Following up on our earlier coverage of Google’s Chrome browser for OS X Lion, it looks like development is moving along faster than expected. Specifically, swiping gesture support has already been fully implemented (in the right direction now too), and now a proper full screen mode has hit the Canary build of the browser as well.

Shortly after Lion’s launch a few weeks ago, we noted the Chrome was working, but it was a bit wonky. Because Lion changed some gestures by default, page swiping was broken. And Chrome’s own full screen mode wasn’t truly compatible with the functionality that’s built into Lion. No less than Chrome SVP Sundar Pichai said that Google was working on the issues, but noted that “it will take some time”.

In the weeks since, the dev and beta builds of Chrome has been pretty unreliable, constantly crashing. This has pushed a number of Chrome for Mac users over to Safari, Apple’s own browser. But if this latest Canary build of Chrome is any indication, Google is pushing hard to get Chrome back up to speed on the Mac.

As first noticed by MacStories, full screen support is now fully baked into Chrome Canary. And it’s brilliant. There had been some debate as to whether the functionality should work like it previously did — with absolutely no browser chrome (lowercase) showing — or if it should work like Safari, and show tabs when in full screen? Well, Google implemented it both ways. By default, when you enter full screen, you’ll see the tabs, but a new “curtain” button removes the tabs to get you a true full screen experience. (The tabs will still pop down when you hover over the top of the screen.)

Gesture-based page-swiping was fixed a couple weeks ago, but Google implemented it backwards, when compared to Safari. As you can see in the Chromium boards, our story flagged the issue for the team, and they quickly fixed it.

The latest version of Chrome in the Canary channel is 15. Chrome’s dev builds are still at 14, so the 15 changes should hit soon. Then it will be a few weeks before it rolls out over all of the Chrome channels. But rest assured, a fully Lion-compliant Chrome is on the way.

Following Google’s stellar earnings last week, Apple has today announced their own earnings for their Q3 period. As expected, they’re good. Massively good.

Apple set several new records in terms of both revenues and sales. Most notably, Apple’s revenue was a staggering $28.57 billion — over $5 billion ahead of their (always low) guidance, and almost $4 billion ahead of the $24.92 billion that Wall Street had been expecting. What’s perhaps craziest about those numbers is that they’re a new record for the company, and it comes in a non-holiday quarter (typically the best for consumer electronics companies). Apple’s last holiday quarter earnings, Q1 2011, saw revenues of $26.7 billion.

As for some other key numbers, Apple saw net quarterly profit come in at $7.31 billion — also a new record, by a long shot (last holiday quarter was $6 billion). Earnings per share were $7.79, far, far ahead of the $5.03 EPS guidance, and way ahead of the $5.80 Wall Street had been looking for.

Apple sold 20.24 million iPhones in the quarter, a new record. The Street had been hoping to see sales around 16.5 million. The iPad numbers were just as bright, with 9.25 million units being sold. Wall Street had been looking for 7.8 million there. The iPad sales were also basically double what they were last quarter.

One slight dim spot were Mac sales, which came in at 3.95 million, blow the roughly 4.2 million Wall Street was hoping for. And, as expected, iPod sales continue to fall. Apple sold 7.54 million for the quarter, which was down 20 percent year-over-year.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave the following statement in the release:

“We’re thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent. Right now, we’re very focused and excited about bringing iOS 5 and iCloud to our users this fall.”

Wall Street is obviously reacting very favorably to these results. Apple’s stock just surged past $400 a share in after-hours trading. My Exxon prediction is looking better each day.

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer’s guidance for next quarter is $25 billion in revenue and EPS of $5.50. In other words, Apple fully expects to blow through those as well.

Update: The Key Subtle Notes From Apple’s Earnings Call

Below, some live-notes from the earnings call:

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple CFO

• Highest quarterly revenue and profit ever.
• Record iPhone and iPad sales
• June quarter record for Mac sales
• Mac sales strong in the Asia Pacific region in particular
• Excited to launch OS X Lion tomorrow.
• iPod touch continues to account for over half of iPods sold
• over 70% of market still
• iTunes revenue up 36% year over year.
• 225 million iTunes accounts
• 15 billion songs downloaded
• iPhone 20.3 million sales
• iPad 9.2 million sales
• “we sold every iPad we could make”
• iPad 2 launched in 36 countries. Now in 64 countries.
• 86% of Fortune 500 testing or deploying iPad
• 222 million cumulative iOS device sales through June quarter
• iOS 5 – 200 new features — looking forward to launching it this fall
• iCloud also previewed in June — also released in the fall
• 425,000 apps and 15 billion downloads to date
• Over $2.5 billion in cumulative payments to devs — far ahead of competitors.
• Revenue grew to $3.5 billion in Apple Stores
• Opened 4 new stores in the quarter, 327 total Apple Stores now
• 73.7 million visitors last quarter.
• Gross margin 41.7%. On strong iPhone sales, lower commodity costs, and leverage on higher revenue.
• $232 million in stock-based compensation.
• Cash now $76.2 billion — wow. Gained $10.4 billion
• Continue to charge for major OS and iLife sales. But sales will be deferred and recognized over a period of 3 years
• Mac users get iCloud in the fall, this will be valued at roughly $22. We’re now deferring that for each new Mac sold (again over 3 years)
• Same with iOS devices, now $16 in revenue for iPhone and iPad, $11 for iPod touch.
• $25 billion next quarter (guidance)

Q&A Time with Oppenheimer and COO Tim Cook

• Q: 12 percent revenue downtick next quarter is much more conservative than you usually state. Why will it be better?
• PO: Education buying is part of it, best lineup of Macs ever. iPhone sales should raise, and iPad too. iPod will decline though. But a lot going on this fall, iOS 5 and iCloud. And a future product transition that we’re not going to talk about today.
• Q: Thoughts on iPad 2 cannibalization?
• TC: We do think some people chose to buy iPad instead of a Mac. But even more went iPad over Windows PC. There’s a lot more of Windows business to cannibalize than the Mac. And the Mac has other good attributes to make it appealing. We grew year over year and well ahead of others’ pace. We were selling every iPad we could make. Into July, we now have increased supply further. Some SKUs in some countries are in balance for supply/demand. Sales of iPad 2 have absolutely been a frenzy, for people to get one. We feel good about our progress ramping up.
• Q: Talk a bit about China?
• TC: Good question. China was very key to our results. We define greater China as mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Year over year is was up 6x, revenue $3.8 billion during the quarter.
• Q: Gross margins?
• PO: We think we’ll lose some component leverage, lose a bit on back to school transition, and a product transition.
• TC: Most components are good, but solid state hard drives are constrained.
• Q: More color in one-time benefit in gross margins?
• PO: We saw benefits in settlements, not huge, but it offsets other loses.
• Q: What about the patents disputes?
• TC: We have a very simple view here, we love competition, we think it’s great. But we want people to invent their own stuff. We’re going to make sure we defend our portfolio.
• Q: What drove iPhone strength? New carriers? New countries?
• TC: Great question. We did add 42 new carriers in 15 new countries in the quarter. Over 100 countries now. Real improvement was due to developing markets, China, Latin America, Middle East, all a big part of it. That’s great for Apple, because normally we’re not as strong there. But now we’re seeing the fruits of our labor.
• Q: Any milestones you hope to hit?
• TC: Nothing to share. But it’s of great focus to us.
• Q: iOS activations were up 20% but that’s behind Android?
• TC: The Android numbers are tricky. Remember, we have the iPod touch for iOS devices too. We have over 222 million overall. We think it’s incredible. Our numbers are straightforward. iPhone is up over 2x versus rest of smartphone market. We sold every iPad 2 in the quarter we could make. There’s no shortage of demand. Gaining traction in enterprise too. Largest app store, over 100,000 iPad app. The other ones have only hundred. The other tablets aren’t getting any traction to speak of. And remember, $2.5 billion paid to developers. We’re very confident. Great numbers, great reception, and our roadmap is great. iPhone is the clear leader in customer satisfaction.
• Q: Any update on Apple TV?
• TC: Apple TV continues to do well. I don’t want to mislead, we still call it a hobby here. We don’t want anyone to conclude that it’s another leg of the stool — it’s just not in the size market that iPhone, iPad, Mac, and iPod. We love it, customers love it. We really got it right with new Apple TV last fall. But right now it’s still a hobby status. We’re continuing to invest in it because we think there’s something there.
• Q: The trajectory of iPhone growth has been astounding. Trying to understand thinking to sustain that growth. Does pricing have to change — form factors? Especially with Android out there?
• TC: On tariffs, Apple doesn’t set it, the carriers do, better question for them. At a macro level, if you talked to carriers, virtually all of them want a smartphone that will use data on their network. I firmly believe there is no better device than the iPhone for people to move from any phone to a smartphone. I think there’s a good alignment there. I mentioned the key driver was emerging markets, so you can see we’re putting more and more energy there. I think we have a good focus here, we can compete with anyone.
• Q: What about pre-paid?
• TC: Those markets in emerging world, there are some percentage of post-paid, but in aggregate they’re pre-paid. In some cases, we’ve gotten ones to do a post-paid plan, it’s better for customer, carrier, and us. But we’re not avoiding pre-paid. We know we need to play there, to get the volume we want.
• Q: Mac growth about 5% sequentially, in past few years it has been higher. Was it cannibalism, or pull-backs in anticipation of Lion?
• TC: I’d look more year-over-year than sequential. But I’m proud of the numbers. To grow 14% when market is growing 2.6% is certainly something to be proud of. But why isn’t it higher? We always focus on that. Three things: 1) some cannibalization of new Macs by iPad — we sold over 2x iPads versus Macs. 2) Some customers have delayed until Lion becomes available. That will be tomorrow. It’s a fantastic product. 3) In year-ago quarter, we launched new MacBook Pros, this quarter we did new iMacs. Both well-received, but MacBook Pro makes up majority of sales in the Mac area. Those are the three key things why the number isn’t bigger. This is the 21st consecutive quarter that we beat the market.
• Q: Will Lion help growth next quarter?
• TC: We don’t predict unit sales. We think iPad will continue to grow year over year, the rest you can conclude.
• Q: A bit more color about iPad ramping up issues?
• TC: Demand is fantastic. It’s not the supply side that’s the huge issue. It’s a good problem. I usually wouldn’t do this, but in July supply has further improved. That has led up to be in balance in some countries. We’re working very very hard to get as many units to customers as we can.
• Q: Is there anything you’re doing differently in enterprise sales space?
• TC: We train and provide a lot of help for carrier forces and we do some sales our self. Last quarter we sold more iPads in K-12 than we did Macs. That’s shocking. We wouldn’t have predicted this.
• Q: How about iCloud?
• PO: We can’t wait to get iCloud and iOS 5 to customers in the fall. We think we did it right with iCloud. In the ChangeWave results, we think this is driving future demand.
• Q: Competitive edge?
• PO: We’re good with delivering things over the Internet, iTunes, the App Store, etc. We probably have some things to learn, but we’re excited.
• Q: China Mobile said it has a lot of iPhones on their network already, but it doesn’t sell them yet, so pre-paid or unlocked are there clearly. Can you talk more about that?
• TC: Phones without a contract are very key in China – and a number of the emerging markets where the credit systems aren’t as established. I’m not saying we have figured out how to play perfectly in that environment, but we’re growing. We have more to do, more to learn. But I feel very good about our progress. China is far passed our big hopes already.
• Q: Some stats say you’ve lost share with iPhone in some places — how important is growing share?
• TC: Share gain is important. We don’t want to go the opposite way and we’re working hard to change that. In terms of different price points, we have the iPhone 3GS in the U.S. for $49 with a contract. But we will only make products we’re proud of. It has to be the best in the world. If we can do that and the price is lower, we’ll do it. Like the iPod shuffle, it started higher, but now it’s $49. In China, it’s also up to us to get people to pay a bit more for a better product. People will do that, we’ve seen.
• Q: What about media consumption on the iPad so far?
• TC: We love that people love using it for a whole variety of things. That’s the beauty of the iPad. You talk to 10 different people, they’ll all give you a different reason why they love it.
• Q: Why aren’t there more movie titles on iTunes?
• PO: We have a very broad library of movies and TV show, particularly here in the U.S. It’s less in some other countries. Look for some more content later this quarter, across the various stores. We have some neat stuff coming.

Right on the heels of releasing Skype 5.5 for Windows, featuring deep Facebook integration, the company has just rolled out a new version of its voice and video calling software solution for Mac.

Skype 5.2 for Mac is available now and is much more worth the download than the 5.1 updated version of the beta Mac software released back in November 2010.

With the new version, Skype for Mac users can not only do group video calls (which was already available in the beta product) but also share their screens during such calls.

Screen sharing is already available for free on a one-to-one Skype call, but the ability to share documents, photos, presentations and whatnot with multiple people in one session takes the product to a different level in my opinion, particularly for small businesses.

One caveat: to take advantage of group video calling and screen sharing, one or more call participants must have a Skype Premium subscription.

Such subscriptions cost between $4.49 and $8.99 per month. You can also get a day pass for $4.99 if you only use the product occasionally.

When you use the new product, you’ll notice the call control bar now features video when you multi-task during a video call, enabling you to still see the person you’re talking to as well as being able to hang up or mute the conversation even when you’re in a different program.

Finally, Skype has made it easier to find your most active conversations under ‘Recents’ in the sidebar, and added a history section where users can see those that are less active.

When Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion earlier this year, they pledged that the company would “continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms”.

Skype last week updated its Android application to support video calls over 3G and WiFi as well, and we’ve heard that Facebook will be rolling out a new, in-browser video chat product, powered by Skype, shortly.

Users of Google Chrome are probably aware of the three channels you can use depending on how cutting edge you want to be (and how much you mind bugs): Dev, Beta, Stable. But ever since last year, there’s actually been a fourth channel as well that’s less publicized: Canary. Sadly, it has been a Windows-only build until now. But it looks like that’s about to change.

Given the talk in the Chromium development forums, it looks as if Google is just about ready to push out a Canary build of Chrome for OS X as well. In fact, it looks to already be working, they just need to add a download link somewhere so that people can actually get it. And that seems likely to happen soon.

Peter Beverloo, a developer who tracks Chrome and Chromium closely (and appropriately will soon be working at Google on the Chrome team) pointed out this morning that Chrome version 13 should be the first one to gain Canary status on OS X. As Beverloo notes:

While it has not been released yet, Google does seem to be ready to release Google Chrome Canary for Mac OS X systems. The browser cannot be made the default browser through the preferences and the release monitor says that the latest version was released today, using the same revision as Windows’ Canary.

Sure enough, looking over the “OmahaProxy” numbers that Google uses to keep track of Chrome progress across all platforms, there is now a “mac canary” build. And yes, it’s 13.0752.0 — just like the Windows branch. Both were updated today.

We’ve reached out to Google about the possibility of Canary finally coming to OS X, but have yet to hear back. But there are even more clues that this in the case tucked away inside threads on the development forums. For example, here you can see a screenshot of the Canary welcome screen on OS X — you’ll note the all-yellow icon, the key visual cue to let users know which build they’re using.

Why care about Canary? Well, if you want to absolutely be on the bleeding edge of Chrome, it’s the place to be. Technically, Canary is a pre-Dev build of the software that gets automatically updated daily (or so) with the best stuff from Chromium. Sure, you could just download Chromium itself, but that is far less stable as it’s updated many times a day. And you have to manually upgrade it. And plug-in and codec support can often be lacking.

Plus, the entire point of Canary is that you can install it and run it alongside another version of Chrome. This means that you could keep the stable version on your system for your real work, and load up Canary when you want to play with the new Chrome features that won’t be released for weeks or months. For example, Google has just released Chrome 11, but Canary is already on Chrome 13.

Of course, Google has been trying to downplay the version numbers now that they’re upgrading the browser every six weeks or so. But this hasn’t stopped them from touting new releases every so often.

And one more thing: looking over the Chromium development calendar, it looks as if the plan right now is to at least get to Chromium version 16 before the end of this year. That’s set to branch in October, which should give Google plenty of time to get Chrome 16 out the door before the new year. For some context, last May, Google unveiled Chrome 5.

Update: Yep, Google Just Pushed Chrome Canary For Mac Out Of The Nest

Yes, Boxcar is here for the Mac. The app resides in your toolbar and when clicked shows a drop-down with all of your notifications as they come in in realtime. You can set it so a sound goes off with every new message and if you have Growl installed you can get a visual notification as well.

“This is another step in offering Boxcar wherever you’re at. We believe in delivering messages to people – not devices. We want to deliver messages to you, wherever you’re at. That will be on your phone, tablet, desktop, TV or car. It doesn’t matter to us, as long as it gets to you,” creator Jonathan George tells us.

He also notes that even though notifications are not as vital on a traditional computer with more robust multi-tasking capabilities, people have been using the Mac version to get away from things like a full-fledged Twitter client which can distract you. Instead, Boxcar only notifies you when they must: when you have an @reply or DM, for example.

One interesting thing about Boxcar for Mac is that they’re not releasing it via the Mac App Store. George says they want to use this initial release as a large-scale beta of sorts, and Apple’s requirements for their store make some of what they want to do difficult. Instead, a release through that store will likely come down the road.

So for now, you can find Boxcar for Mac on their website here.

Back in October of last year, the day before it was formally unveiled, I wondered if OS X Lion would be the last of its kind. There were two main arguments: the big cat name choice and the colossal rise of iOS. With today’s news that OS X father Bertrand Serlet is leaving Apple after 14 years (and 22 years working with CEO Steve Jobs), the question has come roaring back to life.

Apple has been giving OS X big cat nicknames since 10.0 (though they started off as informal codenames at first). The forthcoming latest iteration, OS X 10.7, has been given the name “Lion”, the king of the jungle. But more important than the name is what’s inside Lion: iOS-like features. A transition is happening. Apple made this very clear during the initial preview of Lion. It’s OS X meets the iPad.

Some have been interpreting this transition as a reason for Serlet’s departure. After all, why would he leave now in the “middle” of OS X Lion’s development, as Gizmodo puts it, unless he was unhappy? But the truth is that OS X Lion is pretty much locked and loaded at this point. There’s undoubtedly polish being added, but it’s being released to the public in a few months after a few years of work. Apple does not allow outsiders to see products in the “middle” of their development, and yet a developer beta of Lion has been out for weeks now.

This is not the same as key Chrome OS architect Matthew Papakipos jumping to Facebook last year. As it turns out, Papakipos actually did leave in the middle of development, as Chrome OS still has yet to be released to the public. The fact that Chrome OS is already about six months late from Google’s initial timetable (and is still a few months away) suggests Papakipos may have seen the writing on the wall. Again, that doesn’t appear to be the case with Serlet here.

Nor is this like the situation in which SVP of Devices Hardware Engineering, Mark Papermaster, left Apple last year amid the iPhone 4 antenna controversy.

Instead, Serlet appears to be transitioning out at a very natural time, as Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski details today. “He’s leaving because he feels it’s time and likely because Lion seems a perfect monument to his legacy at Apple,” Paczkowski writes.

At the same time, we are well into a massive software shift at Apple. Last quarter, Apple sold roughly 34 million devices that run iOS. During the same time, they sold about 4 million Macs running OS X (which was also a new record, by the way).

34 million to 4 million.

That’s not to say OS X is no longer important to Apple. Quite the contrary — you can’t make apps for iOS without OS X. And, of course, iOS is directly derived from OS X. We’re simply seeing the two begin to merge into a more unified experience. And new vice president of Mac Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, is leading that charge. That’s exactly why he took the stage last October to show off the new iOS-like features of Lion (whereas it was Serlet who took the stage two years ago to show off OS X Snow Leopard). It’s no longer point & click, it’s flick & swipe.

The main question still remains: is OS X Lion the last of its kind? Will Federighi’s first duty as head of Mac software be to more fully merge iOS and OS X? Will that be a “Mac OS XI” (or perhaps more appropriately, “OS Xi”) or something else?

Serlet may not be leaving as a result of OS X becoming more like iOS, but it’s happening nonetheless. Both appear to be natural transitions.

[image: Engadget]

In a press release issued earlier this morning, Apple has announced that Bertrand Serlet, SVP of Mac Software Engineering, will be leaving the company.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s VP of Mac Software Engineering and Serlet’s long-time protégé, will assume his responsibilities and report directly to chief exec Steve Jobs.

Federighi has been managing the Mac OS software engineering group for the past two years.

Bertrand Serlet originally joined Apple in 1997 and has played an instrumental role in the development of Mac OS X.

Before joining Apple, Serlet spent four years at Xerox PARC, then joined NeXT in 1989.

“I’ve worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both NeXT and Apple, but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science,” Serlet said in a statement.

Craig Federighi also worked at NeXT, followed by Apple, and then spent a decade at Ariba. He returned to Apple in 2009 to lead Mac OS X engineering.

First and foremost, Sparrow now has general IMAP support. This means that on top of Gmail, you can use the client for all of your email. This means Yahoo, AOL, Mobile Me, anything. It even supports custom IMAP from services like Rackspace, Fastmail, Zimbra and others.

Second, Gmail’s Priority Inbox has been added as a view option. This option is in a drop-down menu in the inbox itself. (There is also is an “Unread” filter in this drop-down.) These priority messages are marked in Sparrow by the familiar yellow indicator that Google uses.

The coolest addition is the multi-touch gestures. You can now pinch two fingers to both open and close messages. Three-finger swipes left and right will now show and hide a message in the panel. And three-finger swipes up and down will navigate through messages. All of these require a trackpad (though two-finger swipe on the Magic Mouse opens the panel), so if you’re using Sparrow on a desktop Mac, you’ll need the Magic Trackpad. Still, very cool.

A few other new features include a formatting bar, contact groups, the ability to have different signatures for different accounts, and minimal mode (a way to quickly browse message without snippets). And there are a ton of bug fixes.

Of course, my biggest issue with Sparrow has always been speed. Because it relies on IMAP, it’s not as fast as receiving messages as Gmail on the web is. And while things have definitely improved in this regard, there’s still a lot of loading if you get a lot of email.

Another issue was how CPU intensive Sparrow was. But with 1.1, things have definitely improved. “On the backend, Sparrow integrates a new mail database making the application less CPU intensive and snappier,” co-founder Dom Leca writes.

Overall, this is a great update to a wonderfully simple and great-looking Mac mail client. And since it’s now sold through the Mac App Store, the 1.1 update is a simple update available for free to current owner. New users will get this version for the standard $9.99 price (though there is a trial lite version as well).

Earlier today my colleague MG Siegler wrote about EightBit, a new social game and included the above video, with plenty of demo screencasts of the EightBit app. Those screencasts were via Sound Stage 1.3 for Mac, a desktop app that in addition to recording HD desktop screencaps, hooks into an iOS simulator to take screen captures of iPhone app demos.

The app launched its new revamp yesterday and is currently the #1 developer tool in the Mac App Store, just breaking into the top 100 paid apps. Along with its basic functions, it allows you to customize backgrounds and directly upload your videos to YouTube.

Sound Stage interface designer Kevin Milden hopes that one day people will be viewing “app trailers” before they take the plunge to buy.

“The goal is to simply make it easy for anyone to make a video of apps and share it. So one day when you buy an app it won’t be a photo but instead a video demo in an App Store. Without someone like us taking the steps to make that easy we’ll have to only see a photo before making an app purchase. Which just sucks.”

The most amazing thing about the app, aside from how intuitive it is to actually use, is that it costs $4.99 in the Mac App store as opposed to $29.95 for the bare bones version of competitor IShowUHD, or $69 for Snapz Pro X.

Also notable: This is the first time anything in the Mac App Store has caught my attention.

You can download the app here.

Apple has officially launched its JointVenture support for small businesses. Support comes from the Apple store and will be provided by the Apple Genius Bar. The plan is only available to business customers when purchasing a Mac, but the $499 service will include training and support for up to five “systems,” which include iOS devices and Cinema Displays.

Once enrolled in the plan, Apple Geniuses will set up the new Macs and transfer old data from a PC or Mac and install software. Also, Joint Venture members will have personalized priority support that allows them to schedule trainings and get support. There are also loaner computers to use when a business sends computers in for repair.

And that feat says a lot for Sparrow, considering the app is $9.99. But it’s absolutely worth it. As we wrote in our initial review, Sparrow is a Gmail-centric client that brings a Tweetie for Mac (now Twitter for Mac) look and feel to email. At the time, it was still in beta, and we noted that there were some performance issues. But most of those have now been smoothed out and a whole range of new features have been added, including full support for Gmail labels.

And you might also notice that they’ve dropped the “for Gmail” line from their logo. That’s because while the product remains Gmail-only for now, version 1.1 (due soon) will offer IMAP support for the other major mail services as well. So it will be able to be a full-featured mail client.

And there’s more good news for Sparrow today — they’ve raised funding. The service has raised a seed round of funding from Kima Ventures, the French venture capital firm that has backed Paper.li, Rapportive, and others. Sparrow co-founder Dom Leca declined to disclose the amount of the raise, but is very excited about the possibilities the money will allow for.

He should also be excited about the possibilities that the money they pull in from the Mac App Store should allow for. While there have already been some Mac App Store successes (Evernote jumps to mind), if a small indie app maker selling a $10 mail client can be a breakout hit, it will give a lot of other developers hope for the potential of the store.

You can find Sparrow in the Mac App Store here.

“Was there any cannibalization? Honestly, I don’t know for sure. But yes, I think there is some cannibalization,” Apple COO Tim Cook (who is the acting head of Apple while Steve Jobs is on medical leave) said in response. This echoes the thoughts Jobs had last quarter when asked the same basic question. “The iPad is clearly going to affect notebook computers,” Jobs said at the time.

But Cook also said that he thought there was a “halo effect” as well. That is, just as is thought to have happened with the iPod and the iPhone, certain Apple products are helping the company sell other products. So Cook believes that while the iPad may be eating into some of the would-be Mac sales, it’s also fueling other new Mac sales.

He also noted that it’s likely that the iPad is not only cannibalizing Mac sales, but also sales for the larger PC industry. Cook pointed out that Apple still has a relatively small share of the overall market. “So the other guys lose a lot more,” he noted.

He said that internally, Apple doesn’t worry about cannibalization or even think about it. “The iPad team works on making their product the best. Same with the Mac team. Both teams think they can continue to grow,” he said.

“If this is cannibalization, it feels pretty good,” he quipped.

At one point, a long, long time ago, Twitter was just a super simple website with some SMS integration. Then it became a slightly more robust website. Then it became an iPhone app. Then an Android app. Then an iPad app. Then a very robust website. BlackBerry, Windows Phone, etc. Now, as of today, there’s an official Mac desktop client, Twitter for Mac. Just about all of the bases now seem to be covered — except one: Windows.

Following the Twitter for Mac launch this morning, I asked the company if they had plans to do a Windows-based desktop version next. “For now, we only have the Mac version. We don’t have plans for a PC version — though we never say never,” a Twitter representative told me. In other words, eventually, yes there probably will be one.

As Twitter notes in their blog post today, “We acquired atebits with a focus on launching our own Twitter iPhone application. Since then, we’ve been asked repeatedly for a new version of Tweetie for Mac. We decided that the new version fits well into our goal of ensuring that mainstream users will have the best possible experience on popular platforms.” If OS X is a popular platform, then what’s Windows? An super ultra mega popular platform? And while those users have options for a native experience, many run on AIR, which is quite frankly, a pretty awful experience.

So again, I suspect we may see Twitter move to make a Windows client at some point. And that will be especially true if Microsoft is able to better unify the Windows experience, as they were suggesting yesterday at CES.

Of course, Twitter also had a huge head start on making Twitter for Mac. When they acquired Tweetie and its developer Loren Brichter last year, he was already hard at work on Tweetie 2 for Mac — the software that became Twitter for Mac. As the blog post notes, “Twitter for Mac is a new version updated by Loren and team during Twitter’s first Hack Week in October.” A Windows client would obviously take quite a bit more work to build from scratch. But I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else was working on one during the same Hack Week event.

The larger question may be what this means for the overall Twitter ecosystem? The trend is that third-party devs work on something then Twitter comes along with their own version — one that is usually better. So will Twitter for Mac (and maybe eventually Windows) destroy the other desktop clients? That seems unlikely since the desktop experience, even more so than the mobile one, varies greatly. Erick doesn’t like Twitter for Mac because he’s a TweetDeck users, a desktop client that’s totally different. I hate AIR, so I love Twitter for Mac so far.

Further, while all these clients are interesting and unique in their own way, I’m sure Twitter’s main focus remains on the core product: the website. If anything kills off these native clients, it may eventually be that.

The Mac App Store just launched this morning (it is a separate app store from what’s in iTunes that comes with the latest update to Mac OS X), and already the top free app is Twitter for Mac. I just installed it and started to play around with it. My first impression is meh.

Twitter for Mac is a stripped down version of the excellent Twitter for iPad app. Imagine if you took just the left-hand stream column in the Twitter for iPad app and launched that as a widget on your desktop. It feels like a half-hearted attempt to me. I’ll give it this: it is very fast, and it stays out of the way. But it is jarring because it doesn’t operate the same way that Twitter for iPad, or even Twitter.com operates. When you click on a Tweet with a link, it doesn’t expand into a second pane with the page opened underneath like the iPad app does. Instead it launches a new tab in your browser. That is a recipe for tab overload. Also, the only indication of when a Tweet is in reply to another Tweet is a too-subtle conversation balloon which appears when you hover over the Tweet. Finding the conversation view is not completely obvious. You have to doubleclick the Tweet or click on the conversation bubble. Hitting the right arrow key also works.

Other complaints: There is no Tweet box. In order to Tweet, you have to go to the menu and select New Tweet or Direct Message. There is also a keyboard command. At least on the iPAd app there is a new message icon in the lower left-hand corner, and in Twitter.com there is a nice big “what’s happening?” box. Tweeting should be a one-step process not a two step process. Another annoyance is that you can’t click on a person’s name to see their profile or Tweet stream. It took me a while to figure out that you have to double-click on their avatar picture instead to get their stream to show up. Again, little inconsistencies like these actually slow you down if you are used to the way Twitter works everywhere else.

The rest of the app is fine. You can see your stream, mentions, direct messages, lists, profile, and search. You can reply to individual Tweets, favorite them or Retweet them. And that’s about it. Maybe that is all you need. But when you have the full capabilities of your desktop computer, scrimping on features doesn’t make much sense. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the richer features of Twitter on the Web and on the iPad. I think I’ll stick with those for now.

Apple this morning announced that the Mac App Store is now open for business, as previously announced, with more than 1,000 free and paid apps.

The Mac App Store brings the iTunes App Store model straight to the Mac – it’s available for Snow Leopard users through Software Update as part of Mac OS X v10.6.6.

Note: it’s a separate app, so don’t go looking for it in iTunes.

Apple software is of course in the store, from iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand ($14.99 each) to Pages, Keynote and Numbers ($19.99 each). Aperture 3 is available for $79.99.

Other apps include software from Autodesk, Ancestry.com and Boinx. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store, head on over here.

Our previous coverage:

Tread Lightly When Embracing The Mac App Store

Might The Mac App Store Lead To A New Class Of Micro-Apps?

While the blog Macstories did a preview back in September when the software was in early alpha, it has come a long way since then. And developer Silvio Rizzi has given me permission to do a short preview of what you can expect when the beta hits (sometime in the next couple of weeks, he hopes). I’ve been using the app for months now, and it’s finally feeling rock-solid. And it has completely replaced Google Reader for me.

Of course, users of Reeder on the other platforms will know that it is built on top of Google Reader. You log in with your Google credentials and all of your feeds (and starred items) are transfered over. But Reeder makes the experience look roughly a million times better.

The app uses a 3-pane view similar to the iPad version of the app. In the left pane, you’ll find your feed folders — but they don’t look like folders, they look like bundled icons. Hitting the arrow in the lower left square on this bundle will drop down individual feed items. Or you can click on the bundle to read all of the items in there. (You can also drag this left panel out to make it larger, and this will give you a more traditional folder/drop-down view.)

The second pane contains the feed of stories by a particular site (or bundled folder of sites). This area shows you the title of the post as well as a short preview of the content. There’s also a check-box at the bottom to mark all items as read (or you simply hit “A”).

The third (right) pane is where the content is actually shown. Again, with all the proper Mac styling, it just looks a lot nicer than Google Reader does in the browser. And here you can easily do things like star, share, make a note (tied to Google Reader), send to Instapaper (or Delicious, Pinboard, etc), and post to Twitter. The last bit opens a nice little tweet box that allows you to easily insert the title of what you’re reading and/or a link. This third pane can also be used to view the items as they appear on the web itself — and it’s actually a pretty nice way to browse. Or you can hit the “B” button and open any item in Chrome.

There are at least a couple dozen other subtle great things about the app. For example, the dock icon can be made to show you the unread count on the side of its filing box (instead of an ugly red badge that almost all other apps use).

And because it uses Google Reader as the backend, everything stays in sync between your various devices. And with Reeder for Mac, all read items can be kept locally on your machine so you can easily reference them later. The one thing missing, sadly, is search. You’ll have to open Google Reader for that.

Rizzi notes that he’s just working on feed subscription management now and then the app should be good to go. When it is, you’ll likely be able to find it here. I’ll be interested to see if Rizzi also makes the final version available in the Mac App Store. It seems like a natural fit.

Will this beautiful app be enough to save the doomed RSS reader method of consuming news? Long-term, no. But it does make it a great-looking corpse.

It feels like we’re on the verge of something — “feel” being the keyword. Personal computing has more or less been the same for a few decades now. It’s the mouse, the keyboard, the monitor, and the machine. With things like notebook computers, this has been altered a bit, but it’s the same basic idea. But with the rise of smartphones and now tablets, the whole concept is finally starting evolve. And it looks like OS X Lion will be a key to this transition.

On stage last week during their Back to the Mac event, Apple gave a sneak peak at some of what they have in store for the next version of OS X. Of note, CEO Steve Jobs made it very clear that it has been born out of the concept of “OS X meets iPad”. In other words, OS X meets iOS, Apple’s touch-based operating system.

Jobs also made it clear that Apple wouldn’t be creating touchscreen Macs anytime soon. Noting that these concepts “give great demo”, he also said that extensive testing over the years have proven that touching a vertical screen just isn’t ergonomically sound. Instead, Apple has committed itself to developing products that will allow them to use touch elements on the screen, without actually touching it. In their MacBooks, the multi-touch trackpads are built-in. For their desktops, the Magic Mouse and the Magic Trackpad were created to bring multi-touch to all Mac users.

Obviously, neither of those products was an accident. As we’ve noted before, Apple is ushering in an era of touch, and each of these things are key for such a transition. Now, with the features in OS X Lion, we’re going to see touch concepts fully baked into the traditional operating system for the first time.

Sure, Apple has included certain multi-touch options in OS X for some time now; first for MacBook users with multi-touch trackpads, then for Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad users. But all of these are basically tacked-on shortcuts of sorts for stuff you normally do with mouse clicks. Some of these newer OS X Lion features appear to be fully thought-out with multi-touch in mind.

As Apple VP of OS X, Craig Federighi, demoed on stage last week, to navigate new features such as full-screen apps and Mission Control, it’s no longer point & click, it’s flick and swipe. It’s a two finger flick to the left or right to travel between full-screen apps — and back to your desktop. Interestingly, it’s also now a two finger flick to the left from your desktop to get access to your desktop widgets (it would appear that they’re no longer overlaid on your actual desktop). To enter Mission Control, it’s a three finger swipe down. To get a preview of many open windows in Mission Control, it’s a two finger swipe up.

Yes, pointing and clicking can still be involved for some of this, but it seems that it’s more of the fallback now. Undoubtedly, there will be keyboard shortcuts as well, but again, as a fallback/power user option. And I can’t help but wonder if the trackpad “Tap to Click” option will become the norm one day in the not too distant future.

And as you may have noticed during his demo, Federighi had trouble a few times launching into Mission Control on the Magic Mouse. Part of that was because he was nervous, but part of that is also because while multi-touch is a nice feature on that device, the surface isn’t big enough for more advanced gestures. But the Magic Trackpad (and MacBook trackpad) is perfect for those. Remember that there are now more Mac laptop users than Mac desktop users. This trackpad multi-touch manipulation is the future.

Given the little we know about OS X Lion so far, I’m already much more excited about it than I was for OS X Snow Leopard. To me, it seems clear that Apple is going to use this new OS to begin the transition to the golden age of touch computing. I can’t wait.

This weekend, Ryan Block put up an interesting post on gdgt entitled: Will the Mac App Store have enough to sell? He raises a number of good points for why Apple may not be able to replicate their current App Store success with this new desktop store. But I’m left wondering if the store won’t lead to a new class of app: a sort of micro-app for the desktop.

Block makes the following points: a) high-end software like Photoshop won’t be placed in this store because Adobe won’t want to give Apple a 30 percent cut of all sales. b) most paid desktop software is dead or dying due to free replacements on the web. c) Apple’s strict rules will prevent developers from using this new store for test or demo software. I agree with all of those points. And that’s why I’m wondering if this store won’t instead lead to this new type of app environment.

While Apple’s brief demo at their event last week and their website teaser page indicate they intend this Mac App Store to be used to distribute full Mac apps, such as the ones they make like Pages, iPhoto, iMovie, etc, I think it’s possible that popular apps in this new store may be more akin to Mac Dashboard widgets.

Here’s what I’m thinking: one of the most popular apps since the inception of the iPhone App Store has been Pandora. Pandora obviously works through the web browser, but plenty of people would be into a small app that sits somewhere on your desktop running in the background. How do I know? Because Pandora actually already makes such an app — but it runs on AIR and you need a Pandora One premium account to use it. What if Pandora made a free ad-supported Pandora Mac app? Or a paid version (maybe $5 or $10) that gives you premium features? A lot of people would want such an app.

What about a Mac desktop Twitter client? Many of the most popular ones right now also run on AIR (TweetDeck) or Silverlight (Seesmic). Hugely popular native Mac apps exist, such as Tweetie for Mac, but since Twitter bought that client, they haven’t committed to continuing development on it (though it is supposedly being worked on on the side). People would pay a small amount for a great one of these as well.

But a real opportunity may exist in small apps that don’t just fully mimic popular web apps, but instead extend upon them. Imagine a Facebook app, for example, that offered a great photo upload and viewing experience? Again, this is sort of the idea Apple seemed to originally have with their Desktop Widgets, but those never really took off. One reason, undoubtedly, is that distribution was lacking, and developers had no way to make money from them. The Mac App Store solves both of those issues.

And this store may give rise to a whole new crop of small apps that otherwise might get lost in the sea of web apps — or not exist at all. You could certainly make the case that great new services like Instagram would have never existed without the iPhone App Store. Perhaps the Mac App Store will lead to developers creating new experiences and a new crop of apps as well.

And then of course there are games. While traditional game makers may hold off on Mac App Store games since they’d obviously prefer to make 100 percent of their revenue instead of the 70/30 split with Apple, plenty of micro-game makers will pop-up to take advantage of the Mac App Store’s distribution. Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, etc. We’re going to see them all. And they’re going to be huge.

I’d also argue that part of the impetus behind the Mac App Store is also to kill off optical drives, so that Apple can make machines more like their slick new MacBook Air. Every app you buy through the Mac App Store is downloaded and installed directly over the web. And you can install them again on a new machine when you upgrade. No CDs/DVDs needed.

Another point, of course, is to simplify the application buying experience for users. While plenty of software is available to buy and download over the Internet right now, the process is scattered and generally poor. The Mac App Store will change that. A lot of users and developers will welcome this.

Of course, such a unification attempt will have people scared to death that this means Apple will eventually kill off app installation on the Mac outside of this store. But that won’t happen — even Apple isn’t that bold. The shitstorm and backlash they would face from Mac users if they were to do this would be massive. Apple is a lot of things, but they’re not stupid. You’ll still have the option to install your own apps the old way.

Yes, you can’t install apps on the iPhone outside of the App Store, but you never could. Since the dawn of the Mac that hasn’t be the rule. Even if they wanted to, it’s too late for Apple to change that — at least directly.

Instead, computers like the iPhone and iPad that have this new distribution model will eventually far outnumber Macs — based on recent sales, they already might.

Apple has said that they’d like to get the first version of this Mac App Store out there in 90-days. They’ll undoubtedly have a range of third-party developers on board for the launch. But it will be shortly after that when we’ll begin to see exactly how this new distribution model will be used. And I suspect a lot of $5 micro-apps and small games may end up being the apps that drive the store.

Is there really any doubt the Mac App Store will be anything other than a huge hit when it debuts in 90 days? Seven billion downloads on the current App Store would suggest that Apple knows what it’s doing (and that people really love to slingshot cartoon birds into buildings). And the benefits of the App Store are clear: it’s an easy-to-use, one-stop source of safe, tested software. Usually. Maybe not all of that software is worth your time—how many fart Apps do you really need?—but the platform itself is sound, and Apple is keen to make sure it stays that way. But the platform is closed. Only with Apple’s approval (not to mention its 30 percent cut of the action) can your App find a home on the App Store.

But is that scenario ideal when it comes to desktop operating systems?

When Apple rolls out the Mac App Store in three months’ time, it will have created a new “class” of Mac software: Apple-approved and App Store-certified. All of a sudden software that isn’t from the Mac App Store looks a little less… official. New Mac users—and there’s sure to be plenty given Apple’s year-on-year growth—will be trained from Day One to look to the Mac App Store for software. What happens to software developers who, for whatever reason, don’t want to be a part of the Mac App Store? Why would a new Mac user visit third-party sites like MacUpdate or VersionTracker to find software when they know they can always pull up the Mac App Store to find Apple-approved, App Store-certified software?

You can also be sure that Apple will leverage the Mac App Store to sell its own software, further boosting the status of all software found on the Mac App Store. During yesterday’s demonstration, Apple showed how easy it is to buy, download, and install Pages, the word processor component of its iWork suite, using the Mac App Store. (Not showed, of course, is just how easy it is to download and install software using the decade old apt-get system, but let’s leave that alone for the moment. Steam also says hi, perhaps gritting its teeth a little bit.) What Mac user is going to go out of his or her way to find and download software when they can just as easily pop up the Mac App Store—safe, tested, secure—and browse away from there?

And perhaps bordering on the conspiratorial, why would you want Apple granting or denying its seal of approval on the software you run on your computer? I thought these were called personal computers? Who’s to say, somewhere down the line, that Apple doesn’t decide that the Mac App Store is the only place where new software can be acquired? For your safety, dear Mac user, we’ve eliminated the ability to launch .app bundles not delivered by the Mac App Store. We hope you understand that this is being done with your best interests in mind. Thank you for choosing Apple.

Do I expect that to ever happen? Obviously not—that’s ridiculous, even for Apple—but let’s not pretend that’s not exactly what happens on the iPhone and iPad. How many times has Apple warned us not to jailbreak our iDevices, citing security and stability concerns, not once mentioning that jailbreaking is the only way to install “unapproved” software?

My concern, I suppose, is that an over-reliance on, and an over-veneration of, the Mac App Store could lead to an unnecessary, if not dangerous, homogenization of Mac software.

Again, to expect that the Mac App Store won’t be anything other than a smashing success is pure folly, but let’s at least be cognizant of just how dramatic a shift the Store may well represent.

/me ducks

Today during their Back to the Mac event today at their headquarters in Cupertino, Apple gave a first glimpse of the next version of OS X. As anticipated, OS X 10.7 is going to be called “Lion”. What perhaps wasn’t so anticipated (though we guessed), was how inspired it would be by iOS.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that iOS came from OS X. But he said that with iOS, they’ve invented new things and perfected others. And now it’s time to bring those features “back to the Mac,” Jobs noted.

Jobs said that OS X Lion was essentially Mac OS X meets the iPad. It has multi-touch gestures, a Mac App Store, app home screens, full-screen apps, auto-save, and apps that resume when launched. Those are just a handful of features Apple is showing off today, Jobs said.

So how does it work? No, it’s not going to be a touch-screen Mac. Touch-screen surfaces don’t want to be vertical, Jobs said. He said that Apple has looked into this a lot. “It gives great demo, but after a short period of time you get fatigue,” he said. “It’s ergonomically terrible.” So instead, they’re sticking with MacBook trackpads and their new Magic Trackpad device for the desktop.

OS X Lion will also bring a new feature called Mission Control. This is a way to view everything running on your Mac and navigate anywhere, Jobs said.

Some of these features were then demoed on stage. Multi-touch gestures are key to a lot of what’s new. And, of course, the Mac App Store. It will have the same mixture of free and paid apps as the App Store we all know, the same one-click downloads, the same automatic updates, and the same 70/30 split on revenue for developers.

OS X Lion will launch in the Summer of 2011. But the Mac App Store will open within 90 days, Jobs said.

For more, see CrunchGear’s overview.