Apple has announced it has sold more than 2 million copies of Mac OS X Leopard since its release on last Friday. It also notch up a new record and it seems Apple managed to sell nearly 700,000 copies of Leopard per day. I wonder it is due to the improved performance of system-level that based on Mach kernel and the switch to Intel processors which greatly improved the performance of Mac’s visualization solutions have resulted in Macs being widely chosen in the consumer/developer market.

After months of anticipation, Apple finally launches its newest version of Mac, i.e. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. It is the fifth updates (Cheetah & Puma, 2001; Jaguar, 2002; Panther, 2003; Tiger, 2005) to Mac OS X since the first version Cheetah launched in year 2001. Watching the Leopard Guided Tour will know that this new OS X contains more than 300 new features, including a new back-up system that called Time Machine. Though many users tried it and gave positive reviews, many of these new features can be viewed as incremental innovation, but it seems Apple has made this version of Mac Leopard more powerful, stable, and user-friendly. The Leopard has a new Finder, one can see her files in this new Finder and browse with Cover Flow, works much the same as she flip the album covers in her iTunes. The Finder also offers a Quick Look feature, help a user does one thing better, display the content before she launch the application. New features such as Spaces, a virtual desktop feature which main function is to group related applications in their own areas and Stacks, helps a user gathers related materials in an easy manner have been added. Nevertheless, I think the main selling point for this Leopard is the availability of Time Machine, which enables a user to restore her machine to a previous state.

My sense is that with the newest version of Mac OS X, Macintosh is becoming a more-manageable environment than in the past. For Windows users, if Windows Vista has disappointed them, then the above features found in Leopard might be served as a strong reason why they need to make a switch. In this case, Apple might be the beneficiary. However, I don’t see the existing Mac lovers will retain their fondness for the Mac Tiger when they see the enhancement and improvement of Apple done on this newest version of Mac, it’s only “when” they will make the upgrade. If you’re using the Mac old machine, Apple said the majority of Macs sold in the past four years will able to run Leopard, but some configuration need to be done on some Mac old machines.

Leopard is priced at $129 for a single user license, however for the family pack, five users is priced at $199.

Macmeter has just launched in the market and indeed was an one man’s vision to bring all the Apple/Mac related news to one place. It’s a Digg-like Web application, albeit that the founder has admitted he is a big fan of Digg and Reddit, but the idea of starting this site is not compete with Digg. Maybe Digg is too famous and hence, when we see a new application that comprised with the features of submit links, vote and comment on the articles, we will definitely think of Digg. In fact, Macmeter has a much more narrow market to serve to, that’s the Apple/Mac community. They have segmented their market very well and niche since Apple/Mac’s users are more fanatical about their products, I do not see any reason for Macmeter to changed its competitive position fundamentally in the near future.

As I visited the site, it is a well-design, highly customized, “free” business-model at the moment. I’m not sure when and how they will monetize from the user-base when they grow into a certain stage. But I’m doubt that they will establish a merchant relationship with the Apple/Mac end users in the future. However, it was just a beginning, Macmeter definitely has their opportunities to explode the Apple/Mac community.

I just came across a post of the official Joost that entitled,”Joost beta for Mac Intel is here,” this post is discussed the latest development of Joost team. I still very much like to observe the progress of Joost nowadays, maybe my sense is that it will be a big name in Internet this year. I personally feel that Joost did not encountered any serious problem as other new startups would faced in the launching status, they have the ability to get the timely users’ feedbacks. Moreover, they have gained the necessary branding power to attract a huge group of subscribers when they officially launched in the market in the future.

I will report back on this firm when it officially launched, stay tuned.