Apple (AAPL) put the first stakes in the ground on its alliance with Intel (INTC), fulfilling a June, 2005, promise to shift its Macintosh family of computer products away from chips made by IBM (IBM) and Freescale Semiconductor (FSL). Apple CEO Steve Jobs used the annual Macworld conference in San Francisco to unveil two new Intel-based Macs, one in Apple's popular iMac consumer-focused line and the other in a new line of notebooks.
But even the first fruits of what promises to be a momentous partnership were forced to share the limelight with a disclosure that Apple had sold 14 million of its highly successful iPod digital music players in the December quarter, compared with 4.6 million a year earlier. That outpaced analysts' expectations for sales in the neighborhood of 10 million units.
The bumper crop of iPod sales is expected to propel Apple revenues to about $5.7 billion for its fiscal first quarter. The company will formally report results later this month. Apple stock surged on the news, once again scaling new heights. The shares jumped $4.70, or 6.2%, to close at a record $80.75.
BUILT FOR SPEED. Both new computers will sport Intel's Core Duo processor, a chip that has two cores, or central brains. Apple says in the new MacBook Pro notebook line, the Intel chip will push the performance to four times that of the previous high-end Apple notebooks, the PowerBook G4.
The PowerBook brand, which debuted in late 1991, is apparently being retired. Apple's other notebook brand is the iBook, which didn't figure in today's announcements.
The other Intel-based machine from Apple, and the first to be announced in Jobs's San Francisco speech today, was the iMac. Both the MacBook Pro and the iMac will have Apple's FrontRow software, which lets consumers control video and music from a handheld remote control, and both will also have integrated iSight video cameras, used for videoconferencing.
CASTING CALL. Not yet included in the shift to Intel chips were Apple's other consumer machines, the tabletop Mac Mini, its PowerMac G5 flagship professional desktop machine, and the XServe line of enterprise servers.
Other announcements included updates to Apple's iLife consumer media-management software suite. Among the changes are the addition or a new Web-publishing dubbed iWeb, as well as improvements to iPhoto and GarageBand. Catching the popularity wave of podcasting, or publishing regularly updated audio content to the Web, Apple added a podcasting feature to its GarageBand music software.
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