. Walmart
3. Best Buy
4. Target
5. Apple

Apple's much talked about new data center has only created 50 full-time jobs in Maiden, NC despite receiving tens of million of dollars in tax incentives according to an article in The Washington Post.

The $1 billion data center opened this year and houses Apple's new iCloud online storage service. It sits on almost 200 acres of land. But for residents of the area, the data center hasn't brought many jobs to a state that has an unemployment rate of 10.5%.

The Apple data center isn't too far away from other new data centers being built by Google and Facebook. All three Silicon Valley companies have received significant tax breaks from the state to build their centers in North Carolina but since these facilities house just servers, there really aren't that many jobs for residents that lost their livelihood when textile mills and furniture makers closed down.

The town of Maiden, NC reduced its property taxes by 50 percent for Apple and personal income taxes by 85 percent.

Apple's data center has created construction jobs and 250 indirect jobs for maintenance and security.

Apple has named Arthur Levinson, Ph. D. as the company's non-executive Chairman of the Board. Levinson has been a co-lead director of Apple's board since 2005, has served on all three board committees -- audit and finance, nominating and corporate governance, and compensation -- and will continue to serve on the audit committee. Apple also announced that Robert Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, will join Apple's board and will serve on the audit committee.

Levinson is also the chairman of Genentech.

"Art has made enormous contributions to Apple since he joined the board in 2000," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "He has been our longest serving co-lead director, and his insight and leadership are incredibly valuable to Apple, our employees and our shareholders."

"Bob and I have gotten to know one another very well over the past few years and on behalf of the entire board, we think he is going to make an extraordinary addition to our already very strong board," said Tim Cook. "His strategic vision for Disney is based on three fundamentals: generating the best creative content possible, fostering innovation and utilizing the latest technology, and expanding into new markets around the world which makes him a great fit for Apple."

The late Steve Jobs was Disney's largest shareholder following its 2006 acquisition of Pixar Entertainment.

Apple held a company-wide memorial for its founder and former CEO Steve Jobs Wednesday at its headquarters in Cupertino. Jobs passed away on October 5 following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Apple employees gathered at the Cupertino campus for the memorial held outdoors. All Apple stores were closed for several hours so employees there could watch the memorial on TV in the store.

CEO Tim Cook spoke at the ceremony (above) along with former Vice President Al Gore, who is on the company's Board of Directors. Bill Campbell, Chairman of Intuit and another Apple Director, also spoke along with Jonathan Ive, Chief of Design for Apple. There were also musical performances from Coldplay and Norah Jones.

Apple Revenue at $28.27 Billion in Fourth Quarter

Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 fourth quarter ended September 24, 2011. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion. These results compare to revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.3 percent compared to 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 63 percent of the company's revenue.

The Company sold 17.07 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 21 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 11.12 million iPads during the quarter, a 166 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 6.62 million iPods, a 27 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

"We are thrilled with the very strong finish of an outstanding fiscal 2011, growing annual revenue to $108 billion and growing earnings to $26 billion," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "Customer response to iPhone 4S has been fantastic, we have strong momentum going into the holiday season, and we remain really enthusiastic about our product pipeline."

For all of fiscal 2011, Apple reported record annual revenues of $108.2 billion and net income of $25.92 billion.

Of the 4.9 million Macs sold in the fourth quarter, 3.6 million were laptops. Apple stores generated $3.58 billion in revenue.

Apple today announced it has sold over four million of its new iPhone 4S smartphones, just three days after its launch on October 14. In addition, more than 25 million customers are already using iOS 5, the new version of Apple's mobile operating system, in the first five days of its release, and more than 20 million customers have signed up for iCloud, a set of free cloud services that automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices.

iPhone 4S went on sale in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, and will be available in 22 more countries on October 28 and more than 70 countries by the end of the year.

"iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend -- the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever."

The iPhone 4S is now available on Sprint for the first time as well as Verizon and AT&T. Sprint said it had the best first-day sales ever with the iPhone on Friday but did not give details on numbers sold.

iPhone 4S will be go on sale on October 28 in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Apple announced that pre-orders of its iPhone 4S have topped one million in a single day, surpassing the previous single day pre-order record of 600,000 held by iPhone 4. iPhone 4S is packed with new features including Apple's dual-core A5 chip for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics; an all new camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri!", an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking.

AT&T said it had received 200,000 pre-orders for 4S in the first day, the most for any phone including the iPhone 4.

"We are blown away with the incredible customer response to iPhone 4S," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The first day pre-orders for iPhone 4S have been the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched and we are thrilled that customers love iPhone 4S as much as we do."

iPhone 4S will be available at all 245 Apple retail stores in the US beginning at 8 a.m. local time on Friday, October 14. Every customer who buys an iPhone 4S at an Apple retail store will be offered free Personal Setup service, helping them customize their iPhone 4S by setting up email, showing them new apps from the App Store and more, so they'll be up and running with their new iPhone before they leave the store.

Apple hasn't announced a new iPhone in more than 15 months and despite all the rumors of the new iPhone 5, the company introduced the iPhone 4S with the same design as the iPhone 4 but with a faster processor and new operating system iOS5.

The iPhone 4S includes Apple's dual-core A5 chip for fast performance and stunning graphics; an all new camera with 8 megapixel resolution; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. With the launch of iPhone 4S also comes the launch of iOS 5 with over 200 new features; and iCloud, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that work with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices.

"iPhone 4S plus iOS 5 plus iCloud is a breakthrough combination that makes the iPhone 4S the best iPhone ever," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "While our competitors try to imitate iPhone with a checklist of features, only iPhone can deliver these breakthrough innovations that work seamlessly together."

Apple founder Steve Jobs did not appear at the event held at company headquarters.

iPhone 4S also introduces Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. Siri understands context allowing you to speak naturally when you ask it questions, for example, if you ask "Will I need an umbrella this weekend?" it understands you are looking for a weather forecast. Siri is also smart about using the personal information you allow it to access, for example, if you tell Siri "Remind me to call Mom when I get home" it can find "Mom" in your address book, or ask Siri "What's the traffic like around here?" and it can figure out where "here" is based on your current location. Siri helps you make calls, send text messages or email, schedule meetings and reminders, make notes, search the Internet, find local businesses, get directions and more. You can also get answers, find facts and even perform complex calculations just by asking.

The iPhone 4S will go on sale October 14 at Sprint for the first time along with Verizon and AT&T.

iPhone 4S comes in either black or white and will be available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model and $399 (US) for the new 64GB model.

iPhone 4S will be available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK on Friday, October 14 and customers can pre-order their iPhone 4S beginning Friday, October 7. iPhone 4 will also be available for just $99 (US) and iPhone 3GS will be available for free with a two year contract. Siri will be available in beta on iPhone 4S in English (localized for US, UK and Australia), French and German. iOS 5 software will be available on October 12 as a free software update via iTunes 10.5 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch customers.

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, has announced his resignation as Chief Executive Officer effective immediately. The legendary Apple executive had a liver transplant in 2009 and has been on leave of absence since January with concerns about his weight and health.

Tim Cook, Apple's Chief Operating Officer, will become the new CEO of the company. Cook was filling in for jobs while he has been ill. The company said Jobs has been elected Chairman of the Board.

"Steve's extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world's most innovative and valuable technology company," said Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech, on behalf of Apple's Board. "Steve has made countless contributions to Apple's success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple 's immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration."

"The Board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO," added Levinson. "Tim's 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does."

Jobs submitted his resignation to the Board today and strongly recommended that the Board implement its succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO.

Here is the note Jobs sent to Apple employees:

To the Apple (AAPL) Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come. I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee. As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple. I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role. I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

"The paperless flight deck represents the next generation of flying," said Captain Fred Abbott, United's senior vice president of flight operations. "The introduction of iPads ensures our pilots have essential and real-time information at their fingertips at all times throughout the flight."

The iPads are loaded with Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck, the industry's premier app featuring interactive, data-driven enroute navigation information and worldwide geo-referenced terminal charts. The enhanced full-color, high-quality information display ensures the right information is displayed at the right time.

Each iPad, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot's flight bag. A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot. The green benefits of moving to EFBs are two-fold--it significantly reduces paper use and printing, and, in turn, reduces fuel consumption. The airline projects EFBs will save nearly 16 million sheets of paper a year which is equivalent to more than 1,900 trees not cut down. Saving 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 3,208 metric tons.

Apple's iPhone is the world's leader smartphone in sales according to research firm International Data Corporation. The worldwide mobile phone market grew 65.4% year over year in the second quarter of 2011 (2Q11), marking the third consecutive quarter where total shipments exceeded 100 million units according to IDC.

"The smartphone market crowned a new leader in 2Q11, and its name is Apple," said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Phone Technology and Trends team. "Ever since the first iPhone launched in 2007, Apple has made market-setting strides in hardware, software, and channel development to grab mindshare and market share. Demand has been so strong that even models that have been out for one or two years are still being sought out. With an expected refresh later this year, volumes are set to reach higher levels."

Apple's success can be directly attributed to its distribution (more than 200 carriers in more than 200 countries), increased manufacturing capacity, and solid demand within emerging and developed markets from both consumers and business users. Apple's emergence as the number one smartphone vendor worldwide comes at a time when former worldwide leader Nokia is in the midst of a major transition. However, Apple has yet to top Nokia's single-quarter volume record of 28.1 million units. But given Apple's momentum in the smartphone market, it may not be a question of whether Apple will beat that milestone, but when.

Samsung realized the largest year-over-year growth of any vendor among the top five, and key to its continued success was the global popularity of its flagship Galaxy S smartphones. What originally began as a series of high-end smartphones has proliferated well into the mass-market, but has not strayed too far from its high-end roots. Moreover, its steady cadence of device releases and updates has kept Samsung's smartphones well out in front of the competition. Samsung's bada-powered smartphones likewise grew, while demand for its Windows Phone smartphones has cooled off.

Nokia ceded the number one position for the first time in the history of IDC's Mobile Phone Tracker, with smartphone volumes dipping below the 20 million unit mark for the first time since 3Q09. Even as the company released new smartphones running on Symbian^3, demand for its products running on the aged Symbian platform has shifted to other devices. At the same time, Nokia must be considered as a company in transition, as it recently unveiled its first MeeGo-powered smartphone and Windows Phone-powered smartphones, designated as the primary operating system for Nokia moving forward, have yet to reach the market.

Research In Motion posted the lowest year-over-year growth of all the vendors in the top five, but still shipped enough BlackBerry smartphones to be the number four vendor worldwide. The company has released only a few new models so far this year, leaving the bulk of its shipments to be comprised of older, less expensive models. That has allowed its competitors to grab mindshare and market share with multiple new models. In addition, many vendors have targeted business users with enterprise-grade smartphones, which have long been RIM's stronghold. Still, demand for BlackBerry smartphones remained healthy in the face of competition.

HTC marked another upward quarter, having launched and announced several new smartphones to the market. These featured 3D displays and 4G speeds, attesting to HTC's ability to bring devices with the latest and forward-thinking technologies. For a company that got its start providing carrier-branded smartphones, HTC's success at building a strong and readily identifiable brand stems directly from a broad and deep selection of devices, a steady stream of device releases, and a warm reception among carriers and end-users. With a goal of shipping more than 13 million units in 3Q11, HTC is well poised to reach its goal of shipping 50 million units for the year.

"Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Lion is a huge step forward, it's not only packed with innovative features but it's incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we've ever made."

Lion introduces more than 250 new features to the Mac, including Multi-Touch gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

Apple sold 20.34 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 142 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.25 million iPads during the quarter, a 183 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 3.95 million Macs during the quarter, a 14 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple did see a drop in sales for iPods, of which it sold 7.54 million, a 20 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

"We're thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent, " said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Right now, we're very focused and excited about bringing iOS 5 and iCloud to our users this fall."

"In just three years, the revolutionary App Store has grown to become the most exciting and successful software marketplace the world has ever seen," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Thank you to all of our amazing developers who have filled it with over 425,000 of the coolest apps and to our over 200 million iOS users for surpassing 15 billion downloads."

The Apple App Store is available in over 90 countries and Apple says it has paid developers over $2.5 billion to date for their share of paid apps downloaded by consumers. Developers receive 70% of the price of the app and Apple retains the rest.

The financial structure of the agreement consists of a one-time payment payable by Apple and on-going royalties to be paid by Apple to Nokia for the term of the agreement. The specific terms of the contract are confidential but it has been reported that the one-time payment is as high as $700 million.

"We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees," said Stephen Elop, president and chief executive officer of Nokia. "This settlement demonstrates Nokia's industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market."

During the last two decades, Nokia has invested approximately EUR 43 billion in research and development and built one of the wireless industry's strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, with over 10,000 patent families.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs made his second public presentation this week, this time revealing the company's plans for a spectacular new campus in Cupertino just down the street from 1 Infinite Loop.

The new "iCampus" will be a circular building that would resemble a spaceship on the ground and located on 180 acres of land that was mostly bought from HP. The building will house 12,000 workers and up to 13,000 according to jobs and feature mostly underground parking while preserving the land and adding several thousand more trees to total over 6,000.

Jobs said the company hopes to break ground in 2012 and should be completed by 2015.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs emerged from sick leave to give the keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday held at San Francisco's Moscone West.

“Today it is a real hassle and very frustrating to keep all your information and content up-to-date across all your devices,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iCloud keeps your important information and content up to date across all your devices. All of this happens automatically and wirelessly, and because it’s integrated into our apps you don’t even need to think about it—it all just works.”

Apple is ready to ramp iCloud in its three data centers, including the third recently completed in Maiden, NC. Apple said it has invested over $500 million in its Maiden data center to support the expected customer demand for the free iCloud services.

This video from 2001 shows CEO Steve Jobs introducing the first Apple store at Tyson's Corner Center in Virginia. Apple's stores have become the most successful retail chain ever with sales of $4,600 per square foot. Apple now has over 300 stores worldwide.

"Our customers love the iMac's aluminum enclosure, gorgeous display and all-in-one design," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.

The new iMac features quad-core Intel Core i5 processors with an option for customers to choose Core i7 processors up to 3.4 GHz. These next generation processors feature an integrated memory controller for an amazingly responsive experience and a powerful new media engine for high-performance video encoding and decoding. With AMD Radeon HD graphics processors, the new iMac has the most powerful graphics ever in an all-in-one desktop.

iMac is the first desktop computer on the market to include Thunderbolt I/O technology. The 21.5-inch iMac has a single Thunderbolt port while the 27-inch model features two ports for even greater expansion. Developed by Intel with collaboration from Apple, Thunderbolt enables expandability never before possible on an all-in-one computer. Featuring two bi-directional channels with transfer speeds up to an amazing 10Gbps each, Thunderbolt delivers PCI Express directly to external high performance peripherals such as RAID arrays, and can support FireWire and USB consumer devices, and Gigabit Ethernet networks via adapters. Thunderbolt also supports DisplayPort for high resolution displays and works with existing adapters for HDMI, DVI and VGA displays. Freely available for implementation on systems, cables and devices, Thunderbolt technology is expected to be widely adopted as a new standard for high performance I/O.

The new iMac is available through the Apple stores and resellers. The 21.5-inch iMac is available in two configurations: one with a 2.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5, AMD Radeon HD 6750M and 500GB hard drive for a suggested retail price of $1,199 (US); and one with a 2.7 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5, AMD Radeon HD 6770M and 1TB hard drive for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US). The new 27-inch iMac is available in two models: one with a 2.7 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5, AMD Radeon HD 6770M and 1TB hard drive for a suggested retail price of $1,699 (US); and one with a 3.1 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5, AMD Radeon HD 6970M and 1TB hard drive for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US).

The white iPhone 4 is available from Apple directly online, at Apple's retail stores, AT&T and Verizon Wireless stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers. The price is the same as the black model.

"The white iPhone 4 has finally arrived and it's beautiful," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "We appreciate everyone who has waited patiently while we've worked to get every detail right."

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?
Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this?
Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.

3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?
The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.

6. People have identified up to a year’s worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?
This data is not the iPhone’s location data—it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?
It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?
We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).

10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important?
Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.

Software Update
Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:

Apple sold 3.76 million Macs during the quarter, a 28 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 18.65 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 113 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.02 million iPods during the quarter, representing a 17 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The company also sold 4.69 million iPads during the quarter.

"With quarterly revenue growth of 83 percent and profit growth of 95 percent, we're firing on all cylinders," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We will continue to innovate on all fronts throughout the remainder of the year."

Verizon, which began selling the iPhone in February, said it sold 2.2 million units in the first quarter.

Apple said it sold 2.75 million laptops and 1.0 million desktop Macs. Its retail stores generated $3.19 billlion in the quarter.

In Consumer Reports lab tests, the Motorola Xoom revealed itself as the iPad 2's chief rival. Like the iPad 2, the Xoom boasts a 10-inch screen but adds conveniences that the iPad lacks, including a built-in memory card reader and support for the Flash videos and animations found on many Web sites.

"So far Apple is leading the tablet market in both quality and price, which is unusual for a company whose products are usually premium priced," said Paul Reynolds, Electronics Editor at Consumer Reports. "However, it's likely we'll see more competitive pricing in tablets as other models begin to hit the market."

Consumer Reports tested tablets from Archos, Dell, Motorola, Samsung, and ViewSonic, as well as several models from Apple. Each tablet was evaluated on 17 criteria, including touch-screen responsiveness, versatility, portability, screen glare, and ease of use, and testers found several models that outperformed the rest. The Apple iPad 2 with Wi-Fi plus 3G (32G), $730, topped the Ratings, scoring Excellent in nearly every category. The first-generation iPad, $580, also outscored many of the other models tested but tied with the Motorola Xoom, $800.

The largest gap in performance among the 10 tested tablets was evident in Consumer Reports' battery-life test, measured by playing the same video clip continually on each tablet and timing how long it played until the battery ran down. The top-scoring iPad 2 lasted 12.2 hours, but the lowest-rated tablet, the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, $270, lasted just 3.8 hours.

iPad 2 with Wi-Fi will be available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK

Apple also announced that all models of iPad 2 will be available in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and additional countries in April.

"While competitors are still struggling to catch up with our first iPad, we've changed the game again with iPad 2," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We're experiencing amazing demand for iPad 2 in the US, and customers around the world have told us they can't wait to get their hands on it. We appreciate everyone's patience and we are working hard to build enough iPads for everyone."

"I've worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both NeXT and Apple, but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "Craig has done a great job managing the Mac OS team for the past two years, Lion is a great release and the transition should be seamless."

Federighi worked at NeXT, followed by Apple, and then spent a decade at Ariba where he held several roles including vice president of Internet Services and chief technology officer. He returned to Apple in 2009 to lead Mac OS X engineering. Federighi holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Serlet joined Apple in 1997, and has been involved in the definition, development and creation of Mac OS X, the world's most advanced operating system. Before joining Apple, Serlet spent four years at Xerox PARC, then joined NeXT in 1989. Serlet holds a doctorate in Computer Science from the University of Orsay, France.

Customers of Time Warner can only watch on their home wi-fi networks and there are only 30 cable networks available including Bravo, CNN, Fox News, MTV, USA, Comedy Central and E. Due to a large number of downloads in the first day of availability of the TWCable app, the company is only offering 15 networks to keep service operating smoothly.

"We are tremendously excited about this app, which is the first of many that will allow our customers to harness the power of their tablet-type devices. No other cable company has done this, and we are thrilled to be the first," said Rob Marcus, President and Chief Operating Officer for Time Warner Cable. "Helping our customers see the content they're paying for on multiple devices makes their Time Warner Cable subscription even more valuable, and they can expect much more from us in this space very soon."

According to the Austin American-Statesman, the 5,000 square-foot store in the Scarborough Building is Apple's first ever temporary store and will open for just two weeks. Friday is also the day that Apple begins selling the hotly-anticipated iPad 2.

The SXSW Conference draws tens of thousands of visitors to Austin and the event is focused on film, movies and interactive entertainment.

With the addition of Random House, the iBookstore now offers ebooks from all six major trade publishers and thousands of independent publishers. "We are delighted that Apple's iBookstore now will be carrying Random House's US ebooks for the first time," said Markus Dohle, Random House's Chairman and CEO. "And we look forward to bringing our 17,000 ebooks to Apple customers."

"We're thrilled to offer Random House on the iBookstore," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Internet Services. "iBookstore customers have already downloaded more than 100 million books in less than one year, and we think they'll love being able to choose from Random House's incredible selection of titles to enjoy on their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch."

iBookstore customers can choose from a wide selection of illustrated and video-enhanced books that look incredible on iPad, including Jay-Z's memoir "Decoded" and Bing West's "The Wrong War"; bestselling children's series such as Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones; and cookbooks by Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, and the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. Random House, Inc. comprises more than 80 adult and children's US publishing imprints including Alfred A. Knopf, Doubleday, Crown, Pantheon Books, Vintage, Ballantine and Bantam.

The iBookstore offers ebooks from more than 2,500 publishers in more than 20 categories, including Mysteries & Thrillers, Biographies & Memoirs, Cookbooks, Children s & Teen, Humor, Romance, Business and Travel.

The iPad 2 features a new design that is 33 percent thinner and up to 15 percent lighter than the original iPad, while maintaining the same stunning 9.7-inch LED-backlit LCD screen. iPad 2 features Apple's new dual-core A5 processor for fast performance and graphics and now includes two cameras, a front-facing VGA camera for FaceTime and Photo Booth, and a rear-facing camera that captures 720p HD video, bringing the innovative FaceTime feature to iPad users for the first time. Though it is thinner, lighter, faster and packed with new features, iPad 2 still delivers up to 10 hours of battery life.

The iPad 2 will go on sale March 11 and is available in black or white. Both will run on AT&T's and Verizon's 3G networks.

"With more than 15 million iPads sold, iPad has defined an entirely new category of mobile devices," said Steve Jobs. "While others have been scrambling to copy the first generation iPad, we're launching iPad 2, which moves the bar far ahead of the competition and will likely cause them to go back to the drawing boards yet again."

The iPad 2 will maintain the same pricing as the original version with a retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G compatible with the Verizon network will be available in the US only for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model.

"The new MacBook Pro brings next generation dual and quad Core processors, high performance graphics, Thunderbolt technology and FaceTime HD to the great design loved by our pro customers, " said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Thunderbolt is a revolutionary new I/O technology that delivers an amazing 10 gigabits per second and can support every important I/O standard which is ideal for the new MacBook Pro."

Starting at $1,199 the new 13-inch MacBook Pro offers amazing value and performance in a compact design. The highly portable 13-inch MacBook Pro features Intel Core i5 and Core i7 dual-core processors up to 2.7 GHz and Intel HD Graphics 3000. The powerful 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models feature quad-core Core i7 processors up to 2.3 GHz and AMD Radeon HD graphics processors with up to 1GB of video memory for high performance gaming, pro video editing and graphics intensive applications.

MacBook Pro is the first computer on the market to include the groundbreaking Thunderbolt I/O technology. Developed by Intel with collaboration from Apple, Thunderbolt enables expandability never before possible on a notebook computer. Featuring two bi-directional channels with transfer speeds up to an amazing 10Gbps each, Thunderbolt delivers PCI Express directly to external high performance peripherals such as RAID arrays, and can support FireWire and USB consumer devices and Gigabit Ethernet networks via adapters. Thunderbolt also supports DisplayPort for high resolution displays and works with existing adapters for HDMI, DVI and VGA displays. Freely available for implementation on systems, cables and devices, Thunderbolt technology is expected to be widely adopted as a new standard for high performance I/O.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro, 15-inch MacBook Pro and 17-inch MacBook Pro are available through the Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is available in two configurations: one with a 2.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 and 320GB hard drive starting at $1,199; and one with a 2.7 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 and 500GB hard drive starting at $1,499. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is available in two models: one with a 2.0 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6490M and 500GB hard drive starting at $1,799 and one with a 2.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6750M and 750GB hard drive starting at $2,199. The new 17-inch MacBook Pro features a 2.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6750M and 750GB hard drive and is priced at $2,499.

Subscriptions purchased from within the App Store will be sold using the same App Store billing system that has been used to buy billions of apps and In-App Purchases. Publishers set the price and length of subscription (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly). Then with one-click, customers pick the length of subscription and are automatically charged based on their chosen length of commitment (weekly, monthly, etc.). Customers can review and manage all of their subscriptions from their personal account page, including canceling the automatic renewal of a subscription. Apple processes all payments, keeping the same 30 percent share that it does today for other In-App Purchases.

"Our philosophy is simple -- when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app. We believe that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand digital access to their content onto the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone, delighting both new and existing subscribers. "

Publishers who use Apple's subscription service in their app can also leverage other methods for acquiring digital subscribers outside of the app. For example, publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple. Publishers must provide their own authentication process inside the app for subscribers that have signed up outside of the app. However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

The new iPad 2 hasn't even been released yet but is expected to launch this spring. The Orange County Register reports parents will be charged a $35 monthly fee for maintenance and support of the tablet device. All 110 teachers at the high school will also receive iPads.

Here are the core objectives the school hopes to accomplish by giving everyone an iPad:

Mater Dei also intends to integrate the iPad into its music, theatre, choral and visual arts programs, as well as many extracurricular programs.

Mater Dei charges tuition of $10,225-11,450 per year. It also has one of the top high school athletic programs in the country.

"This was an exciting day," said Dan Mead, president and chief executive officer for Verizon Wireless. "In just our first two hours, we had already sold more phones than any first day launch in our history. And, when you consider these initial orders were placed between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., it is an incredible success story. It is gratifying to know that our customers responded so enthusiastically to this exclusive offer -- designed to reward them for their loyalty.

"I am proud of our employees who worked tirelessly to strengthen and scale our systems, enabling unprecedented customer orders through our website. Overall, it was a very good day," he added.

The general market launch of the iPhone 4 on the Verizon Wireless network will occur on Feb. 10. The company will open its more than 2,000 Verizon Wireless Communications Stores at 7 a.m. It will also be available at all Apple store locations, Best Buy, select Wal-Mart stores, and online at www.verizonwireless.com and www.apple.com.

The Daily has news, gossip, sports and even crossword and Sudoku puzzles updated every day for iPad users. The app will be free for the first two weeks and then will cost readers 99 cents per week or $39.99 per year.

Murdoch has spent an estimated $30 million on the launch of The Daily with the considerable resources of the News Corp. behind it on this digital-only publication. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal, NY Post, and Times of London newspapers.

Murdoch introduced The Daily in NYC yesterday with an appearance by Eddy Cue of Apple, Vice President of Internet Services.

"With more than 10 billion apps downloaded in just two and a half years -- a staggering seven billion apps in the last year alone -- the App Store has surpassed our wildest dreams," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The App Store has revolutionized how software is created, distributed, discovered and sold. While others try to copy the App Store, it continues to offer developers and customers the most innovative experience on the planet."

There are over 350,000 paid and free apps in Apple's App Store. There are more than 160 million iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users worldwide.

Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 19.45 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter.

"We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO in a statement. "We are firing on all cylinders and we've got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can't wait to get their hands on."

"We couldn't be happier with the performance of our business, generating $9.8 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $22 billion."

Apple's retail stores generated revenues of $3.84 billion in the quarter and sold 851,000 Macintosh computers.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook will handle operations at Apple. Jobs was absent last week at the Verizon announcement for the iPhone in NYC and Cook represented Apple on stage.

At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple's day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.

I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.

The Verizon iPhone is specially designed by Apple to run on the CDMA network of Verizon Wireless and includes a different design for the antenna compared to the AT&T version.

The price for the Verizon iPhone will be $199.99 for the 16GB model and $299.99 for the 32GB model with a new two year customer agreement. Pricing details for service plans were not announced yet.

Verizon will allow iPhone customers to use the phone as a Mi-Fi mobile hotspot to share the connection with up to five users. This feature is not available on the iPhone for AT&T.

The announcement was made in New York City by Verizon President Lowell McAdam with an appearance by Apple's Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook. CEO Steve Jobs did not appear at the event.

"We are pleased to introduce millions of wireless users to the industry leading iPhone 4 on the nation's most reliable network," said Lowell McAdam, president and chief operating officer of Verizon. "This is an important step for the industry as two great companies join forces to give wireless customers one of the most important technological additions to the mobile landscape this century."

"Verizon Wireless customers have told us they can't wait to get their hands on iPhone 4, and we think they are going to love it," said Tim Cook. "We have enormous respect for the company Verizon has built and the loyalty they have earned from their customers."

After one day, Apple said users have downloaded over one million apps which include both free and paid.

"We're amazed at the incredible response the Mac App Store is getting," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Developers have done a great job bringing apps to the store and users are loving how easy and fun the Mac App Store is."

The App Store for Macs brings the same opportunity for developers to sell and promote their products like they do for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Mac developers set the price for their apps, keep 70 percent of the sales revenue, are not charged for free apps and do not have to pay hosting, marketing or credit card fees.

Now with AirPlay, recently available in iOS 4.2, users can wirelessly stream their music, video and photos from iPad, iPhone and iPod touch to their Apple TV, making it the perfect iOS accessory. Users can also control Apple TV with their iPad, iPhone or iPod touch using the Remote app, available as a free app on the App Store.

The new Apple TV was introduced in September with a much smaller design. The one million sales mark pales in comparison to iPhone and iPad sales which broke the million mark in a week or less.

"The App Store revolutionized mobile apps," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can't wait to get started on January 6."

The Mac App Store lets you browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what's hot, view staff favorites, search categories and read customer ratings and reviews. Like on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, you can purchase, download and install apps in just one click and start using them immediately. Purchased apps can run on all of your personal Macs and updates are delivered directly through the Mac App Store so it's easy to keep all of your apps up to date.

The Mac App Store is available to Mac OS X Snow Leopard users as a free download through Software Update. Mac developers set the price for their apps, keep 70 percent of the sales revenue, are not charged for free apps and do not have to pay hosting, marketing or credit card fees.

HP announced it was leaving its Cupertino campus over the summer and it would consolidate operations at its Palo Alto headquarters.

Apple has grown at an amazing pace over the last several years due to strong sales of iPods, iPhones and iPads. Now it has outgrown its own headquarters in Cupertino and needs more space for employees. The HP property is across the street from a 50-acre site that Apple had previously acquired and announced as the location for a planned second campus.

“We’re really excited to bring the Beatles’ music to iTunes,” said Sir Paul McCartney. “It’s fantastic to see the songs we originally released on vinyl receive as much love in the digital world as they did the first time around.”

“I am particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes,” said Ringo Starr. “At last, if you want it—you can get it now—The Beatles from Liverpool to now! Peace and Love, Ringo.”

“We love the Beatles and are honored and thrilled to welcome them to iTunes,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “It has been a long and winding road to get here. Thanks to the Beatles and EMI, we are now realizing a dream we’ve had since we launched iTunes ten years ago.”

“In the joyful spirit of Give Peace A Chance, I think it is so appropriate that we are doing this on John’s 70th birthday year,” said Yoko Ono Lennon.

Single albums are available for purchase and download for $12.99 each, double albums for $19.99 each and individual songs for $1.29 each.

Apple Corps Ltd. was founded by The Beatles in 1968 to look after the group’s own affairs. The London-based company has administered the catalogue of The Beatles releases of the 1960s that have sold to date more than 600 million records, tapes and CDs. Since the 1990s, Apple has piloted new Beatles projects that have become benchmarks for pioneering accomplishment and which have included The Beatles Anthology projects, the 29-million selling album The Beatles 1, The Beatles LOVE show and CD and the 09/09/09 release of The Beatles Remastered catalogue and The Beatles Rock Band game.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 340.5 million units in 3Q10 compared to 297.1 million units in the third quarter of 2009.

The growing popularity of converged mobile devices, or smartphones, with consumers and businesspersons is evidenced by the appearance of a second smartphone-only vendor in the top 5 ranking. Apple moved into the number 4 position worldwide in 3Q10, joining Research In Motion (RIM) as one of the world's largest mobile phone suppliers. RIM has spent three quarters on IDC's leaderboard. Apple and RIM also posted the highest-growth rates among the top 5 vendors last quarter.

"The entrance of Apple to the top 5 vendor ranking underscores the increased importance of smartphones to the overall market. Moreover, the mobile phone makers that are delivering popular smartphone models are among the fastest growing firms," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker. "Vendors that aren't developing a strong portfolio of smartphones will be challenged to maintain and grow market share in the future."

Apple, RIM, and the vendors producing Android-based smartphones have put noticeable pressure on Nokia, the overall market leader. "Nokia still leads all vendors by a significant margin for converged mobile devices and mobile phones as a whole," said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team. "However, Nokia's grip on the traditional mobile phone market has been somewhat loosened, as multiple Chinese vendors have gained ground, especially within emerging markets. To bolster its overall competitiveness, Nokia has been focused on improving its smartphone offerings."

Apple said these new notebooks are:
* faster -- solid state flash storage is up to twice as fast as hard drive storage
* more reliable -- hard drive crashes are eliminated
* lighter and smaller -- solid state flash storage is up to 90 percent smaller and lighter than hard drives

Available in 11-inch and 13-inch models and weighing as little as 2.3 pounds, the new MacBook Air is Apple s lightest and most portable notebook ever. MacBook Air uses the same solid state storage technology as iPad!" to deliver instant-on responsiveness, up to seven hours of battery life and up to 30 days of standby time.

"MacBook Air is the first of a new generation of notebooks that leaves behind mechanical rotating storage in favor of solid state flash storage," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We've taken what we have learned with the iPad solid state storage, instant-on, amazing battery standby time, miniaturization and lightweight construction, to create the new MacBook Air. With its amazing responsiveness and mobility, it will change the way we think about notebooks."With its precision aluminum unibody enclosure, the new MacBook Air measures an incredibly thin 0.11-inches at its thinnest point and 0.68-inches at its thickest, and weighs just 2.3 pounds for the 11-inch model and 2.9 pounds for the 13-inch. Like iPad, MacBook Air was designed from the ground up to use flash storage exclusively. Apple s custom-designed flash storage is 90 percent smaller and lighter than a conventional notebook hard drive, contributing to MacBook Air s mobile, featherweight design. MacBook Air

MacBook Air features a full-sized keyboard, as well as the highly acclaimed glass Multi-Touch trackpad found on Apple's MacBook Pro, so you can scroll through web sites, flip through photos, and resize or rotate images all from the trackpad. The built-in FaceTime camera, mic and stereo speakers are perfect for video calls with iPhone 4, iPod touch and other Macs.

The 1.4 GHz 11-inch MacBook Air with 2GB of memory and 64GB of flash storage starts at a suggested retail price of $999 (US) with a 128GB model for $1,199 (US). The 1.86 GHz 13-inch MacBook Air with 2GB of memory and 128GB of flash storage starts at a suggested retail price of $1,299 (US) with a 256GB model for $1,599 (US).

Apple sold 3.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 27 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 91 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.05 million iPods during the quarter, representing an 11 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 4.19 million iPads during the quarter.

"We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings both all-time records for Apple," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year."

Apple's retail stores generated sales of $3.56 billion and sold 874,000 Macintosh computers.

Verizon Wireless will offer three bundles, all featuring an iPad Wi-Fi model and a Verizon MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot, for a suggested retail price of $629.99 for iPad Wi-Fi 16GB + MiFi, $729.99 for iPad Wi-Fi 32GB + MiFi and $829.99 for iPad Wi-Fi 64GB + MiFi. Verizon Wireless is offering a monthly access plan to iPad customers of up to 1GB of data for just $20 a month. In addition, Verizon Wireless will also offer all three iPad Wi-Fi models on a stand-alone basis.

"This is the perfect pairing for holiday travels," said John Stratton, chief operating officer for Verizon Wireless. "iPad together with the nation's largest and most reliable 3G data network allows customers to easily connect on the go wherever they are."

"We're thrilled to be working with Verizon Wireless to get iPad into the hands of even more customers this holiday season," said Tim Cook, Apple's COO. "iPad allows users to connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before, and together with Verizon Wireless we're offering an easy way to stay connected wherever you go."

The MiFi 2200 is small enough to fit in a pocket and allows customers to create a personal Wi-Fi cloud capable of sharing the high-speed Internet connectivity of the Verizon Wireless 3G Mobile Broadband network with up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices. The MiFi 2200's rechargeable battery provides up to four hours of active use and 40 hours of standby time on a single charge.

Apple said it will also begin selling the iPad at AT&T stores on Oct. 28 which includes the wi-fi and 3G models with service by AT&T.

Overall, Motorola Mobility's three complaints include 18 patents, which relate to early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in key technology areas found on many of Apple's core products and associated services, including MobileMe and the App Store. The Motorola patents include wireless communication technologies, such as WCDMA (3G), GPRS, 802.11 and antenna design, and key smartphone technologies including wireless email, proximity sensing, software application management, location-based services and multi-device synchronization.

Kirk Dailey, corporate vice president of intellectual property at Motorola Mobility, said, "Motorola has innovated and patented throughout every cycle of the telecommunications industry evolution, from Motorola's invention of the cell phone to its development of premier smartphone products. We have extensively licensed our industry-leading intellectual property portfolio, consisting of tens of thousands of patents in the U.S. and worldwide. After Apple's late entry into the telecommunications market, we engaged in lengthy negotiations, but Apple has refused to take a license. We had no choice but to file these complaints to halt Apple's continued infringement. Motorola will continue to take all necessary steps to protect its R&D and intellectual property, which are critical to the company's business."

"AirPrint is Apple's powerful new printing architecture that matches the simplicity of iOS -- no set up, no configuration, no printer drivers and no software to download," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users can simply tap to print their documents or photos wirelessly to an HP ePrint printer or to a printer shared on a Mac or PC."

"We're pleased to work with Apple to bring Apple's AirPrint to our fall lineup of ePrint printers in time for the holiday shopping season," said Vyomesh Joshi, HP executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group. "Making it easy for our customers to print anytime, anywhere, is a key priority for HP. iPad, iPhone and iPod touch customers are going to love how easy it is to print using our new range of ePrint printers, creating high-quality printed pages in an instant."

AirPrint is designed to support a wide range of printers from entry level inkjet printers to office laser printers. Additionally, iOS 4.2 devices can print to printers shared through a Mac or a PC. iOS 4.2 compatible HP printers this fall include the HP Photosmart, Officejet, Officejet Pro and LaserJet Pro series ePrint enabled printers. AirPrint will work with iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (third generation and later).

The iPod Touch has become Apple's top-selling iPod and now offers many features found in the iPhone 4. The new Touch features the Retina display, FaceTime video calling, HD video recording, Apple's A4 chip, 3-axis gyro, iOS 4.1 and Game Center -- all combined in the thinnest and lightest iPod touch ever. The new iPod touch features up to 40 hours of music playback and seven hours of video playback on a single battery charge.

"We've put our most advanced technology inside the new iPod touch," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Whether you're listening to music, playing games, making FaceTime video calls, browsing the web, capturing HD video or watching TV shows and movies, the new iPod touch with its Retina display, A4 chip and 3-axis gyro is more fun than ever."

The Retina display equals the screen found on the iPhone 4 and makes everything on iPod touch look sharper, whether playing games, watching video, browsing the web or flicking through photos. The Retina display has 960 x 640 pixels -- four times as many pixels than before. The resulting 326 pixels per inch is so dense that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels when iPod touch is held at a normal distance, making text, images and video look sharper, smoother and more realistic.

Apple's new holiday lineup includes a brand new iPod shuffle for just $49; the new iPod nano with Multi-Touch starting at $149. The new iPod touch will be available next week for a suggested price of $229 for the 8GB model, $299 for the 32GB model and $399 for the 64GB model.

Apple TV users can choose from the largest online selection of HD movies to rent, including first run movies for just $4.99, and the largest online selection of HD TV show episodes to rent from ABC, ABC Family, Fox, Disney Channel and BBC America for just 99 cents. Rentals are only available in the U.S.

Apple TV also streams content from Netflix, YouTube, Flickr and MobileMe, as well as music, photos and videos from PCs and Macs to your HD TV. Enjoy slideshows of your photos on your HD TV using Apple TV's selection of built-in slideshows. Apple TV has built-in HDMI, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and an internal power supply for easy set-up, and features silent, cool, very low power operation in an enclosure that s less than four inches square -- 80 percent smaller than the previous generation.

"The new Apple TV, paired with the largest selection of online HD movie and TV show rentals, lets users watch Hollywood content on their HD TV whenever they want, " said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "This tiny, silent box costing just $99 lets users watch thousands of HD movies and TV shows, and makes all of their music, photos and videos effortlessly available on their home entertainment system.."

Apple TV users can now rent thousands of commercial free, HD TV episodes on iTunes for just 99 cents, with up to 30 days to start watching and then 48 hours to finish -- or watch multiple times. Users can also rent over 7,000 movies with over 3,400 available in HD, with most new releases available the same day they are released on DVD. Apple TV also gives access to the Netflix streaming catalog for Netflix subscribers, and the ability to browse and search, rate content, add to or remove from your queue, or instantly stream straight to your HD TV.

"iTunes U makes it easy for people to discover and learn with content from many of the world's top institutions," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Internet Services. "With such a wide selection of educational material, we're providing iTunes users with an incredible way to learn on their computer, iPhone, iPod or iPad."

Created in collaboration with colleges and universities, iTunes U makes it easy to extend learning, explore interests or learn more about a school. A dedicated area within the iTunes Store, iTunes U offers users public access to content from world class institutions such as Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, University of Melbourne and Université de Montréal. iTunes U gives anyone the chance to experience university courses, lab demonstrations, sports highlights, campus tours and special lectures. All iTunes U content is free and can be enjoyed on a Mac or PC, or wirelessly downloaded directly onto an iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

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