If you’re a fan of Apple and its products you know that they are not really on the inexpensive side. Sure, they are well made, well designed and work pretty flawlessly. Of course, all that comes with a price.

Fortunately, Apple too must realize consumers need a deal once in awhile and what better time to offer it than the end of this week during the madness known as “Black Friday.” So, to make this a reality Apple will be offering deals on its website and online store according to a teaser up at the company’s website.

Except for the cryptic text touting “dozens of great iPad, iPod, and Mac gifts for everyone on your list” we’ve really got no clue what these deals may actually be. Still, its just nice to see that even Apple understands the economics of today’s world. People don’t have the money they used to have but they still want to get their hands on Apple’s latest shiny devices. With this sale on Friday, let’s hope they can.

This all starts on Friday, November 26th. If you do plan on taking advantage of these deals, start early as they probably won’t last.

As of a few minutes ago, Apple released its Mac OS X 10.6.5 update to its flagship Mac operating system. Some of the bug fixes, improvements, etc. in this release include:

• improve reliability with Microsoft Exchange servers
• address performance of some image-processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture
• address stability and performance of graphics applications and games
• resolve a delay between print jobs
• address a printing issue for some HP printers connected to an AirPort Extreme
• resolve an issue when dragging contacts from Address Book to iCal
• address an issue where dragging an item from a stack causes the Dock to not automatically hide
• resolve an issue with Wikipedia information not displaying correctly in Dictionary
• improve performance of MainStage on certain Mac systems
• resolve spacing issues with OpenType fonts
• improve reliability with some Bluetooth braille displays
• resolve a VoiceOver issue when browsing some web sites with Safari 5

Some good improvements there to be sure. Also, be on the lookout for an update to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch pretty soon in the form of iOS 4.2, coming soon . . .

If you update today be sure and let us know if you have any issues. We’re firing up Software Update as we speak. Or, you can always wait for the combo update if you feel like it. Should probably be along shortly.

Happy news VOIP and Mac fans as today Skype announced a new beta version of its chat software, Skpe 5.0 beta, is now available. According to Skype this software has several new features including:

• New call control bar — Hang up, mute and more from a mini Skype toolbar that sits on top of any web pages, documents or photos you’ve got open

• Search chat content to easily navigate past conversations

• Offline IM so that you can send and receive instant messages even if the recipient is offline

• Personalise contacts via user profiles

• Quickly rejoin calls if your Internet connection fails momentarily

• Floating Contacts Monitor to see your online contacts and contact groups

As users of Skype pretty much every week we think this is pretty cool. Check out a little video showing how cool after the jump.

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Love it or hate it Microsoft’s Office suite of applications which include Word, PowerPoint and Excel are pretty much the go-to for most offices these days. Fortunately for the Mac users out there the Redmond Giant, and specifically its Mac Business Unit, have been putting out versions of the suite for the Mac as well that mostly have feature parity with the Windows versions.

With the Windows version of Office already at the 2011 milestone, we can now announce that Office 2011 for the Mac is available and shipping. Like its Windows counterpart, the Intel only Office for Mac has all the usual applications including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

But wait, there’s more. Not since the days of OS 9, the suite also includes Microsoft Outlook, which replaces the Entourage email client. Finally, right?

Office for Mac 2011 pricing breaks down as follows:

Microsoft Office for Home and Student 2011 (single license): $109.99 – $149.99

Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Business (single license): $174.99 – $279.99

With the inclusion of Outlook, the Office suite is now a good deal for Mac using companies or individuals in a Windows dominated environment. Kudos to Microsoft for finally doing the right thing here.

We’ll give you three guesses what will be announced at this event Apple will be holding on October 20th and the first two don’t count. That’s right, if you can’t tell from the obvious animal peeking out from behind the Apple logo what the company’s got up its sleeve, you need to turn in your amateur detective decoder ring.

Having a bit of trouble? Okay, we’ll give you some hints. That animal, it’s a lion. So, that means the next version of OSX will probably be called Lion because, in case you re not aware, Steve Jobs likes cats and all of the version were named after some sort of cat. The most recent, of course, being Snow Leopard.

So, it follows that the next one, aka OS X 10.7,  will be called by a cat name as well. Oh, we can also assume this event will focus quite a bit on the Mac itself, at least judging from the tag line “Back to the Mac.”

Whatever happens, we’ll bring you all the news. In the meantime, let the predictions begin. . .

With all the hype surrounding the iPhone 4 and the much less amount of hype about the new Mac Mini, Apple has also released an update to its computer operating system, aka OSX 10.6. The update, which will bring your Mac’s OS to version 10.6.4, includes a host of features, enhancements and improvements.

Some of the things improved and/or addressed in this update are, according to Apple, the following:

The 10.6.4 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It includes Safari 5 and general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that:

• resolve an issue that causes the keyboard or trackpad to become unresponsive
• resolve an issue that may prevent some Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications from opening
• address issues copying, renaming, or deleting files on SMB file servers
• improve reliability of VPN connections
• resolve a playback issue in DVD Player when using Good Quality deinterlacing
• resolve an issue editing photos with iPhoto or Aperture in full screen view
• improve compatibility with some braille displays

The update is available via software update or, as we recommend, go download the combo update and us it instead.

Today Apple announced the availability of the second version of the iPad, aka the iPad 3G. For those of you who’ve been waiting for some iPad goodness, you have a definitive date to count the minutes until: April 30, 2010. In addition, those of you who pre-ordered the 3G iPad should start to receive shipments the same day.

The iPad 3G will set you back $130 premium more than the Wi-Fi-only iPad. You will also get the pleasure of using AT&T’s 3G network for your needs but in a somewhat surprising move, you won’t have to agree to a teo-year contract in order to do so.

The 3G service from AT&T will be available on an as-needed basis. In other words, if you need it for a day, you pay for a day. A month? Pay for a month. That’s quite a bit better than having to stick with a company for a minimum of two years, especially given their relatively poor track record of network performance.

On a related note, Apple also announced its second quarter earnings today and, no big surprise, the numbers look pretty good. It reported adjusted earnings of $3.33 per share, well above Wall Street estimates.

Total revenues were $13.5 Billion. That’s more than $700 millon above even the most optimistic predictions. Gross margins up to 41.7 percent, from 39.9 percent a year ago.

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Well folks, if you happen to live anywhere else except the good old US of A and you desperately want to get your hands on Apple’s latest beauty the iPad, your wait for the device just got a bit longer. Today, Apple announced that due to high demand in the States, all international sales have been delayed until the end of May.

Here’s the company’s official statement on the matter:

Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad™. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.

Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May. We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10. We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.

Bummer. Our sincere sympathies for those of you living elsewhere. We hope you get your iPads soon.

Like it is when pretty much anything new is released by Apple, their online Apple Store was down for a bit this morning. Now, the store is back and with it are new, improved MacBook Pro models for your purchasing pleasure. These updates were rumored to come for the last months and now they have and provide an impressive array of new features and models from which to choose.

The 15″ and 17″ models now use the i5 and i7 Intel dual-core processors (at 2.4, 2.53GHz or 2.66Ghz, respectively), giving them a big performance boost and permitting hyperthreading (up to 4 virtual cores). They also include the GeForce GT 330M graphics chip, and the NVIDIA-driven Optimus technology to switch from the high-end video subsystem to integrated graphics on the fly to improve power management.

Users of previous generation MacBook Pros will remember that this process used to involve logging out and in to switch, but now simply requires the click of a mouse. The improved power handling lets the 15″ and 17″ models supposedly go 8-9 hours on one battery charge. That, of course, remains to be seen. In addition, all models now include 4GB of RAM standard.

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Well Apple and Mac fans, if you’re currenty running some version of OS X 10.6 (aka Snow Leopard) it’s time to head on over to Software Update (or by downloading the Combo Update), fire it up, and download and install the latest version of 10.6 to bring your system up to 10.6.3. The update is recommended for all users and addresses the following:

• improve the reliability and compatibility of QuickTime X
• address compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications
• address an issue that causes background message colors to display incorrectly in Mail
• resolve an issue that prevented files with the # or & characters in their names from opening in Rosetta applications
• resolve an issue that prevented files from copying to Windows file servers
• improve performance of Logic Pro 9 and Main Stage 2 when running in 64-bit mode
• improve sleep and wake reliability when using Bonjour wake on demand
• address a color issue in iMovie with HD content
• improve printing reliability
• resolve issues with recurring events in iCal when connected to an Exchange server
• improve the reliability of 3rd party USB input devices
• fix glowing, stuck, or dark pixels when viewing video from the iMac (Late 2009) built-in iSight camera

If you do update, let us know if you have any problems.

Macs are great, except for when you want to play video games on them. Instead, OSX users rejoice whenever new and exciting titles are announced for the platform, and today is no exception. Kotaku has officially confirmed that along with the Steam software, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series are coming to Mac.

“As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. “The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.”

This announcement has been rumored for awhile, as Mac-specific graphics were discovered in the beta files for the new Steam service last month. Valve dropped some serious hints later, with the release of some images of Valve games integrated with some familiar Mac themes.

Even more exciting is the new feature Steam Play, which will allow anyone who purchases a game on Steam for PC to download and play it for Mac, and vice versa, with no extra charge. Valve also hopes to release titles for Mac on the same day as the PC versions. The first simultaneous release for PC and Mac on Steam will be Portal 2, which was announced earlier this month.

Yesterday, Apple reported its financial results for Q1 2010, which ended December 26, 2009, and said results were, to say the least, impressive. The company had its all time highest quarterly revenue and its all time highest quarterly profit.

Here are the important numbers:

• Revenue of $15.68 Billion

• 58% of revenue derived from international sales

• Net quarterly profit of $3.38 Billion or $3.67 per diluted share

• Gross margin of 40.9 %

• $5.8 Billion generated in cash

Sales of Macintosh computers and iPhones blew up with Apple selling 3.36 Million computers and 8.7 Million iPhones, representing a 33% increase for Macintosh sales and 100% growth for the iPhone when compared to Q1 2009.

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