Leopard officially delayed!

Apple announced today that Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is delayed until October. The delays are reportedly because of the iPhone. The development of the iPhone apparently occupied Apple software engineer. Apple feels the current version of Leopard has too many issues. They say that even though the features will all be present in Leopard by the WWDC in June, they wouldn't deliver the quality release they usually offers.

MGM and United Artists Movies now on iTunes!

MGM and United Artists Movies appeared on the United States iTunes Store today. The studios now selling movies on iTunes are Lionsgate, Paramount, Disney, United Artists and MGM. Let's hope Apple is planning on offering this great content outside the US soon.

New ad for Apple TV!

Apple started a new ad campaign yesterday. It is about the Apple TV:

Predictions for NAB!

Apple has already announced that they will hold a special event at NAB on April 15th. Many speculations were surrounding an 8 core Mac Pro. The 8 core option was however released this week. We were all kind of taken by surprise but it gives us a lot of information on what to expect at the event. We must keep in mind that NAB is entirely oriented towards professionals, which makes iMac/Mac Mini updates and a Leopard preview very unlikely. The fact that Apple released the 8 core this week also tells us that they wanted to get this out of the way and they didn't want to lose time at the event on this. It is most likely because they have something big coming. The most likely options are now a new version of Final Cut Studio and perhaps a new version of Logic. There is only one thing that is certain however and it's that we'll be impressed by whatever is coming because the circumstances show that it won't be just a regular update.

Octo Core Mac Pro Released!

Apple updated the store this morning with a new option for the Mac Pro: 8 core. This update has been long anticipated. The 8 core option is only an added Built-to-Order and is not in the base configuration. The option is for a 3.0 GHz 8 Core Clovertown and costs an additional $1498 over the base 2.66GHz Quad. There has been no price drop for the 2.0, 2.66 or 3.0 GHz Quad Core Woodcrest. The option is currently only available on the US and Canadian Apple Store. The other store will most likely be updated, but not necessarily today, depending on stock of the Quad-Core Clovertown in different production places.

DRM-free music!

Steve Jobs announced in the press conference this morning that the entire EMI catalog is going to be available DRM free and at a better quality. The encoding is going to be 256 kbps. The options when buying EMI music, starting in May:

$0.99 DRM 128 kbps music
$1.29 no DRM 256 kbps music
$9.99 no DRM 256 kbps album

There will also be a $0.30 option to upgrade the previously purchased track to a no DRM 256 kbps version.

Steve Jobs' press conference tomorrow!

Macworld.co.uk reports that Steve Jobs will be present at a press conference tomorrow, Monday April 2nd. It is a joint Apple and EMI press conference. Macworld confirmed that it is not concerning the addition of the Beatles to the iTunes store catalog. Rumors point to an introduction of DRM-free music on the store.