If you're not an Apple fan, we've got bad news for you: pretty much all the tech news this week revolved around the Cupertino corporation.
There was a brand new OS, some brand new computers, a whole bunch of rumours and some truly staggering numbers - and those numbers might just show us the way computing is heading.
That's what columnist Gary Marshall reckons, anyway.
With Apple reporting yet another record financial quarter, Marshall noted that "iPads are already outselling Macs... by a factor of two to one. Factor in Apple's staggering iPhone sales and the growing importance of the iPod touch [and] it's clear that Apple is a mobile device firm first and a computer firm second."
It's not just about Apple, though. It's about all kinds of mobile devices. "In 2002, the number of PCs in the world reached 1 billion. That took twenty-one years," Marshall says. "After just four years, the combined sales of iOS and Android are nearing the half-billion mark already... this isn't the end of the PC. It's the rebirth of the PC."
New MacBook Air and Mac Mini
While iPhone 5 rumours continue to spread around the net, we had more solid things to think about. Apple killed the popular white MacBook for everyone but educational customers, which is the end of an era: it was the last bit of kit Apple made in pure white, and its demise prompted teary-eyed MacFormat editor Graham Barlow to declare that "I'm sorry to see 'Apple white' removed from Apple's Mac line-up."
The end of the white MacBook makes the new MacBook Air the entry-level Mac laptop, and there's a new Mac Mini for those of you who don't need mobility. The revised Mac Mini is faster and prettier than before, and it comes without an optical drive. "Those DVD makers must have really upset Apple somewhere along the line," Patrick Goss writes.
Apple clearly believes that the era of the optical disk is coming to a close, and it's putting its operating system where its mouth is: the new OS X Lion is download-only, although you'll be able to buy a pricey USB stick later this year. However, the OS has hardly got off to a slow start - 1 million copies have already been downloaded.
As you'd expect from us, we've catered for every conceivable OS X Lion need: we've got a hands-on Lion review from someone who discovered that Lion killed their pricey Logic Pro music software; we have a tutorial showing you how to get the best from multi-touch gestures; we have an in-depth guide that tells you everything you need to know, including how to get your Mac ready for the update, and we're keeping an eye on which applications have been upgraded to take advantage of Lion's new auto-save and file versioning features. So far that list includes Apple's iWork suite, which was updated last night.
So is Lion the mane event, or a cat-astrophe? We think it's the former, and not just because it costs just £20.99 for every Mac you might own. However, it might be well to heed our warning: "if you're using non-Apple kit or older software or hardware, we'd recommend checking for compatibility before hitting the App Store." If you rely on anything to get your work done, make sure it's compatible.
As if that wasn't enough, Apple also launched the world's cheapest monitor. Only kidding: it's £899. But what a monitor it is: twenty-seven inches of Apple Thunderbolt LED Display with a FaceTime webcam, speakers, Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire 800, USB 2.0 and a free horse. We're lying about the horse.
