PCs

Apple buys a company that makes fingerprint readers

Picks up Florida-based AuthenTec Inc. for $356 million

FORTUNE -- Unless it changes its stripes, Apple (AAPL) is never going to buy Twitter, Netflix, TiVo, Facebook or any of the other headline-grabbing acquisitions that have been floated in the press.

Apple buys companies like AuthenTec (AUTH), which according to an SEC 8-K filing Friday was picked up by Apple for $8 a share, a 58% premium over AuthenTec's Thursday close of $5.07.

The Melbourne, Florida-based company MORE

Why did Facebook fall out of Apple's Mountain Lion?

Once again, Cupertino threw a social networking party and Facebook didn't show

FORTUNE --  First Ping, now Mountain Lion. You have to ask, what is it with Apple (AAPL) and Facebook (FB)?

Let's review.

Remember when Steve Jobs promised two years ago at the launch of iTunes Ping --  Apple's failed experiment in music social networking -- that thanks to its tight integration with Facebook you would be soon be able to see MORE

Apple's lackluster Q3 results: What the analysts are saying

Stronger than expected iPad sales failed to offset disappointing iPhone numbers

FORTUNE -- "It's a testimony to just how remarkable Apple's last few years have been," wrote Daring Fireball's John Gruber, putting a positive spin on Apple's (AAPL) surprisingly weak third quarter results, "that 23 percent year-over-year growth looks so bad on a chart."

Still 23% growth was a disappointment to Wall Street, which had expected better of Apple, and its analysts MORE

Apple's rare miss: Katy Huberty nailed it. The bloggers blew it.

The professional in Q3 made the independents look like what most of them are: Amateurs

FORTUNE -- "Don't play darts with Katy Huberty," one of our readers commented after Apple (AAPL) reported earnings Tuesday that fell short of every other analyst's expectations. "She's on a hot streak."

If ever there was a quarter in which it paid an Apple analyst to be cautious, this was it. Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty, whose low-ball MORE

Apple's earnings disappoint. Shares fall over $30 after hours

Reports profits of $8.8 billion on sales of $35 billion. Wall Street was looking for $37 billion.

FORTUNE -- Apple (AAPL) did a rare thing Tuesday: It disappointed Wall Street.

Although it reported sales and earnings ahead of its (typically) low guidance, and although CEO Tim Cook declared himself "thrilled" that the company sold a record 17 million iPads in the quarter, the stock immediately dropped more than $30 in after-hours trading.

Analysts had MORE

Horace Dediu and Gene Munster on Apple without Steve Jobs

Two of my favorite analysts on stage at the same time

FORTUNE -- At Fortune's annual Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colo., two of the most influential Apple (AAPL) analysts -- Asymco's Horace Dediu and Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster -- talked about the risks the company faces without Steve Jobs at the helm.

The moderator is Adam Lashinsky, author of (among other things) Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired -- and Secretive MORE

The (newly multilingual) Apple Store is down -- updated

Gone is the yellow Post-it note. In its place, a sign that says it'll be back soon in 18 languages

FORTUNE -- Apple's (AAPL) online store's "down for repairs/updating" sign has a new look. The yellow "We'll be back soon" Post-it has been replaced by more muted signage that is a lesson in multinationalism. At right: The message in French.

UPDATE: The store came back on line at 6:00 a.m. Eastern (3 MORE

Apple's iPod line: A $7.5 billion business that gets no respect

Sales may be falling, but they still represent nearly 10% of the company's revenue stream

FORTUNE -- You might think that after tracking them for nearly a dozen years, the analysts who follow Apple (AAPL) would have a better handle on the company's quarterly iPod sales. But Apple analysts tend to focus on the product lines that are still growing like gangbusters -- chiefly the iPad and the iPhone -- and they offer iPod MORE

How did the new MacBook Pros get Gold-level green ratings?

They may not stick. A recycling coalition says the notebooks flunk two key tests

FORTUNE -- Apple (AAPL) may have thought it put the EPEAT kerfuffle behind it with the release of Bob Mansfield's mea culpa letter Friday. (See Stop the presses! Apple admits it made a mistake.)

But having extricated itself from one environmental cow pie, the company may have stepped right into another.

Here's what happened.

On Friday, as promised in the MORE

Stop the presses! Apple admits it made a mistake.

Retiring hardware chief signs the mea culpa. Puts 39 products back on EPEAT green registry

FORTUNE -- "We've recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT." (emphasis ours)

The boldface sentence above -- taken from an open letter posted on MORE