Netflix Player in Beta for Mac
This is a big deal…Netflix is moving from a DVD-based service to a streaming based service, and the lack of Mac support up until now has been a stumbling block. Now, though, there’s a beta of the Netflix player for Mac!
This could be big — if Netflix can figure out how to charge (and make money at) offering a fixed-rate streaming service that would give you access to high-quality movies and TV shows, it could be a strong competitor in this space. I’m already a huge fan of iTunes downloads, but just think if you could take it a step forward and download from a massive catalog at a monthly rate…if they can pull it off, I might just have to get the Rokr box instead of the Apple TV I’ve had my eye on.
To make it work, you need to visit http://www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin and opt in to the beta program. (This also means you’ll have to use Microsoft Silverlight for watching in Windows, apparently, so if you do often watch in Windows from your Netflix account, you might want to wait a while.)
Apple Posts Huge Numbers
On Wednesday, Apple reported one of its best quarters in its history, including the incredibly revelation that they’d sold more iPhone 3Gs in one quarter than they’d sold iPhones since their introduction.
Apple posted revenue of $7.9 billion and a profit of $1.14 billion, compared to $6.22 billion and net quarterly profit of $904 million in the year ago quarter.
Sales of Mac units reached a record high, up 21 percent over a year ago (2.611 million units; which also compares favorably to the 2.45 million in previous quarter) and iPod sales were up 8 percent (that’s 11 million iPods, about the same last quarter).
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Apple Quality - Outsourcing = AppleCare
So, one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging much in recent weeks has been my lack of a laptop. All through the spring I was using an HP Pavillion that is now a paperweight on my desk in the office…it just failed to turn on one day. I suspect it’s the video card, as that seems to be a common problem with that model (zt3000), either unseated or in need of a replacement. I’ve downloaded the take-apart guide but haven’t yet had the wherewithall to get in there and check.
In the meantime, I took that failure as a sign and an omen — I needed to get a Mac laptop again. Indeed, there are more reasons than my simple desire for a portable, including the need to give presentations in Keynote instead of Powerpoint, work from home with the same tools I use at work, and the fact that a new laptop for me would free up an InDesign-capable Mac for someone else in our weekly newspaper office.
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ModBook: Interesting, But Niche Only
I hadn’t thought about the ModBook for a while, until I saw the recent news that the professionally altered MacBook is now on a late June timeframe for release and they’ll be using the latest update of MacBooks as a basis for the ModBook. The ModBook is exactly what it sounds like — the company, Axiotron, takes MacBooks apart, “mods” them with a touch-sensitive screen married to the bottom casting of the MacBook, and then Other World Computing sells the tablets at, presumably, a profit.
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It Depends on the Meaning of the Word “Seen”
When I first saw the AppleInsider headline Apple seen unloading new MacBook Pros and possibly iMacs at WWDC, I thought, you know…that Apple had been “seen” “unloading” “new MacBook Pros.” It didn’t register for a second that WWDC (the Apple World Wide Developers Conference) was still weeks away and, hence, it would be difficult to “unload” things at it quite yet.
I just read that and the words bypassed my reasoning center and went straight to a the “pundit cortex” of my brain, releasing a jolt of serotonin.
Stupid, happy me.
Anyway, looks like an interesting piece — it’s worth noting how much later than the average product lifespan Apple has gone with both the MacBook Pro and the iMac; according to the story, the iMac gets an update, on average, every 168 days and it’s already been 257. It does seem like iPhone focus is setting back Macs a bit.
Most interesting about the story — speculation that we’ll see how Mac OS X Leopard will incorporate Windows compatibility/dual-boot functionality. Will Leopard run Windows apps in a window? And, if so…is the Mac doomed? (Answer: No. Probably to both questions.)
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