Reprinted from TidBITS#827/01-May-06 with permission. Copyright (C) 2006, TidBITS. All rights reserved. http://www.tidbits.com/ MailBITS/01-May-06 ------------------ **Apple Posts $410 Million Q2 2006 Profit** -- Time to break out the tip jar: Apple reported just second-best performance for its second financial quarter of 2006. Then again, maybe Steve Jobs and company won't be penniless anytime soon. Apple sold 1.1 million Macintosh computers and 8.5 million iPods during the quarter ending 01-Apr-06, compared to 1.07 million Macs and 5.3 million iPods one year ago. That translated to revenue of $4.36 billion and a net quarterly profit of $410 million. Apple's haul for the first financial quarter of 2006 broke company records with a $565 million profit, which included the holiday buying season. In a press release, Jobs boasted that the company has "generated over $10 billion in revenue and almost $1 billion in earnings in the first half of fiscal 2006" and cited success in the transition to Intel processors as well as strong online music sales. [JLC] **Apple Updates GarageBand, iWork, and More** -- Apple posted a trio of updates while TidBITS was on hiatus last week. GarageBand 3.0.2, according to the company's terse announcement, "addresses issues with video handling, podcast exporting, and importing QuickTime markers. It also addresses a number of other minor issues." The update is a 32.2 MB download via Software Update or as a 30 MB stand-alone download. Apple's iWork '06 updates also appear to be bug fixes. Pages 2.0.1 (a 20 MB download) sees repairs to its charting and image adjustment features, while Keynote 3.0.1 (a 39 MB download) tackles three-dimensional charts with textures; both also address other unspecified issues. Lastly, the Apple Keyboard Update 1.0 is a 12 MB download that improves reliability of the keyboard and mouse on the first Intel-based MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini models. [JLC] **LaunchBar 4.1 Adds Scripts and Dictionary Lookups** -- Objective Development has released LaunchBar 4.1, the latest version of their highly useful (and for some of us, utterly essential) keyboard-based launching utility. LaunchBar's basic approach remains unchanged: press a keyboard shortcut like Control- Spacebar; type an abbreviation that does not have to be pre-defined; and press Return (to open the item), right arrow (to access more data or related documents), or Spacebar (to start a search with the next bit of text you type). But LaunchBar 4.1 adds some helpful features, including the capability to look up words in Mac OS X's Dictionary application, a new indexing rule that scans a folder for AppleScript and shell scripts (including a bunch of new built-in scripts), new smart groups for personal and corporate contacts in Address Book, and new Address Book scanner options. Also improved are LaunchBar's general speed, recognition of URL fragments, iTunes support, Spotlight search, and Address Book browsing. LaunchBar 4.1 is a free upgrade for owners of LaunchBar 4.0; it's an 865K download, requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later, and is a universal binary. New copies cost $20 for individuals, $30 for a five-user family license, and $40 for businesses. Perhaps what I like most about updates to LaunchBar, however, is the way they cause me to reexamine what LaunchBar can do for me. For instance, I use Now Contact for contacts, and although LaunchBar can't index my Now Contact file, realizing that made me remember that I could synchronize my contacts from Now Contact to Address Book, which LaunchBar can index. Plus, poking around in LaunchBar's search templates reminded me of several Web sites that I can search directly from within LaunchBar. I've tried similar utilities, but for speed and accurate guesses at my abbreviations, none have surpassed LaunchBar. [ACE] .