Year: 2010

Apple has  released QuickTime Player 7.6.6. The 10.65MB download requires Mac OS X 10.6.3 or higher.

This is all Apple has to say about the update: “QuickTime Player 7 supports older media formats, such as QTVR, interactive QuickTime movies, and MIDI files on Snow Leopard. It also accepts QuickTime 7 Pro registration codes, which turn on QuickTime Pro functions.”

You can obtain QuickTime Player 7.6.6 via the Software Updates component of Mac OS X’s Systems Preferences app.

The iPad version of the iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) are already on track to potentially generate more than US$40 million in annual sales, according to an analysis of Apple App Store sales so far by “Silicon Alley Insider” (http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-sales-revenue-pages-keynote-numbers-ipad-2010-5#ixzz0nXpzbpH0).

In face, sales of the app have “probably” already passed $3 million in sales so far, the article says. And “Silicon Alley Insider” predicts that Apple’s overall iPad revenue could top $1 billion just this quarter.

The first crop of iPad apps may draw user approval for being “beautiful,” but they also create user frustration as people try to figure out where to touch in order to interact with them, according to usability expert Jakob Nielsen whose user-experience research firm Nielsen Norman Group today released results from a usability study of 34 iPad apps.

Not only are users’ hard earned web-interaction skills not transferable to iPad apps, the learning for one app does not necessarily apply to the next one. Early iPad apps are marked by inconsistent interaction design.

In a new report Phil Leigh of “Inside Digital Media” (http://www.insidedigitalmedia.com), a market research firm specializing in the future of media, said Apple will introduce as-yet-unannounced products to address market opportunities in the digital living room and media and transactional online services. But the Mac will continue to play a big role in the company’s future.

In fact, in an interview with “MacNews,” Leigh says the Mac itself is going to continue to gain consumer market share — and then more market share in the business world. It’s a trend that’s already underway.