From Silicon Alley Insider, Aug. 26, 2008:

Apple's (AAPL) incredible Mac growth streak appears to be losing steam. Time for some updated laptops?

Recently, we've seen three data points estimating this quarter's Mac unit sales. Two of the three suggest that Apple is going to have a second straight quarter of decelerating unit growth:

• Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says current Street consensus is that Apple will sell 2.65 million Macs this quarter, representing 22% year-over-year growth.
• Munster's extrapolation of preliminary July retail sales data from NPD Group suggests Apple will sell 2.7 million to 2.9 million Macs this quarter. The midpoint -- 2.8 million Macs -- represents 29% year-over-year growth.
• RBC analyst Mark Abramsky says an RBC technology survey suggests Apple will sell 3.04 million Macs this quarter, representing 41% year-over-year growth.

For comparison, Apple sold 2.496 million Macs last quarter, up 41% year-over-year. So both Munster's NPD extrapolation and the current Street consensus would both mark decelerating growth, while RBC's guesstimate would mark flat, 41% year-over-year growth.

From All Things Digital, Aug. 25, 2008: 

The third quarter hasn't been an easy one for Apple from a public relations standpoint. But from a financial one it's been a resounding success. Despite MobileMe's failure to live up to Apple’s standards, voice and data reception issues plaguing the iPhone 3G and reports of iPod Nanos sparking like Roman candles, Apple's third quarter Mac sales numbers are expected to be impressive and largely unaffected by any sort of developing iPhone 3G halo … defect, if you will. In fact, they're expected to be record-breaking.

RBC analyst Mike Abramsky predicts that "massive back-to-school Mac sales" in excess of three million will see Apple (AAPL) reporting year-over-year growth of 44 percent for the three-month period ending September. And if it does, 2008 is going to be a very good year for the company. Apple shipped 2,319,000 Macs in Q1 2008 and 2,289,000 in Q2. If it ships the 3.04 million Abramsky predicts for Q3 and a similar number in Q4, 2008 may well end up being Apple’s 10 million Mac year.

Recent rumors that Apple is considering a music subscription service may not be credible, but they do underscore the pressure on the music industry and brick-and-mortar retailers to successfully compete with the iPod/iTunes juggernaut.

My colleague Peter Kafka, managing editor of Silicon Alley Insider, says that record labels need to scale back in order to survive, preferably by getting out of the new-music business and focusing on their back catalogs. As for other online music stores, only Amazon shows signs of giving iTunes a run for its money, and Kafka says alternative models like Radiohead's "pay what you want" only work for bands that have already been developed (and made rich) by labels.

See Also:
Music Subscriptions Coming To iTunes (AAPL) Next Month? Nope
Wal-Mart Phasing Out Music Sales...And That Revenue Isn't Coming Back

We've previously noted that NBC wasn't the only site getting a boost from the Olympics: On August 11, Yahoo generated more traffic to its specialty site than NBC did. Turns out that wasn't an aberration: According to Nielsen Online, Yahoo has beaten NBC on 8 of the 11 days it's measured so far.

NBC, obviously, has the exclusive rights to Olympic video. But anyone can write about the Olympics, and Yahoo's advantage is obvious: A home page with ginormous daily traffic, where it has featured clever Olympics coverage every day. Yet another reminder, if anyone needed it, that the company's clout is still enormous, even if its leadership hasn't figured out what to do with it.

In the accompanying video, Henry and I discuss NBC's Olympics losses and wins, and how balancing online and broadcast coverage continues to be a work in progress.

See Also:
NBC Won't Show You Usain Bolt, But YouTube And DailyMotion Will
Yahoo Beating NBC In Online Olympics

Give Apple (AAPL) credit for making up for (rare) bad service: The company emailed MobileMe email/syncing customers this week, informing them that they'll be getting 60 days of free service in addition to the 30 days of free service most already received.

From Apple's support site:

The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was rockier than we had hoped. While we are making a lot of improvements, the MobileMe service is still not up to our standards. We are extending subscriptions 60-days free of charge to express appreciation for our members’ patience as we continue to improve the service.

Apple launched MobileMe -- an ambitious update to its old .Mac service -- in July, alongside the new iPhone 3G. Neither has gone flawlessly: MobileMe was a dog and permanently lost some subscribers' email, while the new iPhone reportedly has a radio transmission bug that's made phone and Internet communication flaky for some owners. (Including us.)

In the accompaning video, Henry and I talk about this uncharacteristic misstep for Apple, as well as some better news for the company: A record quarter for Mac sales and a growing presence in the enterprise market. Can Apple fill the gap left by Windows' crumbling hegemony? Or will Dell and HP finally figure out that it's all about design and beat Apple on price?

See Also:
Apple's iPhone 3G A Month Later: Excellent, But Not Euphoric
Best Buy To Sell Apple's iPhone Next Month
Three Million 3G iPhones Sold? Sure, Why Not?

From Silicon Alley Insider, August 19, 2008:

Another beat and raise from Mark Hurd's HP: The PC giant posted better-than-expected Q3 sales and profits, and said Q4 would also be strong. Also reassuring: Unlike most tech companies, there's no language in HP's release about a weak economy, economic climate, etc.

Especially strong: HP's notebook sales, which grew 26% year-over-year, blade servers, which grew 66%, and storage, which grew 16%. Especially weak: Consumer printing and imaging hardware, which dropped 14% year-over-year.

Key Stats:

Revenue: $28.0 billion vs. $27.4 billion consensus
EPS: $0.86 vs. $0.83 consensus

Q4 Guidance:

Revenue: $30.25 billion midpoint vs. $30.22 billion consensus
EPS: $1.02 midpoint vs. $1.00 consensus

One thing we can learn from YouTube's entry into the mobile advertising business: As Henry and I discuss in the accompanying video, it's still really, really early in the mobile advertising business.

Why do we say that? Because we couldn't help but feel some nostalgia for the early days of the Web when we used our iPhone to check out the sample ad Google (GOOG) placed on YouTube for Mobile Monday.

What was it? Not some new-fangled, interactive, GPS-location-based, behaviorally-targeted, local coupon ad, or a video ad hovering over a YouTube video, or anything like that. Just a small DoubleClick banner ad for Mountain Dew. And, on a less-sophisticated phone we tested the site on, a text link.

The good news for Google: It's still really, really early in the mobile advertising business. We're not sure how many people will end up seeing this ad -- Google boasts that "millions of people" visit the site on their phones a day, but that seems high to us. But in any case, if Google is ever going to make a multi-billion-dollar market in mobile advertising, it's a good first step toward getting users comfortable seeing ads on their phones -- and toward developing smarter, higher-tech, higher-yield mobile ads.

See Also:
Google Still Dreaming Of $50 Billion Mobile Ad Market
More Ads Coming To iPhone Apps: AdMob Expands iPhone Ad Network

The government is out of Google's way: The FCC has just approved the HTC Dream, the first phone that will run Google's "GPhone" Android mobile operating system.

No hi-res product shots included in the FCC's documentation, but we're able to confirm that the Dream will be able to access T-Mobile's nascent 3G data network -- it's been approved to use the 1700 MHz band, the chunk of airwaves that T-Mobile uses for 3G service. And the phone includes a "jog ball," which we understand is the correct jargon for the tiny trackball used on BlackBerries.

Now T-Mobile can start selling the Dream pretty much as soon as it wants. We expect it to go on sale next quarter as promised -- specifically, before Nov. 10 -- that's the date HTC has requested the FCC keep Dream photos and user manuals confidential until.

In the accompanying video, Henry and I discuss how the GPhone could change the smartphone market, particularly for U.S. market leaders RIM and Apple and overseas leader Nokia.

We've had our hands on Apple's iPhone 3G for a month now, as we can easily declare that it's the best cellphone we've ever owned. And more good news: A software update Apple issued Monday night promises to squash some of the bugs we've noticed. But there's still plenty of room for improvement.

Rather than list features or go over the basics -- you can find those anywhere -- we thought we'd evaluate the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 2.0 operating system from three specific perspectives. Read our findings after the jump.

From Silicon Alley Insider, August 15, 2008:

So now we know that the first GPhone is indeed coming this fall. 

Will it be a hit? It's hard to tell much from the supposed spy photos we've seen floating around on the Web.

But someone who's actually seen the gadget -- similar, if not identical to the one in the photos -- tells us that both the hardware (from handset-maker HTC) and Google's Android software suffer from a similar problem: They're technically powerful but not as elegant as Apple's iPhone and OS X.

Specifically, the phone -- apparently a hot item to show off in Google's cafeterias these days -- is big and bulky, and not as sleek as the iPhone. And Android, while extremely powerful, has a less-elegant, less-user-friendly interface than the iPhone (AAPL)

Does this mean it won't sell well? Of course not. There's a lot more variables, like device and contract pricing, software and services, etc., that will help determine its commercial success.

Developers, meanwhile, should get some new software to play with soon: Our source says that Google (GOOG) will finally be publicly releasing an updated version of its software developers kit in the next few weeks. Google has been releasing editions of the Android developers kit to preferred developers for several weeks -- without updating the public edition -- which has ticked off many of its more vocal coders.

See Also:
Google's Android Mobile OS Still On Track For Q4 Launch
Is Google's Android Coming Apart At The Seams?