MacRumors

There have been expectations that Apple could release OS X Lion this week, potentially as early as tomorrow (July 14th). A few doubts, however, have been introduced in the past couple of days. LoopInsight's Jim Dalrymple tweeted this evening that he hopes "you guys don't lose too much sleep waiting for the new Macs and Lion tomorrow :)", suggesting that release won't happen on Thursday. Dalrymple's been known to have some inside Apple contacts in the past.

Meanwhile, Arstechnica's John Siracusa said during his podcast (within first two minutes) on 5by5.tv that he'd also heard that Lion is not coming this week. Siracusa, however, describes the information as "third-hand, fourth-hand" information.

So while neither source is particularly concrete about their predictions, given the anticipation surrounding OS X Lion's release, we thought it worth noting.

If we do believe that OS X Lion isn't coming this week, then despite the leaked part numbers, it's almost certain the new hardware will also not launch this week. At this stage Apple is expected to launch the new MacBook Airs and Mac Minis with Lion pre-installed, so they can't launch the machines without first officially releasing OS X Lion to the public.

For Apple's part, they have only promised that OS X Lion will ship in July, and have made no promises about new hardware.

Research firms Gartner and IDC today released their preliminary quarterly personal computer shipment data, offering up a picture of market performance during the second quarter of 2011. Overall, the PC industry exhibited small growth on a worldwide scale, with unit shipments growing by about 2.5% between the second quarters of 2010 and 2011. But shipments in the U.S. actually declined year-over-year by about 4-6% according to the two firms. Gartner in particular points to the iPad as having had a detrimental effect on PC shipments for the quarter.

"Given the hype around media tablets such as the iPad, retailers were very conservative in placing orders for PCs. Instead, they wanted to secure space for media tablets. Some PC vendors had to lower their inventory through promotions, while others slimmed their product lines at retailers," [Gartner analyst Mikako] Kitagawa said.

According to Gartner's report, Apple surged into third place in the U.S. market, up from fifth place a year ago and even as recently as last quarter, grabbing a 10.7% share, up significantly from an 8.5% share in the prior-year quarter.

Apple's U.S. unit growth for the quarter was 8.5% year-over-year according to Gartner, well ahead of the overall U.S. industry trend of a 5.6% decline. Only Toshiba at 3.3% joined Apple among the Top 5 manufacturers increasing their shipments year-over-year.

IDC's report offers a similarly rosy picture for Apple, pegging its year-over-year unit growth in the U.S. at an even more substantial 14.7% while Toshiba at 3.7% was again seen as the only other member of the U.S. Top 5 to see year-over-year growth. Combined with Acer's sales plunging by over 25%, Apple's growth puts it in third place behind market leaders HP and Dell according to IDC's data, matching the 10.7% share seen by Gartner. Overall, IDC pegs the PC industry as having shrunk by 4.2% year-over-year.

As usual, neither Gartner nor IDC covered Apple's worldwide performance for the quarter, as the company does not rank in the top five by global shipments. But given that the worldwide market experienced only about 2.5% year-over-year growth, Apple appears to be continuing to make up ground on the rest of the industry.

CNet UK reports that Apple UK seems to be increasing its retail store staffing for the period of August 16th to October 29th, 2011.

The post, which was sent to us by a tipster, asks for "full-time iPhone Sales Staff for an exciting project to work 5 days a week (Tuesday-Saturday) for the period 16th August - 29th October within key retail stores". The posting appears several times on Reed, with each post covering a different area of the UK.

The increased iPhone staffing, of course, triggers speculation that Apple may be launching a new iPhone during that time period. The window is fairly large spanning August through October, but coincides nicely with circulating rumors. Apple has been long rumored to be introducing the iPhone 5 in or around September.

The job listing was posted on July 12th and lists the Job Type as "temporary". The work involves selling/promiting mobile phones to generate and grow iPhone sales to ensure sales targets are met. A 4 day training event is required that dates from August 9th - 12th.

Alongside today's international App Store pricing changes, Apple has introduced a new Volume Purchase program for the App Store. According to Apple, the App Store Volume Purchase Program allows businesses and educational institutions in the U.S. to purchase apps in volume and distribute them within their organizations.

Streamline your purchasing process and put more power and productivity in the hands of your workforce. Every paid app in the App Store is available for businesses to buy in volume through the program website. Simply search for the apps you need, enter the quantity you want to buy, and complete the transaction with your corporate credit card. Apps are available for purchase at the same price listed in the App Store.

Apple had previously offered volume sales for educational institutions and is extending this to businesses. Business and Educational institutions will need to enroll in the program in order to participate.

Separately, Apple is also allowing businesses to sell and distribute custom business-to-business (B2B) apps for business customers. These custom B2B apps can be developed for specific needs and distributed to businesses through the same App Store mechanism. This allows third-party developers to produce custom deployments of apps specifically designed for clients that are using iOS devices.

Update: Apple's webpage for App Store Volume purchasing is now live and provides addition information and says it's "Coming Soon":

Whether you’re providing apps to two employees or ten thousand, the Volume Purchase Program makes it simple to find, buy, and distribute the apps your business needs.

The Volume Purchase Program also provides a way to purchase custom B2B apps built by third-party developers to meet the unique needs of your business.

The Volume Purchase Program for Business is coming soon to businesses in the United States.

As part of its scheduled downtime, Apple has begun adjusting international App Store pricing to bring them in line with current exchange rates. The adjustments have resulted in both price increases and decreases depending on the geographic location. Here are pricing changes for the lowest ($0.99 USD) tiers:

UK: £0.59 -> £0.69
Australia: AU$1.19 -> AU$0.99
Japan: 115 -> 85 Yen
Mexico: $10 -> $12
Switzerland: 1.10Fr -> 1.00Fr
Norway: 6.00Kr -> 7.00Kr

The change reflects some recent complaints particularly pointing to the wide discrepancy in Australian App Store pricing as compared to the U.S. Not everyone is likely to be happy with the adjustments however, as the prices have gone up in the UK, Mexico and Norway.

As noted by MacStories, many of the countries affected were among those furthest out of line on pricing compared to the U.S.

The timing of the changes suggests that there may be some truth behind the recent claims that Apple will be adjusting international pricing on its soon to be announced hardware releases.

According to the Wall Street Journal's sources, Amazon is planning to introduce a 9" tablet computer before October that will place it head-to-head against Apple's iPad.

The new tablet will intensify a growing clash between Amazon and Apple. The two tech-industry titans are already fighting for customers for their respective digital book, music and video businesses. Now Amazon will have a device that will compete closely against Apple's popular iPad, as well as other tablets such as Samsung Electronic Co.'s Galaxy Tab.

Amazon's tablet will use a 9-inch screen and run on Google's Android operating system. The device won't carry a camera like the iPad but will allow customers to watch videos, read eBooks and listen to music from Amazon. Meanwhile, Amazon will also be offering two updated versions of their popular Kindle e-reader around the same time. The report seemingly confirms a Digitimes story from June.

Apple's iPad continues to dominate the tablet market, but there have been rumors that Apple may be considering an iPad refresh as early as this fall which would place its release near Amazon's tablet launch. Amazon and Apple have become increasingly competitive over the years with recent disputes over the use of the "App Store" name.

While much was made of Microsoft's efforts to reenter the retail store market by going head-to-head with Apple, things have moved rather slowly for the PC software company, which has opened only eleven stores scattered around the United States over the past two years.

But Neowin reports that Microsoft today unveiled an acceleration of those plans at its Worldwide Partner Conference, targeting 75 new stores for opening over the next two to three years. The initiative will also include some international stores, mirroring Apple's own recent emphasis on international locations.

Apple has approximately 350 retail store locations and continues to open new stores on a regular basis, meaning that Apple will remain significantly in the lead in terms of total stores by the end of this push from Microsoft, but it is clear that Microsoft is making a significant commitment to the initiative after only dabbling in it for the past two years.

Microsoft has mimicked Apple's retail strategy of trying to create warm and inviting spaces prominently featuring wood surfaces throughout in order to draw in customers to interact with the products on display, while also including an "Answer Desk" very similar to Apple's Genius Bars for support purposes. The company has even worked to strategically place its locations in close proximity to Apple's stores in an attempt to target many of the same customers. And while Microsoft has to rely on hardware from its partners in order to show off its PC offerings, the company's new retail push seems indicate that it is intent on establishing a retail rivalry with Apple.

9 to 5 Mac reports that it is receiving word from some international third-party retailers that some of the new machines reportedly being released tomorrow are carrying reduced price tags compared to the current models.

According to the report, the price reductions seem to be adjusting for the fact that the U.S. dollar has fallen in value against many other world currencies over the past year, making Apple's pricing in those countries appear significantly higher than in the United States when considering exchange rates. Consequently, lower international pricing is not necessarily indicative of forthcoming price drops for the new hardware in the U.S.

We've been getting word from some international Apple retailers that not only are MacBook Airs, Minis and White MacBooks getting updated tomorrow, but they are also going to see modest-significant price drops in some countries we've polled. While we can't get into the specifics of where and how much, we can tell you some models are being reduced more than the equivalent of $100.

Along similar lines, MacStories put forth an interesting theory earlier today regarding Apple's iTunes Store downtime today, suggesting that the company might be trying to rebalance its country-by-country pricing tiers to account for the weakening U.S. dollar.

While there was no direct evidence for that suggestion and there has yet to be any sign of such changes, the report did note that some of the odd collection of countries most affected by Apple's downtime are among those furthest out of line on pricing compared to the U.S. In addition, Australian politicians reported last week that Apple would be responding to their earlier requests for information about pricing disparities "in mid July".

With Apple set to report earnings for the third fiscal quarter and second calendar quarter of 2011 next Tuesday, July 19th, Wall Street analysts are beginning to line up their final predictions for Apple's performance. As noted by Barron's, a pair of analysts this morning issued new reports that show last-minute bumps in their estimates for the quarter.

Citigroup's Richard Gardner is now pegging quarterly iPhone shipments at 18 million units, an increase of 2 million units over his previous estimate and now above the Wall Street consensus in the range of 16.5-17 million units. Results at that level would come in just below the record 18.6 million iPhones shipped in the previous quarter and would be a very strong performance given the fact that many consumers are likely holding out for the next-generation iPhone.

Gardner places his iPad estimate at 8 million units, slightly above Wall Street consensus and well ahead of Apple's 4.69 million units shipped in the previous quarter as the company struggled to meet demand as it shifted production from the original iPad to the iPad 2. Overall, Gardner sees Apple's earnings per share now coming in at a healthy $6.34 for the quarter, nearly matching last quarter's strong performance.

In a separate report, UBS analyst Maynard Um similarly tweaked his estimates, pushing his iPad shipment figure up by 200,000 to 7.9 million while holding steady at a prediction of 18.35 million iPhone units. Um is looking for earnings per share of $5.88 and suggests that evidence of Apple's patent settlement with Nokia may appear in the financial results.

As always, analyst estimates are to be taken with a grain of salt, and professional analysts are known to consistently underestimate Apple's performance, suggesting that the company may indeed once again post very strong numbers. And with even the professional analysts increasing their estimates down the homestretch toward the earnings release, Apple appears to once again be in solid position.

It seems that some the part numbers leaked earlier this week are not for the new Mac Pros, but instead for new Mac minis and White MacBooks. At least, according to 9to5Mac who originally reported the part numbers, and who has now issued a correction.

The revised part descriptions and groupings are as follows:

MC914LL/A – J59, BEST – USA - White MacBook
MC936LL/A – J40, ULTIMATE – USA – Mac mini Server
MC815LL/A – J40I, BETTER – USA – Mac mini standard configuration
MC816LL/A – J40, BEST – USA Faster Mac mini

The original report had pegged these as "Mac Pro" part numbers instead. Meanwhile, the associated MacBook Air part numbers in the original report are said to still be considered accurate and are believed to be launching imminently.

Both the Mac mini and white MacBook are overdue for updates as tracked by our Buyer's Guide. There had been few rumors about their release, though they'll certainly adopt the latest Intel processors as well as Thunderbolt interfaces.

Meanwhile, the last credible rumor for the next Mac Pro release had it pegged in early August which is only a few weeks away.

Early last evening, the Mac App Store and iTunes App Store began having intermittent connectivity problems that we originally reported on our Mac Blog. The issues were widely reported by our readers in many geographic areas though the problems came and went for individuals. Reports of problems, however, have persisted all night, representing one of the longest durations of connection issues with the App Store ever.

Late this evening, Apple has started emailing developers to let them know that their developer portal iTunes Connect will be undergoing maintenance throughout the day on Wednesday (emphasis ours):

iTunes Connect will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, July 13 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT.

During this time, iTunes Connect will still be available. However, pricing changes made between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. PDT will cause the app to become unavailable for purchase until maintenance is complete, at which point the app will become available at the new price. To avoid interruptions to the availability of your apps, do not make price changes during this time.

Lastly, customers may not be able to purchase apps in the Mexico, U.K., Australia, Switzerland, Japan or Norway storefronts during the scheduled maintenance.

Regards,
The App Store team

It's not entirely clear if the maintenance is related to the downtime, but it seems likely given the short notice. The window of time covers the entire day and Apple says it could actually affect customer purchasing in many geographic areas.

While Apple is expected to also release OS X Lion to the App Store in July, the duration and scope of this maintenance seem beyond what might be considered normal downtime.