The "Getting Ready For Leopard" presentation that was given at the last MacPeople meeting has been posted in the downloads section of on our website in PDF form and is available for download. You should also consider watching the Leopard "Guided Tour" video that has been posted to Apple's website as well as checking out the specifications page to ensure your computer can run Leopard.

Leopard is officially released on Friday, October 26th at 6pm. You can order a copy now on Apple.com or save $20 by ordering from Amazon.com or other retailers. The Apple Retail Stores will be having special Leopard "Launch Parties" from 6-10pm and giving away free T-shirts to the first 500 guests along with possibly other prizes.

iTunes and iTunes Wi-Fi

Apple today unveiled the iTunes® Wi-Fi Music Store, offering the ability to browse, search, preview, purchase and download songs and albums from the iTunes Music Store over a Wi-Fi network directly onto their iPod touch or iPhone. Once they connect their iPod touch or iPhone back to their PC or Mac, downloaded music will automatically sync back into their iTunes library. If users have only partially downloaded a song or album onto their iPod touch or iPhone, their computer will complete the download automatically. Prices and selection on the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store are the same as on the regular iTunes Store.

In addition, iTunes customers will now be able to create custom ringtones by selecting up to a 30-second segment from over a million participating songs on iTunes and sync them onto their iPhone. Once a customer has purchased a participating song from iTunes, including previously purchased participating songs, it will cost 99 cents to make up to a 30-second segment of that song into a ringtone and sync it onto their iPhone. Customers can personalize their ringtones by choosing which portion of the song they want to use, and setting custom fade in and fade out points. iTunes 7.4 is now available and includes a larger viewing area for movies and TV, filling the entire iTunes window.

Apple and Starbucks announced an exclusive partnership that lets customers wirelessly browse, search for, preview, buy and download music from the iTune® Wi-Fi Music Store at Starbucks onto their iPod touch, iPhone or PC or Mac running iTunes. When a customer enters a location the device will recognize the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store with no connection fee or hotspot login. Customers will be able to browse, search and preview of songs, including a new “Now Playing” service which displays the name of the song playing in the Starbucks at that moment, and buy and download songs to their device. Prices and selection are the same as on the regular iTunes Store. The service will make its debut at more than 600 Starbucks locations in New York and Seattle on October 2 the store will then continue its rollout to 350 Starbucks stores in the San Francisco Bay area on November 7; 500 stores in Los Angeles in early February 2008; 300 stores in Chicago in March 2008; and additional markets throughout the US later in 2008. The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store at Starbucks will run on the robust T-Mobile HotSpot Wi-Fi network which is available at participating Starbucks locations across the US.

iPod Lineup Revamped

Apple also revamped their entire iPod lineup. The iPod nano now brings video playback, an enhanced user interface with Cover Flow, and a new design. The new iPod nano features a larger two-inch display with 204 pixels per inch which supports video and games. iPod nano delivers up to 24 hours of audio playback or five hours of video playback, is encased in a new design made with anodized aluminum and polished stainless steel and comes in five new colors—silver, black, blue, green and a (PRODUCT) RED special edition. Available today, the 4GB iPod nano comes in silver for $149 (US) and the 8GB model is available in silver, black, blue, green and a (PRODUCT) RED special edition for $199.

Apple also introduced the new iPod classic, featuring 80GB or 160GB of storage, an enhanced user interface featuring Cover Flow, and a new all-metal enclosure. iPod classic is priced at $249 for the 80GB model and $349 for the 160GB model. The iPod classic features up to 40 hours of music playback and seven hours of video playback in the 160GB model, and up to 30 hours of music playback and five hours of video playback in the 80GB model on a single charge.

Rounding out the iPod lineup is the new iPod touch (aka iPhone without the phone) featuring multi-touch user interface, Wi-Fi, Safari, YouTube, and the new iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store lets users wirelessly browse, preview and buy songs and albums. The iPod touch features roughly the same dimensions as the iPhone and is priced starting at $299. iPod touch features up to 22 hours of audio playback and up to five hours of video playback.

iPhone Price Drop and New Features

Apple is on track to sell its one millionth iPhone before the end of September, and is lowering the price of the to $399 for the 8GB model. The 4GB model is being discontinued but will be offered for $299 at stores while supplies last. A software update is coming to the iPhone later this month to add the new iTunes Wi-Fi capabilities.

Leopard

Apple unveiled a near final version of Mac OS X Leopard, which is scheduled to ship in October for $129. According to Apple, Leopard will introduce over 300 new features. Leopard includes a new Dock featuring Stacks, which can help manage a user’s desktop clutter by allowing users to instantly fan out the contents of a stack to see each item. Leopard’s Finder has been redesigned, adding with a similar look to iTunes, including the integration of Cover Flow to quickly browse and locate files and applications. Subscribers to .Mac can use the “Back to my Mac" feature to browse and access files on their remote Macs over the Internet. Also new in Leopard is Quick Look, way for users to instantly preview almost any file, and play media files, without opening an application.

Leopard also includes three new technologies that take full advantage of the latest developments in processor hardware: full native 64-bit support to enable applications to take complete advantage of 64-bit processing while still running side by side with existing 32-bit Mac OS X applications and drivers; easy multi-core optimization and scheduling to take advantage of the latest Intel hardware; and Core Animation, helping developers easily create animated user experiences.

Safari 3.0 Beta for Mac and Windows

Apple has released a public beta of the new Safari 3.0, and in a surprise announcement, is also expanding Safari over to the PC. Apple claims Safari is the fastest browser running on Windows rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2.
The free public beta of Safari 3 is available immediately as a download at www.apple.com/safari, and is preview software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time. The final version of Safari 3 will be available as a feature in the upcoming Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard, and will be available as a free download to Mac OS X Tiger and Windows users in October.

iPhone to Support 3rd Party Applications using Web 2.0 Standard

While probably not the SDK kit that developers were looking for, Apple announced that its iPhone will run applications created with Web 2.0 Internet standards when it begins shipping on June 29. Developers can create Web 2.0 applications which look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone, and which can seamlessly access iPhone’s services, including making a phone call, sending an email and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications created using Web 2.0 standards can extend iPhone’s capabilities without compromising its reliability or security.

Apple today updated its MacBook Pro line of notebooks with the new Intel Santa Rosa chipset. The new MacBook Pros features speeds of 2.2 and 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duos, 4MB of shared L2 cache, an 800 MHz frontside bus, 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (upgradable to 4GB) and the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT. The new 15-inch models feature a mercury-free, power-efficient LED-backlit display while the 17-inch model has an optional 1920-by-1200 high-resolution display. Apple claims these machines are more than 50 percent faster than the original MacBook Pro Core Duo.

The MacBook Pros are available today in three standard configurations:
15" 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo. 2GB RAM, 120GB HD, LED display GeForce 8600M GT 128MB - $1999
15" 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo. 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, LED display GeForce 8600M GT 256MB - $2499
17" 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo. 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, GeForce 8600M GT 256MB - $2799

Apple and AT&T tonight have released three new iPhone ads that state June 29th will be the release date for the iPhone. The ads are available on the Apple website. The three ads demonstrate the different iPod, Phone, and Google Maps functionality of the device. There doesn't appear to be any additional information released regarding the iPhone's features or price other than those previously advertised. The ad does state that the iPhone does require a minimum 2-year activation. As of this posting the AT&T webpage has yet to be updated.

It's been a busy day for Apple. While speaking at the Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" conference today Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that Apple will be bringing the Internet’s most popular originally-created content from YouTube to the living room with Apple TV. Beginning in mid-June, Apple TV will wirelessly stream videos directly from YouTube and play them on a user’s widescreen TV. Thousands of the most current and popular YouTube videos will be available on Apple TV at launch in mid-June, with YouTube adding thousands more each week until the full YouTube catalog is available this fall.

Apple today also announced that it is offering a new Apple TV build-to-order option with a 160GB hard drive. The new larger hard drive offers four times the storage for up to 200 hours of video, 36,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination of each. Apple TV is available through the Apple Store and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $299 (US). Apple TV with a 160GB hard drive will be available tomorrow for a suggested retail price of $399 (US). The YouTube feature for Apple TV will be available as a free software update in mid-June.

Apple today launched iTunes Plus—DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AACs for $1.29 per song. iTunes Plus is launching with EMI’s digital catalog of recordings. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside the higher quality iTunes Plus versions when available. In addition, iTunes customers can now upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums. Apple has released iTunes 7.2 which adds compatibility with iTunes Plus.

Apple also announced the launch of iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT.

Apple today updated its MacBook consumer notebooks with faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors now 2.0 and 2.16 GHz, with a standard 1GB of memory and larger hard drives in every model.  The MacBooks feature the same 12.3" form factor along with the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, 802.11n networking built-in iSight and the MagSafe power adapter.

The MacBooks are shipping today and available in three standard configurations:
White 2.0 GHz, 1GB SDRAM, 80GB Hard Drive and Combo-drive- $1,099
White 2.16 GHz, 1GB SDRAM, 120GB Hard Drive and 8x Double Layer Superdrive- $1,299
Black 2.16 GHz, 1GB SDRAM, 160GB Hard Drive and 8x Double Layer Superdrive- $1,299

Apple today announced that the iPod Shuffle is now available in five brilliant colors: blue, pink, green, orange and the original silver. The iPod shuffle contains one gigabyte of flash memory, holds up to 240 songs and is available in all five colors immediately worldwide through the Apple Store for $79. The iPod shuffle includes an iPod shuffle dock and earbuds.


Apple additionally announced the availability of the 802.11n software update for compatible Macs. The update is available now as a download from the Apple Store for $1.99. The update will be included with any purchase of the new 802.11n Airport Extreme Base Station.