This week Apple announced that it is going to discontinue Xserve after January 31, 2011. Apple will not be developing a future version of Xserve. Customers may choose between the Mac Pro with Snow Leopard Server, and the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server. Both systems should replace existing Xserve systems. The documentation notes that the 12-core Mac Pro with Snow Leopard Server meets or exceeds the performance of the baseline Xserve hardware. The Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server, on the other hand, is significantly outperformed by Xserve, but it has been Apple's most popular server system since its introduction in the fall of 2009.

In the screenshot above, you can see a Macbook Air with a picture of the new Mac App store, which divines some potential prices for Apple's official apps.  This is directly from Apple’s website. So, what are the prices? Turns out they're pretty close to current software prices. The iLife apps are priced out at $14.99, while the iWork apps are priced at $19.99, and when you add them all up, they cost about the same as the bundles you can buy in the Apple retail store. There's also a few other titles at various prices. There's a dice game called Roll 'Em which is priced for free, an app called Color Studio at $29.99, and another game called Fast Lane priced at just $4.99.  If this is a real picture of what some of the Mac apps might cost then it will be interesting to see what we get when the store officially opens.

If you ever wondered what Apple thought were the very best apps of the last two years, there’s now a list for that. Apple has launched a new section of the iTunes App Store, a Hall of Fame, containing everything iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad from Angry Birds to Zen Bound 2. There are around 50 apps honored so far and includes news, travel, sports, entertainment, productivity, and of course, lots of great games. The list includes both free and paid apps. Apple did a great job selecting these. Of course, they were probably helped by the massive app sales data they have. Most, if not all of the apps, are fairly “obvious” choices that you probably already own.

What app is now on the top of the list? No wondering, it is Angry Birds.

Apple seeds Mac OS X 10.6.6 build 10J521 to developers on Thursday ahead of the public release of Mac OS X 10.6.5. The changelog for Mac OS X 10.6.6 notes that the beta "contains developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts." App Store receipts could be a reference to the recently announced Mac App Store that is coming to Snow Leopard in the next three months. Strangely, the download is only 3.7MB. The last update to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard came in the form of 10.6.4 in June. Mac OS X 10.6.4 resolved issues with the trackpad and Adobe's Creative Suite 3.

This week Barron's site published a forecast of Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair, which reveals details on Apple’s suggested progress based on the study of the company's supply chain. He is assured the Cupertino's company will sell 100 million iPhones, which in turn means almost 100% year over year sales growth for the device in 2011. Besides that, the analyst also suggested the number of iPads sold will reach 45-48 million next year.

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Yesterday Apple released an update 9.1 to the iPhoto'11 application to solve a problem causing data loss for some users upgrading from iPhoto '09. The update also restores support for the photo calendars that had gone missing in the initial iPhoto '11 release on October 20. It adds several new print product options to iPhoto '11 and also improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues:

• Provides the ability to create and order calendars in iPhoto.
• Additional letterpress holiday greeting card themes are now available.
• Fixes an issue that prevented videos downloaded from MobileMe or Flickr from importing correctly into iPhoto events.
• The update is recommended for all users of iPhoto '11.

Download iPhoto Update 9.1.

Apple sent registered Mac developers emails inviting them to begin submitting programs to the Mac App Store. Moreover, on the Apple's developer website appeared the above banner. That means that Apple has started accepting Mac Apps for their upcoming Mac App Store. The Mac App Store was announced in October as part of Mac OS X Lion's feature set. Apple claimed that it would be launched in 90 days from the time of the announcement. The Mac App Store mirrors many of the submission guidelines and policies as the iOS App Store. The Mac App developer program is $99/year just like the iOS App developer program.

Gizmodo posted shots of dorm blocks, in which Foxconn’s factory workers spend their off-duty lives. Men and women have separate facilities. Eight workers sleep in four bunk beds in a room about the size of a two-car garage. Long shifts, under-exploited exercise equipment, sinks on the balconies, where workers have to wash their clothing and themselves, and tiny televisions (one per a floor) in depersonalized common rooms, this is life at Foxconn’s iPhone factories. Since a spate of eleven suicides earlier this year, every building on the Foxconn campus is draped in netting. It is morbid but seemingly effective; there have been no suicides since the nets were installed in May.

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Recently Voalte has added an additional hospital to their client list. Parkview General Hospital will now be utilizing the iPhone as a primary communications tool throughout their entire building. Parkview General in Fort Wayne is the fifth hospital client for Voalte, which uses the iPhone’s Wi-Fi platform to pull together medical alarms, text and voice messages into one device a nurse can use from anywhere in the building.

Some days ago Apple released a brand new iPad commercial entitled "iPad is Electric" and posted it to the company's iPad site and YouTube page. The new advertisement offers the same music, format as the other iPad’s commercials and follows the same of theme of displaying a series of quick shots of the iPad's capabilities interspersed with corresponding single-word descriptions relevant to the "iPad is..." theme.

Apple sent e-mails to music label representatives to inform them that it that it is preparing to extend the length of iTunes Store song previews in the United States. The new 90 second samples only affect songs that are longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with shorter songs keeping the original 30 second preview length. The company believes that longer songs samples will lead to more purchases. Apple's email notes that by continuing to offer their music on the iTunes Store, labels are indicating their acceptance of the new terms. But it didn’t say any time frames when the extended previews will be available to U.S. customers.

A new iPhone and iPad mobile browser from Skyfire was recently approved by Apple. This new iOS application converts Flash-based video to HTML5 for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users. The app, which is priced at $2.99 and tomorrow will be available for download from the App Store, activates a function that allows Flash video content in the browser to be sent to Skyfire's servers, converted to HTML5, and sent back to the device for display. However, it won't work with Flash-based games, which require interactivity, or popular TV streaming site Hulu.

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During October 2010 ChangeWave surveyed 3,108 consumers to understand the latest trends and demand on the PC and Netbook markets, including the impact of the iPad. Here are some interesting facts that were revealed by the research company:

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Katy Huberty, who is a well-known analyst at Morgan Stanley, posted a new report, where she notes that China is a potential growth driver for Apple, but the fact still remains unappreciated by Apple's investors.

"...Despite steady upturn since February 2009, we continue to believe investors underappreciate the AAPL growth story, which is driven by one, iPhone market share gains and expanded distribution; two, the iPad market opportunity; three, rising enterprise adoption, and four, the Chinese consumer."

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As we all remember, Apple announced that the white iPhone 4 won't appear in retail until spring 2011. But it seems not a problem for a German e-tailer Notebook.de, which has already started shipping the elusive handset. But its price is quite high! A plain, black iPhone 4 16GB would set you back between €649 and €699 in the EU market, but the white one goes for €1999. The 32GB model is listed at €2199. The retailer specifically states that phones in question are not modified in any way and that they are factory packaged, describing them as a "rarity".

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