Apple has reached the 5 billion iTunes songs sold marker, sounds kind of like a McDonald’s slogan. Remember when McDonald’s used to put the total amount of burgers sold on their signage? And then I think they realized after they reached 8 catrillion or so that we all got the point, they sell a lot of burgers!

It’s still a tone of songs and reiterating the fact that Apple is the numero uno music store in the US and now even the most popular movie store with over 50,000 movies sold each and every day.

Congratulations to Apple!

The new 3G iPhone is going to make its debut in 70 countries this year and 22 of them by July the 11th (Canada being one of them - yippee!).

So what’s different about the new 3G iPhone? It comes in Black and White (plastic backing), it sports a 2.5x faster 3G radio over its edge based predecessor, it now has a built in GPS and it costs about half the price of the existing iPhone.

It’s all good news but I really want to point out the part that makes the most sense here… it’s being launched in 70 countries! Who really cares what the iPhone does if you can’t get one! Getting the price down will also make this little Apple gem not only a must have but a can have device. Apple is playing their cards very well here, by getting an iPhone into the hands of as many people as possible. Apple is effectively cramming Mac OS X and all it’s sexiness down the throats of of millions and millions of previous non-Mac users. Combine this with Apple’s new “me.com” dot-mac replacement and all of it’s push services and web based iApplications and it’s going to be really hard for the PC iPhone user to go back to that Windows based PC everyday. No matter what you thought about Apple, when an iPhone is staring you in the face day after day with all of its glory you are going to cave in at some time and take that first baby step into an Apple store even if it’s only the online one.

There was a lot more discussed at the (WWDC) today, Apple spent a lot of time talking about the new iPhone 2.0 software as well as the Software Development Kit (SDK) for developing Apple iPhone supported application. This only supports what Apple is doing by getting as many iPhones out their as possible and making sure the software is as good as it can be.

It kind of reminds me of what Apple did with the iPod, they turned the Walkman concept into something new that everyone wanted even though at the end of the day they both played your music. Could this be the future of the iPhone? Will the iPhone be the new iCon of the smart phone?

Now that I have my Canadianized US iTunes account working like a charm, Apple gives us Canadians Movie Rentals! According to Apple’s Press release there are more than 1200 films available from 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Television International, Lionsgate and Maple Pictures.

Not a bad start, I wonder how this equivolates to the total available movies for other countries? I know TV show availability in Canada is very limited and so at least for now, sticking with the US iTunes model works for me. This is great news for the majority of Canadians who just want a simple and convenient way to watch movies from the comfort of their own home. It looks like pricing and other features are comparable to US iTunes accounts.

So you’ve got 1000 or more ponies to spend and your walking into a brick and mortar store to buy a computer, so what’s it going to be??? Well two thirds of you are getting a Mac, at least that’s what the NPD Group says about the first quarter data they have collected. Apple has actually increased their sales growth by 50-60% while PC manufacturers are lucky to be staying neutral. It seems people are looking for a computer that can give them an “experience” and I am assuming this experience is meant to be a good one!

“What Apple drives home: This is a product that we own from factory to finger,” Stephen explained. “We exert some control so that you get the best experience. When you get in the store, we get you what you want.”

Read more about it on eWeek

Well it’s now official, we just don’t know exactly when but “some time” later this year Rogers “will” be bringing the iPhone to Canada and “has” worked out a deal with Apple.

President and Chief Executive Officer of Rogers Communications Inc. today issued the following statement:

“We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.”

So now we wait…

Apple today introduced a new set of iMacs featuring faster CPU’s (2.4 to 3GHz), high performance video cards (up to 512MB of video memory) and faster 1066 MHz front-side buses.

The new 20-inch 2.4 GHz iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,199 (US), includes:

• 20-inch widescreen LCD display;
• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with a 1066 MHz front-side bus;
• 1GB of 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 4GB;
• 250GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• a slot-load 8x SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB GDDR3 memory;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately);
• built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
• the Apple Keyboard, Mighty Mouse and infrared Apple Remote.

The new 20-inch 2.66 GHz iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:

• 20-inch widescreen LCD display;
• 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with a 1066 MHz front-side bus;
• 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 4GB;
• 320GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately);
• built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
• the Apple Keyboard, Mighty Mouse and infrared Apple Remote.

The new 24-inch 2.8 GHz iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,799 (US), includes:

• 24-inch widescreen LCD display;
• 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with a 1066 MHz front-side bus;
• 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 4GB;
• 320GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately);
• built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
• the Apple Keyboard, Mighty Mouse and infrared Apple Remote.

 Get Yours Today

Personally I think this is one of Apple’s best “Get a Mac” ads because it makes the statement that “Mac’s operating system and hardware are all made by the same people” and this is the reason why the Mac just works, It’s not the PC’s fault he has issues…

I believe there where a lot of smiles on the faces of Apple Airport Extreme owners who have been counting or should I say waiting on Apple to come through with a fix for the Time Machine support of Airport Extreme AirDisk drives.

All I can say is a big thanks goes out to Apple, right now two Mac Laptops in my home are happily backing up to my 1TB AirDisk drive connected to my Apple Airport Extreme. Once they are finished I will be backing up my main Mac to it as well.

You can update your Airport Firmware via Software Update or download it from here.

AirPort Extreme Base StationThe all new AirPort Extreme, 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless base station for Mac + PC, up to 5X the performance, up to 2X the range.

Claimed to be 3x faster than FireFox and 5x faster than Opera, Safari 3.1 is now available for Mac and PC as a free download.

And there’s also a stand alone donwloadable Tiger version which was near impossible to find with the previous version of Safari, not so good for anyone who may have damaged or erased Safari 3.

I have been using Safari 3.1 for a few days now and so far it’s stable and fast, not a single issue.

You can get Safari 3.1 for Mac and PC here

I’m a bit late getting this one out, the coverage has been really good so I thought it would be best to simply link to the Apple and MacRumors information on it:

• Apple March 6th Event - iPhone Software Roadmap
• iPhone SDK Details, First Look
• Apple Releases iPhone SDK, Demos Spore, Instant Messaging
• iPhone Enterprise Features: ActiveSync, Exchange, WPA2, Push Services
• iFund to Offer $100 Million in Seed Money to iPhone Developers
• iPhone Spore to be Released by EA in September
• Apple Will Allow Voice Over IP (VOIP) on Wifi
• iPhone Enterprise Beta Application
• Mass Email Move and Delete in 2.0, PowerPoint