Apple Mac HQ

Apple will report their much anticipated 2007 fourth quarter earnings report on Monday at 5:00 EDT. Analysts are expecting Apple to beat their guidance of $.65 cents per share on $5.7 billion. Apple is often cited as giving conservative guidance so beating guidance comes as no surprise.

Mac sales are expected to take center stage on the earnings report. The fourth quarter is usually a strong quarter for the Mac due to back to school sales. While the Mac may take center stage, iPod and iPhone sales will also be of interest to investors. During the quarter, Apple announced redesigned iPods (except the shuffle which only got new colors), a new iMac, iLife 08, iWork 08, and the price cut heard around the world.

You can listen to the fourth quarter results conference call a number of ways.

Phone: (719) 325-4745.

Webcast: You can listen to the audio webcast here.

Disclosure: I own an insignificant number of Apple, Inc (AAPL) shares.

Update: You can find a breakdown of the fourth quarter results here.

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Apple has announced that OS X 10.5 Leopard will be available on October 26th, 2007. Pricing for Leopard is consistent with previous OS X upgrades. Leopard is priced at $129USD for a single user license and $199USD buys a family pack, good for 5 licenses in the same household (not for business or commercial use). You can pre-order Leopard now and get free shipping with an October 26th delivery date.

This being my first OS X upgrade, I’ll probably wait a few months before I buy Leopard. I’m very excited about some of the new features though. Of the new features, Quick Look, Finder, Stacks, and Spaces are the most appealing reason for upgrading.

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Amazon recently launched their newest online service, Amazon MP3. Amazon MP3, currently in Beta, is a digital music service that will compete with iTunes, eMusic, Amie Street, and others. I decided to kick the tires today and test out Amazon’s newest product.

Browsing the site is pretty much like using Amazon to purchase any of their other products. You can perform a search or use the navigation bar on the left side of the page. I purchased a song on the Top Songs list so didn’t venture too much into the interface but it seems very easy to use from my limited experience.

Once you find a track you want, click the Buy MP3 button and you’ll be prompted to download the Amazon MP3 Downloader. The downloader is necessary for album purchases but not for song purchases. I went ahead and downloaded it anyways.

I went through the checkout process and a .amz file was downloaded to my laptop. Double clicking the file begins the song download in the Amazon Downloader application. About 5 seconds later, the song was downloaded and it was automatically added to my iTunes library. If you want to manually manage your music, you can turn off the auto add to iTunes feature in the preferences of the downloader application.

Be careful about clicking the Buy MP3 button. Once you are logged into Amazon, clicking the button will automatically purchase the song much like the 1 click buying. I clicked the button by accident and purchased a song i didn’t really want to buy. Good thing the track was only $.89.

iTunes may finally have some competition with Amazon MP3. Most tracks are only $.89 and most albums $8.99. The songs are all DRM free and encoded at 256kbps in mp3 format. Right now the selection is a little limited, but I expect that to improve over time.

Competition is good for consumers, but we’ll have to wait and see if Apple changes the iTunes store in response. If you purchase from iTunes, Amazon MP3 is worth your time to check out. The reviews are out, and so far they are positive.

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