Apple Reporter

From the Apple News Page, breaking news on the release of Apple’s next generation operating system, Leopard, and the release of the iPhone:

Apple Statement

iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones. [Apr 12, 2007]

One state’s government sees iPods for the potential learning tool that they are. Michigan is considering a $38 Million budget allocation for the purchase of iPods for every child in school in Michigan. This would mean a tax increase for Michigan citizens, causing it to face the major hurdle of convincing parents to pay to buy an iPod for their own kid as well as someone else’s - a tough mental leap for most people.

Why buy iPods for every kid in school in Michigan? Michigan is acknowledging what many already know - the iPod’s potential as a learning tool. It’s video capability, audio capability, recording capability (with additional software) and it’s interactive quality make it ideal for downloading lessons, tutorials, homework and more onto its compact and portable hard drive. Students could have every book for English on their iPod instead of carting them to class each day. While some subjects aren’t feasible for download on iPods due to the small screen, you can still use the iPod to hold tutorials for them, or to transfer them onto a student’s home computer. The possibilities are endless.

Read Apple’s take on using the iPod in education here.

Read the full story here.

Apple started a test program in recent months that made their systems available at Best Buy brick and mortar stores. It worked so well in the handful of Best Buys that carried their products that they have reached an agreement to expand. Now you can get your daily recommended dose of fruit at 200 more Best Buy stores.

The program has been tried a few other times with limited success, notably in 1998 and in 2004. Recent successes have been credited to an increase in store employees trained in Apple product usage and sales (it isn’t just their operating system and look that is different than the Microsoft world). The first stores to add Apple to their product lineup are the stores that have experienced a slow down in sales of Windows products.

In addition to adding Apple computers to the line up at hundreds of select Best Buy stores, other products will make an appearance as well. iPods and Apple TVs will be sold in every Best Buy store when the program starts. The iPhone is rumored to be making an appearance as well, if Best Buy offers Cingular/AT&T sign up along with it, as it is still under contract as a Cingular exclusive.

I think apple making their products more available to more consumers is a smart move. They have been in limited Circuit City stores and nearly all CompUSA stores for some time now, and show significant improvement in sales from it.

From a cartoon I enjoy, Ctrl-Alt-Delete: