Stan's List

Or, rather why does Apple Music Store succeed? ZDNet has one of the best explanations why Apple maintains 80+ percent of the music downloads.

CompterWeekly.com is reporting that Apple is admitting “they may not be able to meet demand for its new Intel-driven laptops…”

What a surprise.

What is it about the Intel dual core hardware that will cause programers tochange the way they program? Speed!!!

The UK’s online BusinessTelegraph reports that a deal whereby Disney will purchase Pixar is all but done. The latter’s board is expected to meet tomorrow (Monday) to approve the company’s $7 billion takeover.

The deal is reportedly an all-share affair that will make Steve Jobs the single largest shareholder in Disney. Jobs stake in Pixar—51 percent—is said to be worth about $3.5 billion.

Pixar was created in 1986 from the computer animations division of Lucasfilm for which His Steven paid $10 million.

Apple has posted information about the PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz) Memory Slot Repair Extension Program. Repair is indicated when a qualifying PowerBook exhibits one of the following symptoms:

*The computer does not start up; instead, there are three short beeps (typically) followed by the the sleep LED flashing periodically.

*When both SO-DIMM memory slots are filled (populated), only one slot’s memory is recognized.

*System performance may be degraded because the memory in only one slot is not recognized.

Important: These symptoms may only occur intermittently.

The affected PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz) computers have eleven-digit serial numbers in this range:

W8503xxxxxx through W8518xxxxxx

Rumors abound that Pixar will be purchased by Disney and Steve Jobs has been predicted to be chairman or CEO. Regardless, Mercury News figures that any such match will digitize the movie world.

iTunes 6.0.2 now contains an option called MiniStore., a real option.

Nielsen//NetRatings today announced that traffic to Apple’s iTunes Web site and use of the iTunes application has soared to 241 percent over the past year, from 6.1 million unique visitors in December 2004 to 20.7 million in December 2005, reaching nearly 14 percent of the active Internet population. “Teens are disproportionately represented among iTunes users; 12 to 17 year olds are nearly twice as likely to visit the iTunes Web site and use the application as the average Internet user. iTunes users are also more likely to be male; the site’s traffic is 54 percent male and 46 percent female.”

You can limit your searches with categories, here is how:

Apple has announced financial results for its fiscal 2006 first quarter ended Dec 31, 2005, reporting the highest revenue and earnings in the company’s history.

The Apple posted revenues of $5.75 billion and a net profit of $565 million, or $0.65 per diluted share, in this 14-week quarter. These results compare to revenue of $3.49 billion and a net profit of $295 million, or $.35 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

“We are thrilled to report the best quarter in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Two highlights of an incredible quarter were selling 14 million iPods and getting ready to launch our new Macs with Intel processors five to six months ahead of expectations. We are working on more wonderful products for 2006, and I can’t wait to see what our customers think of them.”

Apple shipped 1,254,000 Macs and 14,043,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 20-percent growth in Macs and 207-percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 27.2 percent, down from 28.5 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 40 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The cached version of the audio webcast is available.