“It’s easy to ride, it’s exciting, and it’s dynamic.” That’s Frank Aguilar, waxing enthusiastic about Snowcycle, the snow-shredding board bike his company designed on a Mac. In fact, the Mac performs a pivotal role at the company. Slopecycle depends on virtually every phase of its business, including accounting, marketing, scheduling graphic design, and both audio and video production using Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro. “Most of us have never had any formal video training, but Final Cut Pro is so straightforward and powerful that we didn’t really need it,” says Aguilar.

With “Valentine’s Day around the corner” Marc Saltzman (usatoday.com) tells us that “it pulled on my heart strings enough to report that Apple has added a pink iPod nano to its line-up, just in time for you to buy it for your sweetie.” The new 8GB iPod nano “costs $199 and includes free engraving on the back and free shipping when purchased at Apple.com’s web store.”

“This week,” reports Katerine Boehret (allthingsd.com), “I’ve been using an iPhone and iPod touch with” the recent Apple updates installed, “and I must say that both devices are much more useful and fun with these improvements.” In particular, Boehret likes Web clip because they “give these gadgets a new sense of instant gratification.” And the iPod touch “now has the same stellar Mail program that is found in the iPhone, a real plus.” The updates, she concludes, “are exciting, especially because they make home screens much more useful and individualistic. These tiny devices continue to become truly mobile computers.”

Announcing financial results for its fiscal 2008 first quarter, which ended December 29, 2007, Apple today posted revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $1 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. In attaining its highest revenue and earnings in company history, Apple shipped 2,319,000 Macs, a 44% unit growth and 47% revenue growth over the year ago quarter; sold 22,121,000 iPods, representing five percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter; and sold 2,315,000 iPhones in the quarter.

AT T Introduces Business Plans for iPhone (news/iphone-hardware/at&t-introduces-business-plans-for-iphone-20080122432)
January 22, 2008
AT T Wireless has added new wireless rate plans for the iPhone aimed at business customers.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a gorgeous new pink iPod nano joins the lineup of the world’s most popular music player. The much-requested pink iPod nano features a stunning two-inch display for watching music videos, TV shows, or movies rented using the brand new iTunes Movie Rentals. Available immediately in an 8GB model for $199, the pink iPod nano can play up to 24 hours of audio or 5 hours of video on a single charge. In addition to pink, 8GB iPod nano models also come in silver, black, blue, green and a (PRODUCT) RED special edition.

DJ cum live music producer, Paul van Dyk weaves his own music on stage in real-time on a pair of 17-inch MacBook Pro computers running Logic Studio and Ableton Live. “Ever since I basically began making music, I’ve worked with Macs,” he says. “They’re in the studio as well as on the road. I’ve always had my Macs with me. They’re an essential part of my music.”

Apple today introduced the world’s thinnest notebook: MacBook Air. It measures an unprecedented 0.16 inches at its thinnest point while its maximum height of 0.76 inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks. In addition to a stunning 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, MacBook Air offers a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing, and a spacious trackpad with multi-touch gesture support, letting users pinch, rotate and swipe. The new notebook is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache, and it includes as standard features 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, and the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and Bluetooth 2.1. Starting at just $1,799, MacBook Air begins shipping in two weeks.