“It has been a bumper year for the California-based [Apple]. More than three billion songs had been bought through the iTunes music store since 2001, and that 110 million iPods have been sold worldwide,” The Telegraph reports.
“Apple sustained the momentum by increasing the capacity of its iPod range, giving it a facelift, adding a new selection of pastel-coloured iPod shuffles, and introducing video-playback to a thinner, squatter iPod nano. Oh, and it launched a mobile phone,” The Telegraph reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Not-so-minor omission: Apple also released the iPod touch.
The telegraph continues, “In all the brouhaha surrounding the iPhone launch, it would be easy to miss one of Apple’s biggest successes this year – the upsurge in sales of its computers. Apple shipped more than two million Macs between July and September this year alone, a 34 per cent increase on those months last year… If Apple’s rise continues, it may soon be able to think about posing a more serious threat to Microsoft’s dominance.”
“Bill Gates’s company seems to have been caught napping, failing to get to grips with a consumer demand for flair, innovation and beautiful design,” The Telegraph reports. “But more worrying for Microsoft will be the backlash against its latest operating system, Vista, released in January. Its snazzy new graphical interface wasn’t enough to win over many consumers. Vista makes heavy demands of computers, and lots of people found it sluggish and bloated. Such was the lack of interest that Dell began to offer computers preloaded with the older operating system, Windows XP, as an alternative.”
The Telegraph’s Best of 2007: Apple iPhone – While there is definitely room for improvement, its intuitive interface and stunning good looks have set the standard that all future mobile phones will be judged by.
The Telegraph’s Worst of 2007: Windows Vista – While it’s lovely to look at, this operating system can feel sluggish. It has perhaps shaken consumer confidence in the Microsoft brand, and goes some way towards explaining why Apple’s star is in the ascendancy.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Linux Guy And Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Slowly they awaken.
