Apple may be duking it out with Google over smartphones and tablets, but the search giant still has a long way to go before they eclipse the iPhone maker when it comes to the stock market. The same cannot be said for Microsoft, however, now that Mountain View has passed Redmond by nearly $2 billion. Meanwhile, Cupertino is readying their next quarterly results, and you can read all about it right here...
Looking to put a little more Microsoft into your Skype for Mac? The Skype Garage blog has announced the release of a new Skype 5.11 for Mac beta, which adds the ability to instant message with your Microsoft account-using friends -- which includes Messenger, Xbox, Hotmail or the new Outlook.com. These accounts can also be linked for displaying a unified contacts list between the services, and Facebook integration has also been improved with the new beta. Last but not least, different conversations can now be opened in separate windows, which ought to be a nice addition for the Chatty Kathies among us. You'll need to head over to the Skype beta website to grab it.
Will Apple CEO Tim Cook stand up on a conference table and yell "I'm king of the world!" at the next investor call? Probably not, but if you're waiting with baited breath to find out when the next conference call is going down, Apple's Investor Relations website has been updated on Monday night, announcing that its Q4 2012 earnings release will go down on Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 2pm PST (5pm EST). As usual, the event will have a live audio webcast and you'll be able to tune in to MacLife.com to read all about it as well.
Following a breaking news tweet from Bloomberg this morning, BGR is reporting that Google has wedged itself nicely between Apple and Microsoft when it comes to market capitalization. Having wrapped up trading on Monday with a market cap of $249.13 billion, Google is now the second-largest of any tech company in the world, flying past Microsoft's $247.23 by nearly $2 billion. Of course, the search giant still has a long way to go before it shoots past Apple's current market cap of $618 billion, but we imagine they're already scheming for ways to do just that.
MacRumors is reporting that Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent an email to employees on Monday with the good news that they'll once again be receiving an extended Thanksgiving vacation this year, with paid time off from November 19 to 21. "To recognize the efforts that made this amazing year possible, I’m happy to announce that we’re extending the Thanksgiving holiday once again this year," Cook writes. "We will shut down with pay on November 19, 20 and 21 so our teams can spend the whole week with their loved ones." As usual, retail staff and "some other teams" are excluded from the extended break, which also applies to international employees as well.
Close on the heels of a similar update to Aperture 3, Apple pushed out an iPhoto 9.4.1 update on Monday afternoon. The release notes detail four areas of interest to users, including improvements to the reliability of syncing to iOS devices with iTunes, crashing problems when using the Export command or upgrading multiple books, cards and calendars as well as an issue with downloading and viewing photos synced from Facebook albums. The whole shebang is available as a direct download weighing in at 757.62MB, or an even larger download for those with a Mac App Store version.
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