Apple

Apple Inc. set a U.S. record for market value, surpassing the high mark reached by Microsoft Corp. during the Internet heyday, on optimism that the next version of the iPhone will meet high demand. The shares of Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple rose 2.6 percent to $665.15 at the close in New York, for a market value of $623.5 billion. That overtook Microsoft's $616.3 billion closing market capitalization on Dec. 27, 1999, according to data compiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices. Apple is preparing to introduce the next version of the iPhone on Sept.

Wireless-industry analyst Roger Entner calls it the "Apple blackout. " Fans of the old TV comedy series Get Smart might think of it as the Apple "cone of silence" - the shroud due to descend momentarily on just about any technology news unrelated to the iPhone 5, which Apple is expected to unveil next week. The cone's inevitable descent surely explains why some of the biggest names in non-Apple technology took to the stage Wednesday to tout several of their latest inventions - mostly well before they'll actually hit the market.

In the latest example of the dicey line between the virtual world and the real one, Apple Inc. yesterday apologized for selling Baby Shaker, an iPhone application that let users silence an imaginary crying infant by shaking the multimedia device. The 99-cent "app" was removed from Apple's online store on Wednesday, two days after it debuted (although it endures on YouTube). Outraged child-welfare groups that decried it as "horrifying" and "reckless" demanded an apology - which they finally got. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said in a statement that the software was "deeply offensive" and should not have been approved for sale.

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.

"We're putting all our cash in the bank, dumping the contents of the slot machines, taking chips off the floor then locking them away. " - Dennis Gomes, co-owner of Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, on preparations for Hurricane Irene. "It was nothing more than an economic pep talk. " - Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com, on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's Friday speech. "He appears to be saying that the Fed has largely played its part and that the politicians need to step up their game.

Will it be the next iPod or the new Newton? If there were an app for foreseeing truly revolutionary technology, Apple could have made a bundle in the weeks preceding yesterday's unveiling of its new, tablet-size portable computer dubbed - drumroll, please - the iPad. Though no one knew exactly what it would be called or do, techno-pundits gushed that it could "change everything," starting with newspapers, books, and television. One writer called it, only partly tongue-in-cheek, "the most eagerly awaited tablet since Moses.

I'd been on the lookout for a final taste of 2010, a last bite of the apple, so to speak. But there wasn't much time or energy left in me one day last week. I'd already had way too much of a lunch at the Dutch Eating Place in the Reading Terminal Market - my old standby cup of beef-vegetable soup and, this time, a roast turkey sandwich with gravy and creamy mashed potatoes. So on the way out the door - passing by the Fair Food Farmstand - I decided to grab an apple. Let's be more precise.

Jaded by juggling multiple remotes? Confounded by the connections linking your TV to your cable box to your DVD and other devices in your television room? Ignorant of how to switch inputs - or even which control to use? You know who you are, and some of you have spent time at my house. Microsoft, the long-dominant software-maker lately eclipsed by Apple's smartphones and tablets, says it has an answer: a central command station for your television, gaming, music, Internet video, even Skype video calls - all controlled by your voice and gestures.

Reputations die hard in this genteel Southern town - especially for hard- drinking, boy-crazy, country singers from the wrong side of the tracks. This was the home of Patsy Cline, the country music legend who died in a plane crash in 1963. But for years there were no streets named after her, no memorials, no way to know where she was born or where she was buried. The chamber of commerce doesn't even mention her in its tourist guide, although the tomb of Lord Fairfax, "proprietor of the Northern Neck of Virginia" in the mid-1700s, is listed prominently under "Points of Interest.

Apple Computer Inc.'s debt was cut to the status of a junk bond yesterday, while a key survey said the personal-computer maker slipped to third in world-market share from second place. The double-dose of bad news comes as Apple is struggling with losses, takeover talks, and a restructuring plan to try to resurrect its battered business prospects. Standard & Poor's lowered its rating on $300 million worth of Apple's debt to "junk" level, citing expected operating losses, uncertain strategic direction, and management turmoil.