Whoever came up with the idea for iPod and the Mac-Window hybrid ought to get a Christmas bonus the size of Rhode Island! Gene Munster, an analyst at Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray says Apple's Mac sales could reach 9 million in 2007. Okay, that's still a distant third to PC pushers HP and Dell. But ain't no chump change, either.

Munster credits the iPod for converting more consumers into Apple People "halo effect". If this halo effect keeps going on, the iPod may soon be canonized by the Vatican. The other thing going for Apple is its new line of Intel-powered Macs. Munster says Apple's Boot Camp software - the killer app that run Microsoft's Windows on the Mac - isn't hurting sales of its notebooks and desktops.

If the 9 million units (which is admittedly only guesswork based on market trends) fails to impress you, let us show you some very cold, very hard facts. Apple's fourth-quarter sales for its Mac line is already at 1.61 million. That's 1.61 million Macs sold within three months. If you're the stocks-betting type, we say put your money where Munster's mouth is - it's almost as sure as a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Universal Music Group is hoping to strike a deal with Apple wherein the music company will seek a royalty fee for every iPod sold. That's yesterday's news alright, so the question is would Apple jump at the prospect of giving Universal a piece of the iPod  financial windfall?

ITWire's Stan Beer's opinion: Not likely. We know full well that iPod is the MP3 market leader and Zune is, well, let's just say a new fish who got lost in the iPod sea. Having said that, it's highly unlikely that Apple would see the benefit of sharing the company wealth to Universal.

Universal got Microsoft to sign the deal because it seriously thinks that in doing so, it would succeed in driving "a wedge between the music industry and Apple".  We're not discounting the possibility that it will work, but Microsoft has to successfully get a significant market share in the legal music download department. The way things are, it's going to be an uphill climb for Microsoft and Zune.

We tend to agree with Beer when he said this: "The clear message for Doug Morris and Universal is that their best bet of getting a piece of the action on iPod sales is to buy some Apple shares."

Apple Computer's new Core 2 Duo MacBook is such a big hit that orders for the month of November were somewhere around 300,000 units, according to Chinese newspaper Commercial Times. Apple's Taiwanese manufacturing partner Asustek Computer was expected to churn out 300,000 units this month and the paper also reported Apple will ship, more or less, another 30,000 Macbooks in December.

Analysts are expecting the sales of the mucho hot Core 2 Duo Macbooks to hover between 1.6 million and 1.8 million during last quarter of 2006. Earlier this year, Credit Suisse analyst said the company is expected to sell approximately a total of 2,908,000 MacBooks by the end of March 2007.

Trying to look for a cost-effective way of getting the most out of your Mac's OS X?  Josh Pigford over at theappleblog brought together a list of his favorite top ten Mac apps, and we were thinking you'd want to hear about them too. Here they are:

ChronoSync
Made by Econ Technologies, this app is a handy backup/disk syncing tool that's sure to come in handy in case anything goes wrong with your unit. Think superduper with more features. Price: US$ 30.

Connoisseur
Little App Factory's app is a cooking recipe database that not only displays recipes fullscreen, but also dictates them like your favorite cooking cooking shows. Also check out the recipe community for more recipes to your taste. Price: US$ 20.

Democracy
For the vidcast viewers, this handy little app allows you to pile up your vidcasts into one manageable load, in a way working as an RSS feed reader. And the best part about this app and its growing directory is that it's a freebie.

DeskShade
For guys who like keeping their desktop spotless, MacRabbit's app is just the program to pick up, as it instantly hides all your messy desktop icons with one click of a hotkey, and also includes other handy features for your use. Price: US$ 12.95.

GarageSale
This app's for the Mac user tired of using eBay's uber-slow listing submission form. It's a full-featured client application for the eBay auction system, and should help not only speed up your auction posting, but also allows for a higher degree of customizability with its healthy assortment of templates and its compatibility with iPhoto. Price: US$ 29.99.

The rest of the apps after this jump!

Someone must have rolled over in his grave when MacUser.com's Aaron Freedman wrote the following words: "I never thought IÂ?d say this, but it seems that Microsoft has a product that works better with the Mac than the Sony equivalent." He was talking about his observation that the Xbox 360 system meshes with Apple systems, but that the Sony PS3 didn't.

However, just looking back at our coverage of both consoles, and the comments to Aaron's article, sounds like he needs to make a revision of observation.

There's the observation that "the PS3 can't play music directly off the iPod." Uh, Victor B., can you help me out here? "... the 20 GB video iPod was recognized by the PS3, but you'll need to use the above-mentioned Display All feature to view everything on your iPod." (The "Display All" feature is simply pressing Triangle to browse through - and play - the content of connected media storage devices like the iPod).

And besides, as a MacUser commenter pointed out, both the PS3 and Xbox 360 won't play iTunes-signed music content. But then again, that's Apple's DRM, not MS or Sony.

Now there are things that the Xbox can do with Apple that the PS3 can't, but that's because of the one-year lead time of the Microsoft console, which gives hackers time to play with both devices. The 360 controller could be used with a Mac through a hacked driver and the USB cable, which we won't visit for all the potential EULA repercussions. Even Aaron admits that the SIXAXIS communicates through Bluetooth, which can, in due time, talk to a Mac as well (again, with all potential EULA repercussions). And the SIXAXIS has a USB connection too, by the way.

That's Aaron's admission: in due time, hackers will probably develop more drivers and code that will enable the PS3 to communicate with the Mac and iPod and God-knows-what-else, creating a very weird menage-a-troi lovefest electronica that neither MS, nor Sony, nor Apple would have envisioned (toss in the Wii and now we have a party!). Enough said.

Apple's jump to portable video not being appreciated much? As Ars Technica reports, owners of video-enabled iPods haven't been using the video capabilities of their iPods much. Based on Nielsen Media Research's findings, only 15.8% of vid-iPod owners actually played even a single video on their iPods. And for those who actually watch video on vid-iPods, it only took up around 11% of their iPod time.

Nielsen's theory is that most who purchased a video iPod simply purchased them for the extra gigs of memory rather than the video playback function. Another probable reason is that portable video isn't taking off as fast as the market hoped it would (Insert implications for Microsoft's Zune here). Nielsen did admit that there had been some "technical difficulty" in collecting this research data, which led to instances of incomplete data in their presentation.

On the other hand, video sales on iTunes are taking off, despite this apparent low portable video usage from vid-iPods. The probable conclusion drawn (we don't know if it was by Nielsen or by Ars Technica - they weren't specific) from this is that watching video on the boob tube pwns watching video on the small screen of an iPod any day of the week. Nothing earth-shaking about that discovery, come to think of it.

Okay, before we start, let me just clarify that I'm merely reporting my source's opinion on Zune and iPod, so that means this isn't my, or QJ's opinion on the said topic.

Having that said, let's go on RDM's take on Microsoft's latest gadget, the Zune. For those who aren't in the know, Zune is Microsoft's portable media player, slated for release tomorrow.

As such, it was touted as "iPod's latest killer." However, our source points out that it may not be the case. Why? Let's check out all three reasons.

First off, Apple's winter strategy was to lower the iPod's price, to make it a viable gift for the holidays. Our source reports that most users would consider the iPod as a luxury item for themselves, and because it's branded as such, consumers won't think of it as a feasible gift for the holidays. Apple seems to know that, so to cash in the holiday frenzy, the price of the iPod is slashed during its winter season so that consumers will see it as an affordable gift this Christmas, generating more income for Apple in the long run.

Second, our source points out that the Zune is rather heftier than the iPod, and it being bulky may become a problem, as it is a portable music device.

Lastly, RDM says that the Zune's radio transmitter and rather large screen drains the battery life faster, which may lead to customer complaints. After all, a portable device should have long battery hours, as it is always on the go (and stopping over some place just to charge it is such a hassle).

As said earlier, these are just our source's views on Zune. How about you, what do you think?

If you hear a belly-full of ho-ho-ho's this Season of Shopping, it just may be Steve Jobs laughing all the way to the bank. That is, if Blackfriars Communications' Carl Howe did a Nostradamus. According to Howe, Apple will sell some 20 million units of iPods worth US$ 3.3 billion this last quarter. Howe's forecast is even higher than that of ATI which predicted iPod sales of a "measly" 14 million.

But unlike most predictions, Howe's is based on Apple's marketing strategy:

• iPod pricing is more varied: Last year, the iPod's price range went from a low of $99 to a high of $129. This year iPod shuffles price dips to an all-time low of $79  and within the reach of more consumers. Howe thinks Apple will make a killing from higher sales volumes.
• iPod target market is more varied: Last year, the iPod was basically a digital music player. This year, iPod's services has expanded to include downloadable movies and sports. iPod accessories (and there must be one iAccessory for every iOccasion) and car integration kits are also helping the iPod fit a wider variety of needs.
• iPod is easier to purchase: Over 150 Apple retail stores makes it easy for people to buy iPods. High-end shops such as New York's Fifth Avenue, Tokyo's Ginza , and London's Regent Street stores are also luring the snooty set by selling iPods in fashionable shopping set-ups that makes them feel superior to the rest of us. When products are placed as near as possible to consumers with money to spend, the result is sales. Apple is doing that by positioning its stores and its iPods close to the people for whom an iPod costs less than their average lunch.
  

Finally, Howe says Apple about to reap the fruits of its five years of investments in music and retail because few competitors have done as much for as long. "It will also take years for anyone to dislodge it from its now dominant position,"  said Howe.

Financial analyst company American Technology Research (ATR) says Apple is right for the picking if your shopping for stocks. Historically, the company's value skyrockets after its annual MacWorld Expo held at the start of the year. But ATR thinks the ship will launch even before.

According to ATR, Apple's stocks will continue to float thanks to the Mac and iPod record-setting sales during the September Quarter which is predicted to continue into the holiday shopping season. Included in Apples catalog of winners for the next quarter are the MacBook notebooks and the new MacBook Pro running on Intel's Core 2 Duo processors.

Fifth-generation iPod video sales aren't slacking off, either. Apple's aggressive pricing, improved battery life, higher video resolution, movie content and video games are some of the factors that continue to fuel the iCraze. "We believe improved video battery life, higher video resolution, movie content, and video games are helping drive sales," ATR said. "Nanos continue to rebound helped by lower price points, 24-hour battery life, multiple colors, and scratch-resistant casing."

Then there's the new entry-level iPod shuffle. The $79 iBargain could be the top selling iPod this quarter says ATR. All in all ATR forecasts Apple's last quarter fortune to be around US$6.1 billion in revenues from the estimated sales of14 million iPods and 1.8 million Macs.

What happens after year 2006? ATR says Apple will continue to be a crunchy investment with the launch of its Mac OS X Leopard, iTV, movie content partners beyond Disney, new iPod features including widescreen and wireless Bluetooth capability, and cell phones.

Oh, thank goodness. Read up on Marie's MacBook Pro update if you want to know what other new and upgunned goodies Apple packed into that gleaming notebook casing, but for now, let us focus on the one update that matters: why the MacBook won't burn your lap (for the most part).

Jason O'Grady reveals in The Apple Core blogs that he left his 2.33GHz MacBook Pro four hours straight, and its temp hasn't gone higher than 122º Fahrenheit (50 on the Celsius scale), according to the CoreDuoTemp monitoring homebrew. That's 40 degrees F (4.4º C) cooler than the hottest his old 2.0GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro got, about a scorching 162º F (72.2º C)! On average, the new MacBook Pro ran at about 115º F (46.1º C).

Jason noticed that the internal fans in his MacBook would run more often than he was used to hearing from his old one. He's betting that Apple made a major adjustment to the System Management Controller (SMC) firmware that controls the notebook's power and cooling functions.

There were a couple of skeptical comments to Jason's post. One, in particular, was betting that all this constant running on the fans would cause the fans to wear out faster (Hope that still falls under the warranty). Then again, heat was a major complaint among MacBook owners, and this could be Cupertino's way of saying "we're sorry?" If any of you guys have gotten your new MacBook Pros, tell us: are they no longer among the hottest items around?