Hey, doctors with iPods. A new support group:

http://news.com.com/Doctors+prescribe+iPods+for+storage/2100-1041_3-5566145.html?tag=nefd.top

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Tiger wrote:
Hey, doctors with iPods. A new support group:

http://news.com.com/Doctors+prescribe+iPods+for+storage/2100-1041_3-5566145.html?tag=nefd.top

Interesting. If Apple ever ends up putting a small version of OSX on the iPod you could expect to see a LOT of stuff like this pop up. THIS would be the reason to do that...not for normal consumers, but for people who want a hand-held computer. Maybe an all new product that's half iPod and half iBook.

Seriously, though, my dad's a photographer who loads his flash cards onto a lap-top while he's working so he can re-use the cards. He also uses an external drive as a SECOND safety copy of his work and he recently told me that he might get an iPod to use in that way. Is it so he can listen to music? Nope. He just says that the other drives he's used seem to wear out and break eventually with all the moving around he does. He figures the iPod is MADE for that sort of use and would work better longer.

Anyway, my point is that I AM seeing people trying to use iPods in ways they weren't meant to be used. Hopefully the iPod will continue to grow in ways that makes it more useful for this type of thing.

The Newton!!! Bring it back Apple!

I thought Microsoft sold off their portion of AAPL a few months after investing in them. I didn't know that MS still had a stake in Apple...?

Is that correct?

But Microsoft has a definite interest in Apple in the fact that if their ONLY competition goes away (face it, Linux still isn't a threat on the consumer desktop), then MS most likely ends up back in court on antitrust violations again.

Very Huge.

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NeverFade wrote:
I thought Microsoft sold off their portion of AAPL a few months after investing in them. I didn't know that MS still had a stake in Apple...?

Is that correct?

No. Microsoft agreed to own the shares for at least three years. I have no idea if MS still owns the stock or not.

Don't know if MS still owns Apple stock, but it is non-voting stock, that much I know.

true, they did agree to hold it for a few years, but i also thougth they sold it when it was peaking 3 years ago.

In August 1997, Microsoft bought 150,000 million of preferred, non-voting stock for $150 million that they agreed to keep for 3 years. Apple's 10-K SEC report from 1999 shows that there is $150 million of Series-A preferred stock issued as of September 97, 98 and 99.

However, during 2000, Microsoft converted 75,250 of these shares into 9 million shares of common AAPL stock, and during 2001 they converted the remaining 75,750 preferred shares into 9.2 million shares of AAPL. There was no outstanding preferred stock on AAPL's 2001 10-K filing. AAPL had a stock split in June 2000, but the fact that MSFT converted half it's preferred stock in both 2000 and 2001 for the same amount of common stock suggests that this was a "post-split" conversion.

So, it looks like MSFT bought 18.2 million shares for $8.25/share when the market price on 6th August 1997, the day before the MSFT announcement, was $12.5 ( taking the 2-1 split into consideration ). However just 2 weeks before the announcement, i.e. at the time the deal would have been being finalized, AAPL was at around $8.25 ( again, taking the 2:1 split into account ), so it's more likely that the deal was that MSFT would buy the stock at the current market price on for example, 1st August 1997. In this case, MSFT didn't get any special deal - just the regular stock price.

Now, MSFT still made a good deal out of this, but no more than any regular investor would have. As of today, AAPL has some 400 million shares outstanding, so if Microsoft neither bought or sold any AAPL stock during that time, they would own around 4.7% of Apple. 18.2 million shares of AAPL at the current rate of $78 comes to $1.4 billion - well over the $1 billion mentioned in the article.

The Fortune article doesn't state that MSFT *still* owns those 18.2 million shares of AAPL, and in fact it doesn't look like they do. Under SEC rulings a company *must* declare any investor that owns more than 5% of that company, and AAPL has reported all institutional holders of more that 2% - MSFT isn't listed.

The Final Cut series & iMovie originated with Macromedia? Well, Apple sure made a great job of those products. I sure hope that the relationship with Adobe doesn't get any worse. I, for one, wouldn't like to see Photoshop discontinued on the Mac platform...

Apple bought over Final Cut from Macromedia before it was released. Polished it and released as Final Cut. iMovie is based on Final Cut codes.

Apple is now developing all types of multimedia applications for all segments (consumer, prosumers and professionals). Only four multimedia applications are not being developed, prosumers' and professonal photo-editing and layout. I expect Apple to develop prosumers' photo-editing and layout applications soon i.e. iPhoto Express and Pages Express.

Apple will not develop professional version of photo-editing and layout applications so long Adobe did not cut corner on the Mac version of Photoshop and InDesign.

Macromedia was originally named Macromind, and they focused on multimedia applications for the Mac. One of their early products was SoundEdit16, a 16 bit 2 channel sound recording application. Another famous product was Director, which was instrumental in the birth of "interactive" CD ROMs. (Funny how we don't even think of them as being "interactive" anymore.)

At one point in the 90s they hired away from Adobe the chief designer of Adobe Premiere, a guy named Randy Ubelos (sp?), to create a new video editing program from scratch. MM told him, "If you had to do it all over again, what would you differently? Go do it!" The project was originally cross-platform.

I don't remember the year, but sometime later in the 90s, Macromedia decided to focus on Web design applications, and dropped pretty much all other product lines, including the video editing project. Apple purchased this from MM around 1998 (I think), dropped the Windows branch, and named it Final Cut Pro.

I've never heard anything about iMovie being based on the FCP code base, and the UI couldn't be more different, but I suppose anything is possible,

One more thing. Apple goes into multimedia applications not because they had that in mind initially but are forced to do so because no big developers including Adobe is willing to develop any consumer level applications for Mac OS X.

As I recall, M$ also simultaneously shorted AAPL when they took the $150 milliion position, so it was a wash anyway. Great publicity, though.

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Dirk Sabbe wrote:
I, for one, wouldn't like to see Photoshop discontinued on the Mac platform...

I don't have any numbers, but I am willing to bet that Adobe makes a fair amount of money on the Mac version of Photoshop as I've never seen a professional Mac that didn't have Photoshop on it. I doubt you have to worry about this.

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Mace wrote:

I expect Apple to develop prosumers' photo-editing and layout applications soon i.e. iPhoto Express and Pages Express.

So you're talking about the fact that Photoshop Elements is only for windows, right? You're talking about filling that hole on the Mac side?

That's possible, I guess, but I kind of see 'iPhoto/Photoshop' as being about as far apart as 'iDVD/DVD Studio Pro' and there doesn't seem to be any drive at Apple to create a "middle" product there. So I'm not so certain it would happen on the photo side either.

On the other hand, with DVDs Apple would be taking their own sales, whereas a photo program would only steal from Photoshop, so maybe they WOULD go for it.

On the 3rd hand, Apple probably WANTS Photoshop to stick around on the Mac. I bet a LOT of people would switch to PC if they couldn't get Photoshop anymore. So perhaps Apple doesn't want to threaten Adobe's position and you WON'T see a product like this.

There are points for either side, but I think that last one is the most important. iPhoto 5 added some great editing tools...I think that's as much as Apple will do in this area.

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Dirk Sabbe wrote:
The Final Cut series & iMovie originated with Macromedia? Well, Apple sure made a great job of those products. I sure hope that the relationship with Adobe doesn't get any worse. I, for one, wouldn't like to see Photoshop discontinued on the Mac platform...

Not only did they do a great job with those products... Apple only paid Macromedia $7 Million for Final Cut. What an investment!

> I've never seen a professional Mac that didn't have Photoshop on it

Go visit a recording studio, and you'll see lots of Macs without any Adobe software on them!

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Small White Car wrote:
... Apple probably WANTS Photoshop to stick around on the Mac. I bet a LOT of people would switch to PC if they couldn't get Photoshop anymore. So perhaps Apple doesn't want to threaten Adobe's position and you WON'T see a product like this ... There are points for either side, but I think that last one is the most important ...

Prior to SJ's return to Apple, Adobe had made the corporate decision of migrating all its customers to WinTel platform. Never mind that Adobe openly denied that, is in their minds. The only reason why Adobe has not abandoned Mac platform is because about 25% of its revenue come from Mac platform.

During the WWDC last year, SJ demoed many features of Tiger and remarked that he hoped Adobe would exploit Tiger's features in their Photoshop product. Hence, I believe Apple is monitoring whether Adobe does that or not. Since a LOT of people would switch to PC if they couldn't get Photoshop anymore, Apple needs to prepare for such a possibility.

Developing iPhoto Express aiming for the low-end Photoshop users is a good defensive move. It sends a signal to Adobe that if they still don't value the Mac platform, Apple would move in. It shortens the charge to develop a professional image-editing application if Adobe continues to neglect the Mac platform.

One more thing. Pages is a totally different animal. It would evolve towards being an interactive document editor. By interactive documents, I mean something like those magic books in Harry Potter novel. I also expect Pages to integrate with .Mac.

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Mace wrote:
Developing iPhoto Express aiming for the low-end Photoshop users is a good defensive move. It sends a signal to Adobe that if they still don't value the Mac platform, Apple would move in.

iPhoto Express would imply something with less power than iPhoto, yes? What would that be worth to anyone? iPhoto is already very basic. (in a very good way) so making it any more simple would be stupid.

iPhoto, iPhoto Express, iPhoto Pro.
iMovie, Final Cut Express, Final Cut Pro.
I'm not saying that Apple will call it iPhoto Express. Just give it a label for easy discussion. Maybe call it Photograph and Photograph Pro . I am aware i connotes consumer level apps.

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Mace wrote:
iPhoto, iPhoto Express, iPhoto Pro.
iMovie, Final Cut Express, Final Cut Pro.
I'm not saying that Apple will call it iPhoto Express. Just give it a label for easy discussion. Maybe call it Photograph and Photograph Pro . I am aware i connotes consumer level apps.

Well I think you're missing my point: What's the point in making an "express" version of iPhoto? How could you make it any more bare-bones?

Uh, there's already a stripped-down Photoshop: Photoshop Elements. Not only is there a Mac version, it's at version 3 and it's gotten some pretty good reviews. As I recall, one reviewer said it's 80% of Photoshop at 20% of the price. Why should Apple do an iPhoto Express as something between iPhoto and Photoshop? It seems silly to further aggravate Adobe for no good reason. And as spxyu02 said, a stripped-down iPhoto would be pointless.

I'm not saying to develop a stripped-down iPhoto or a bare-bones iPhoto - is definitely pointless. More like a Photoshop Elements calibre. As I said Apple will do it for the conditions I mentioned in my previous post.

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Mace wrote:
I'm not saying to develop a stripped-down iPhoto or a bare-bones iPhoto - is definitely pointless. More like a Photoshop Elements calibre.

Then yea, I agree. I think that to put iPhoto on par with Photoshop Elements, you'd have to make it "iPhoto Pro" and go up in features, obviously not down with features, as the name "express" would suggest. But yea, anything along those lines would be cool. And of course, if they could price it competitively, lots of people would be willing to upgrade iPhoto.