MacRumors

ThinkSecret reports that Final Cut Pro 5 will be debuted at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in mid April.

According to the rumor site, the new version of Final Cut Pro will require Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) -- meaning that the new software's retail release may lag a couple of months while waiting for the consumer release of Mac OS X 10.4.

Mac OS X 10.4 is said to be released in the "1st half of 2005". Unconfirmed whispers have hinted at possible dates... but no reliable. information is yet available.

The widely publicized E1060 phone previewed on Monday is not actually the upcoming iTunes-compatible phone from Motorola. Macworld.co.uk notes:

This is not the case, a Motorola spokeswoman told Macworld: "The E1060 is not the new iTunes phone. This product was used only as a demo to showcase the iTunes application."

They cite competitive reasons for not releasing the details on the new phone, but it is said to be released "in the near future".

Apple announced the dates for WWDC 2005 (Worldwide Developer's Conference) today.

At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2005, June 6-10 in San Francisco, you'll get the in-depth knowledge, hands-on instruction and one-on-one support you need to deliver products and solutions that transform the way your users work, play, search, and share on a Mac.

While WWDC is traditionally not a consumer oriented conference, Apple has made a few notable releases during the past two WWDC conferences (Monitors, and PowerMacs).

AppleInsider takes a look at Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Milunovich's thoughts on an Apple/Sony partnership.

"Why did Steve Jobs say that Apple and Sony could possibly work together on computers and music? We think Apple could introduce products based on the IBM/Sony/Toshiba Cell processor," the analyst said.

Merrill Lynch believes that an Apple/Sony partnership could form around an iTunes-like iMovies store online using the H.264 codec and streaming Sony and Pixar content; a high-performance Apple workstation using Cell for video editing; or a network-centric TV with computing for handling the next-generation of entertainment feeds.

"Our thoughts represent logical conjecture and are not based on knowledge of Apple's development plans," the firm cautioned. "Such offerings, however, would put Apple at the heart of the HD and digital consumer revolution and provide grist for further earnings increases and stock price appreciation."

The news was also posted at CBS Marketwatch's daily email newsletter 'Before the Bell', citing that Merrill Lynch has raised its 12 month target price for AAPL to $102/share, up from the previous $85/share.

As of this posting, the current stock price is $88.50/share. Whether related to this news, or as part of the runup to the upcoming stock split at the end of February, Apple's stock price is at the highest level ever.

News.com reports that lawyers representing previously subpoenaed websites have challenged those subpoenas under First Amendment protection:

The subpoenas should not be permitted because Internet journalists deserve the full protection of the First Amendment that their traditional brethren have long enjoyed, the lawyers said in a brief filed in Santa Clara Superior Court.

As noted in the article, the issue raises the question of whether internet website publishes enjoy the same protection as traditional journalists.

In the wake of Carly Fiorina's termination from HP last week, another HP exec is leaving this week.

Allison Johnson, HP's senior vice president of marketing, is leaving HP for a position at Apple.

The marketing guru is leaving HP to take a top marketing post at Apple Computer. She will become vice president of worldwide marketing communications, reporting to CEO Steve Jobs, an Apple representative told News.com

Johnson has previously worked at Apple and was with HP since 1999.

Motorola reportedly showed their upcoming iTunes compatible phone today:

The new iTunes compatible E1060 model phone, which the company said is aimed at music aficionados, allows users to download and carry a limited number of songs in the iTunes format.

No photos or details yet available.

Engadget provides a picture of the E1060 upcoming phone but there appears to be some discrepancy on the supported music formats. (no mention of iTunes).
Link to Motorola website on the E1060.

MacosXrumors.com is reporting that only a week after build 8A369 was released, another build of Tiger has reached a limited number of developers. The site reports multiple fixed bugs in the release, but also sheds light on the existance of a dozen or so remaining issues that have yet to be resolved.

Fixed since last build:
- Plain text messages being sent as rich text, which causes messages sent from Tiger Mail to show up as attachments in other mail clients.
- Dock dragging problems.
- Dual 2 GHz and Dual 2.5 GHz G5s with SuperDrive install problems.
- Finder crashes when previewing Sorenson 3 video or PNG files.
- Volume corruption issues with upgrade and archive installs over 10.2.x (Jaguar).
- Setup Assistant hangs after playing the movie withupgrade installs over 10.3.x.
- Spotlight infinitely indexing after editing data in your Address Book.
- Carbon and Cocoa app window corruption problems after inactivity.
- Problems disabling .Mac Syncing.

Still need to be fixed:
- .Mac syncing of Address Book can lead to loss of contact URLs in the Address Book.Disable Address Book syncingin the .Mac>Sync preference pane for now.
- iDVD 5.x and iMovie 5.x fail to see iPhoto 5.x photos in a users iPhoto library.
- Some full-screen QuickTime trailers dont display video.
- There are still occasional reports of blue or grey screens after installation or at login. Workaround: reboot.
- iDisk syncing may hang upon occasion.
- The .Mac Sync pref pane and the Sync menu extra are slow and dont always agree on when syncing is happening.
- Keychain syncing may corrupt your keychain.Other data types should work (with the exception of contacts). Disable keychain syncing in the .Mac>Sync preference pane for now.
- Very rarely, login, security dialog or remote access authentication may be refused. Workaround: reboot.
- Text input other than English is not recognized in authorization dialogs.
- Xcode crashes when building Carbon bundles and frameworks.
- AppleScript applications that reference bundles need to use the bundle extension (e.g. .app)when referring to them.
- Text paths to aliases (e.g. ~/Desktop/) in AppleScript are incorrect.

The site also focuses on a new option for cursor size in the Universal Access prefs pane, as well as developers being unhappy with Spotlight indexing speed.

Appleinsider lists Oklahoma City, OK, Arlington, VA, Paramus NJ, Northbrook, IL, and Orlando, FL as new Apple Store locations based on job listings at Apple.

Meanwhile, ThinkSecret reports that two independent Apple resellers are shutting down and blaming Apple for their inability to continue.

MacCentral posted preliminary benchmarks from the new PowerBook G4's which were released on Jan 31st.

The site provides a small chart running various benchmarks including SpeedMark, Cinema4D, iMovie HD Render, iTunes encode, Photoshop, Unreal Tournament and Compress MPEG2 encode.

Overall speeds are only slightly (as expected) better on the 1.67GHz vs the 1.5GHz machines with the exception of the Compressor MPEG2 encode which was fastest on a 1.5GHz model for unclear reasons.

Washington Post reports that for the first time Billboard magazine will include songs purchased and downloaded online into its weekly calculation of the "Billboard Hot 100".

The Hot 100 list was historically calculated from a combination of airplay and retail single sales, but in the late 90s with the decreasing availability of singles, radio play become the primary factor.

The new change provides more direct consumer influence on the rankings and has already seen their effects. According to the article:

Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" made the top five more because of its popularity online than radio airplay, said Silvio Pietroluongo, Hot 100 chart manager.

Similarly, 50 Cent's new single "Candy Shop" will jump from No. 30 to No. 8 next week because it is the most popular downloaded song, he said.

Apple announced today that their Board of Directors has approved a 2 for 1 stock split, increasing the number of common shares from 900 million to 1.8 billion.

Each shareholder of record at the close of business on February 18, 2005 will receive one additional share for every outstanding share held on the record date, and trading will begin on a split-adjusted basis on February 28, 2005.

A stock split simply decreases the cost of purchase of each share while proportionally increasing the number of shares available. This does not change the value of the stock owned by current shareholders.

Now available as a software download from Apple:

The 10.3.8 Update delivers improved compatibility and reliability for Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" and is recommended for all users.

Key updates include:
- improved OpenGL technology and updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers
- improved file sharing and directory services for mixed Mac and PC networks
- improved compatibility for third party applications and devices
- previous standalone security updates

For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n300569

For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798

SHA 1= 68a133a0c21718169e8b09644d0a029ae7eae2e2

For detailed information on SHA 1 Digest, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n75510

[Update] The update is now available in Software Update, and weighs in at up to 27.7 MB, depending on previously installed updates.

Sirus Satellite Radio's CEO, Mel Karmazin reveals that he was in talks with Steve Jobs about incorporating the satellite radio into upcoming iPods, but the current feeling is that "they don't need to put a satellite radio in their box [iPod]".

Rumors of the incorporation of the satellite played into the iPod first surfaced in December.