Happy Apple

Apple could move to Intel but is happy with IBM. Where we learn that:

• It's perfectly technically feasible to port Panther to any processor.
• Asked about Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition, Jobs joked that Apple was instead focused on melding the computer with a toaster. "We can do an up-sell for bagels" said Phil Schiller.
• Jobs points to the wide divergence in the way people want to watch television as compared with how they use a computer. "Generally what they want to view on television has to do with turning their mind off," he said. I completely agree with that!
• Don't expect Apple to open the iPod to other music stores, because iTMS is "the Microsoft of music stores".
• "Consumers don't care about 64-bit computing per se," they care about what a computer can do.
• Apple will focus first on existing consumers with older G3 or early G4. Hint: I still have my Desktop G3 (boosted to 315MHz, what a bomb ;-).
• .Mac has seen an 86 to 87% renewal rate (reminder: first year was $49, renewal is $99). To Jobs, that is "unheard of, higher than almost anybody's. We've built ourselves the beginnings of a pretty good Internet services business."
• Before Longhorn (which Jobs compares to Jaguar) hit the streets, Apple will have released several versions of Mac OS.