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This week, the Apple- and Mac-focused blogosphere is all over the map.
Macworld is far from gone, of course, and while the MacBook Air is still hot enough to float, there's Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) 
quarterly financial report, OS X 10.5.2, pent-up demand for a MacBook Pro refresh, and even some talk about the cute little pink iPod nano.
Down to Business
First, the money. Apple released its financial earnings for the fourth quarter of 2007, which turned out to be the company's "best quarter ever." The company posted revenue of US$9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, compared with $7.1 billion and profit of $1 billion in the 2006 fourth quarter. Plus, gross margin was up to 34.7 percent, up from 31.2 percent in the year-ago quarter. Apple also shipped 2.3 million Macs for a 44 percent unit growth with 47 percent revenue growth. Apple also sold 22.1 million iPods and 2.3 million iPhones.
Pretty much every Apple-focused blog got in the publishing action, seemingly happy to tout the great financial performance for Apple.
Wall Street, however, hammered Apple's stock, though many seemed to attribute the sell-off more to a gloomy economic outlook in the U.S. than anything Apple is doing wrong. The slow growth rate for iPod sales, which may have been cannibalized by iPhone sales, has been a point of contention.
"Sure, number of units sold only went up 5 percent. But the average selling price of an iPod went up 72 percent. That's huge," noted minderbinder on a thread following financial coverage by AppleInsider.
"So the amount of iPods sold seems to be slowing BUT people are shifting from the cheaper iPods to the more expensive ones. I don't see that as a bad tradeoff. The market is going to reach a saturation point where tons of people have a nano or 5.x 'big' ipod and will be content with it for a while," minderbinder added.
Thin Book Is Still in the Air
"There's still a lot of anticipation about the MacBook Air -- of course it was announced, but the first review units have just arrived for some people today, and there's still a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of first impressions that people are anticipating," Arnold Kim, editor of MacRumors.com, told MacNewsWorld. "We have a large thread in our forums of people waiting for their MacBook Air to ship."
MacRumors posted roundups of all the latest MacBook Air reviews, the first of which came out in USA Today, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal, followed by Gizmodo, Engadget and Macworld.
"There's also a lot of questions about the SSD (solid-state drive) drives, which no one has seemed to have seen yet, even the review units have the [standard] hard drives, so we're wondering if there's some delays in getting those out," Kim said.
In terms of comments to the review coverage, a lot of people are arguing over the lack of a built-in CD/DVD drive, which comments for and against both running strong.
"Personally, I'm not even getting the external superdrive. I don't see any use for it. I hardly ever use the one in my MBP anyway," commented eddietr in a MacRumors.com post on the subject.
The Cult of Mac blog picked up on a new MacBook Air trend -- the fashion accessory.
"Compared to a $1,800 Prada handbag, the MacBook Air is a steal," wrote Cult of Blog author Leander Kahney.
"Like a lot of Apple products, it is the beginning of technology that will lead the industry. It is the wave of the future. Apple truly innovates," added Jimmi.
A Leopard Update?
"A lot of people are waiting on 10.5.2 to come out ... Apple has been seeding those [to developers] with increasing frequency," Kim said.
"There's a lot of subtle changes in that, as well as some minor bug fixes, that I think a lot of people are looking forward to, especially those who've had problems," he added.
Where's the New MacBook Pro?
Now that Apple bought out ThinkSecret.com, the competition for Apple product predictions has gotten a little less fierce. MacRumors.com, however, follows the average number of days between Mac product updates, and the professional-grade MacBook Pro is long overdue, which has sparked some reaction -- or, perhaps, hope. Some believe that Apple will deliver a multi-touch trackpad similar to what's available on the MacBook Air and maybe some light form-factor updates to bring the old design more in line with the iPhone and iMac, in addition to a keypad that may be more similar to the one introduced on the MacBook line.
While none of this may come to pass, most seem to believe that the processors will at least receive in speed boost in the very near future.
"I would love to see the MBP update in the next few weeks -- as I'm waiting for that update to make my next purchase -- and sooner would sure better than later. BUT -- the whispers of a release around WWDC seem very logical. Especially if we can expect a whole new look," noted tothelimit in a response to a MacRumor post about an AppleInsider MacBook Pro release prediction post.
Gotta Love the Pink
Most Apple-related blogs posted something about the new pink iPod nano.
Few posts, though, generated much in the way of reactions -- yeah, it's a nano, it's pink, good for girls on Valentine's Day ...
Talkback: 
