Apple

Near the end of The Tempest by William Shakespeare, the magician Prospero promises that he'll retire, that "deeper than did ever plummet sound, / I'll drown my book. " Starting with the 1623 First Folio collection of Shakespeare, where it is the very first play, books have brought The Tempest to millions and millions of people. And now . . . there's Shakespeare's The Tempest for iPad. Prospero would love it. It's like Ariel in a box. This app is, for one thing, an e-book, a carefully edited text of the play you can read just as in a book, 1616- or 1990-style.

NEW YORK - Apple said Monday that an independent group, the Fair Labor Association, had started inspecting working conditions in the Chinese factories where its iPads and iPhones are assembled. Amid growing criticism over labor and environmental practices - especially in China - Apple last month for the first time disclosed a list of suppliers for its gadgets. The Fair Labor team began the inspections Monday at Foxconn City in Shenzhen, China, Apple said. The complex employs and houses hundreds of thousands of workers.

NEW YORK - Apple briefly surpassed Exxon Mobil yesterday as the nation's most valuable company. The iPhone and iPad maker had the lead for much of the afternoon before its stock closed just behind Exxon's. The two companies are so close that Apple is likely to keep the top spot soon. Apple Inc.'s stock gained 5.9 percent to $374.01 yesterday, bringing its market capitalization to about $347 billion. Exxon Mobil Corp.'s stock, meanwhile, closed up 2.1 percent at $71.64.

Computerware Inc. has been chosen by Apple's education division as its exclusive sales organization for all Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware school districts. "Our education team worked long and intense hours to deliver the best proposal to Apple," said John Kovalcik, president of Computerware, noting that there was heavy competition. As Apple's representative in the area, Computerware will offer consulting and technology planning services, as well as increased support, service and configuration options, to education customers.

Q. I baked blueberry muffins with Jiffy Muffin Mix and they were good, but on the box it says "imitation blueberries. " What in the world are imitation blueberries? Mary Solek Tuckerton, N.J. A. Ruth Stone of the Chelsea Milling Company's customer relations department tells us that the blueberries in the mix are actually little bits of apples which are flavored and colored to look and taste like blueberries. Why does Jiffy do this? Two reasons are given. "An apple," says Stone, "is a very nutritious and healthful food, and we chose that from which to make our blueberries for that reason.

On a ridge above the Delaware River in northern Bucks County, an orchard's first Winesaps of the season were picked this week. The hillside apple orchard has already produced its Macouns and Empires and Jonathans, more than 20 kinds so far this year. Only two more tastes of autumn remain, still ripening, up there above the river. And by the middle of November, even the still-untouched trees, the ones heavy with Romes and Granny Smiths, will have been stripped. "We're very late this year . . . maybe 15 days later than last year," said William Erkes, walking along that ridge line one afternoon this week.

When Fiona Apple finished singing the aptly titled "Sullen Girl" Wednesday at the Theatre of Living Arts, she turned her attention, somewhat reluctantly, to the capacity crowd. "OhmyGod, "Ohmigod, I don't know what to say," she gushed, seeming genuinely flustered. "I don't know if you know, but tonight is the last night of this tour. It's my first tour as a headliner, and I just want to be straight with you, I'm kind of freaking out. I've really not been handling it that well. I used to freak out before, but I was by myself.

Apple's stylish teal-blue iMac PC was a top seller last month, scoring a big win for the once-troubled computer giant. The rollout's success is a vindication of the strategy put into place by Steve Jobs, Apple's legendary founder, who returned to the company a year ago to bring it back from near-death. "Apple's future is in the consumer market," Jobs said in a recent interview. "There's no company doing a great job serving that market - Apple has that opportunity. " The iMac accounted for 7.1 percent of all PCs sold by retailers in November and 8.2 percent of PC revenues, according to market researcher PC Data.

NEW YORK - Apple Inc. said Sunday that it would announce Monday the outcome of its internal discussion concerning its huge cash balance, and analysts are expecting the company to institute a dividend. Apple can easily afford one, since it had $97.6 billion in cash and securities at the end of last year. That would be enough for a $100 onetime dividend for every shareholder, but analysts expect the company to institute a modest recurring dividend. Chief executive officer Tim Cook and chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer will discuss the decision in a conference call at 9 a.m. Eastern time Monday, the company said late Sunday.

When Fiona Apple first appeared on the Tower Theater stage Friday, she was clutching a stuffed animal and looking wary. Just days after melting down during an abbreviated performance at Roseland Ballroom in New York, the famously fragile waif, whose songs describe emotional troubles in exhaustive detail, appeared uneasy, maybe a tad anxious, not at all sure what would happen. Then she started to sing. Opening with the processional "On the Bound," Apple bellowed the melody as though battling a stubborn froggy throat.

"Move over, little dog, the Big Dog's movin' in. " That line, from a great Hank Williams tune, could well stand for the situation of writer Buzz Bissinger. A Pulitzer Prize-winning former Inquirer staffer, Bissinger is a big dog in the publishing world, with his 1990 book Friday Night Lights and much else. His forthcoming book Father's Day promises to be a publishing event. But he's only one person. Only one writer. Amazon.com, now that's a bigger dog. Apple is another.

Near the end of The Tempest by William Shakespeare, the magician Prospero promises that he'll retire, that "deeper than did ever plummet sound, / I'll drown my book. " Starting with the 1623 First Folio collection of Shakespeare, where it is the very first play, books have brought The Tempest to millions and millions of people. And now . . . there's Shakespeare's The Tempest for iPad. Prospero would love it. It's like Ariel in a box. This app is, for one thing, an e-book, a carefully edited text of the play you can read just as in a book, 1616- or 1990-style.

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon official signaled on Wednesday that the Army could lay off as many as 24,000 enlisted personnel and up to 5,000 officers within five years to meet a projected reduction in the force driven by budget cuts and the winding down of two wars. Pressed on the possibility of involuntary terminations, Thomas Lamont, an assistant secretary of the Army, told a Senate Armed Services panel that layoffs were possible as the Army shrinks from a peak of 570,000 to 490,000.

NEW YORK — Stronger profits from Microsoft, McDonald's and other major U.S. corporations pushed stocks higher Friday. Optimism from Europe helped brighten the mood. Before the market opened, McDonald's posted better quarterly profits, buoyed by warm weather and sales of new menu items such as Chicken McBites and oatmeal. Sales picked up even in Europe, McDonald's' biggest market, despite economic turmoil and severe weather. Microsoft beat analysts' projections with quarterly earnings and revenue, and sales in its Windows division were surprisingly strong.

Did Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg get a good deal last week when he bought Instagram for $1 billion — a deal he apparently negotiated on his own, even before telling his board of directors? Only time will tell whether a nifty app that turns crisp digital photos into old-Instamatic-like snapshots is worth that kind of money, even for the millions of users Instagram already has. For people like me, Instagram is surprisingly compelling, and I've enjoyed posting photos with it for much of the last year.

Discovering new music that's to your liking is simple and fun with the help of a few well-chosen applications for your smartphone. Shazam, by Shazam Entertainment Ltd., is a free app for Apple and Android that does one fine trick. Say you are out and about, and hear a song you like. Shazam will listen to a few seconds of music, identify the song, and link to all sorts of information about it. You can "tag" a song and share it on Facebook and Twitter, or send your find by e-mail to anyone or to your "Shazam friends.

For the purposes of this column, let's assume we're in the midst of another technology-stock bubble. I say "assume" because it's awfully hard to type the phrase "irrational exuberance" on a crowded Yahoo Finance message board without getting laughed off the Internet. But the notion did cross my mind Tuesday after the market capitalization of Apple Inc. briefly surpassed $600 billion. As it turned out, the giant sucking sound that is Europe's financial crisis exerted its downward force on U.S. stocks, affecting even the world's most valuable company.

Philadelphia Media Network Inc. released its 2012 Philly Pro Baseball app for the iPad, iPhone, Android phone, and Android tablet Monday. The publisher of The Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com said the app, which was developed in-house, will provide Twitter updates, blogs, columns and articles from the newspapers' Phillies' sportswriters. It also incorporates a play-by-play feature that will enable Phillies' fans to follow the progress of a game. The price of the app is 99 cents for the iPhone version and $2.99 for the iPad on Apple's iTunes, free on the Google Play app store, and 99 cents for phone and $1.99 for tablet on Amazon's Appstore for Android.

Fiona Apple is playing just a handful of small-venue shows this month in advance of the June release of her first album in seven years. (It has a 23-word title, the first three of which are The Idler Wheel .) So there was electricity in the air for Saturday night's sold-out performance at the cozy Music Box theater at the Borgata in Atlantic City - a space less than half the size of the casino hotel's Event Center, where marquee acts normally perform. That wasn't due only to the show's rarity or relative intimacy, though.

NEW YORK - Apple Inc. said Sunday that it would announce Monday the outcome of its internal discussion concerning its huge cash balance, and analysts are expecting the company to institute a dividend. Apple can easily afford one, since it had $97.6 billion in cash and securities at the end of last year. That would be enough for a $100 onetime dividend for every shareholder, but analysts expect the company to institute a modest recurring dividend. Chief executive officer Tim Cook and chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer will discuss the decision in a conference call at 9 a.m. Eastern time Monday, the company said late Sunday.