Stories by: Michael DeAgonia

It's been a busy June for Apple, starting with its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) and the release of new laptops, following that on June 17 with the release of the iPhone OS 3.0 operating system and capping it all off with the release of the iPhone 3GS on Friday in eight countries.

Apple Inc. today pushed out the much-anticipated iPhone OS 3.0 update that company execs touted at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference. After spending some time with iPhone 3.0 on both an original Edge-based iPhone and last year's 3G model, I can tell you the update makes even older phones more responsive and offers a number of improvements -- some of them long overdue. Aside from the new features I highlight below, iPhone owners who download the update through iTunes will notice that, overall, the user interface is smoother. Animations don't stutter as they did before and data loads more quickly.

Ah, the Apple App Store. Since July 2008, the month when Apple opened its wildly popular library of applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, the world has been treated to more than 20,000 apps, with some 500 million downloaded as of February 2009.

The Mac community this week has been debating an updated Knowledge Base article on Apple's Web site that raised questions about the company's stance on security. The recent update, which was pulled down on Tuesday, originally recommended that users install at least one antivirus software app. It was an odd statement given that Apple has often bashed rival Windows for being less secure than Mac OS X.

With the release of the iPhone 2.0 software on Friday and the opening of the App Store -- where hundreds of third-party applications are now available -- Apple's iPhone has taken a major leap toward becoming a premiere mobile platform.

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage on Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC), the focus of attention was on the new iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0 -- the coming firmware update for all iPhones that will bring with it a slew of new apps.

We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of the iPhone's release, so people who feel strongly about the popular smart phone have had plenty of time to weigh in with their wallets -- it's been a consistent seller since its US release last June 29 -- or with epithets. (Remember the early description of iPhone fans as "iPhonies?")

It has been just over six months since Mac OS X "Leopard" first shipped, bringing with it a slew of new features, a tweaked user interface, revamped underpinnings and -- as is often the case -- a healthy batch of complaints from users about problems. At the time, some in the Macintosh community even argued that Apple's new operating system was released before it was ready for prime time.

In front of me, two 30-inch Apple Cinema Displays glow softly at my desk. Beside me sits the fastest stock-configuration Macintosh that Apple has ever shipped: a superfast eight-core Mac Pro. Inside the Mac -- and on full display on those screens -- is Mac OS X 10.5, better known as Leopard, Apple's latest operating system. All around me is the work I've been putting off that is now getting done.

When it comes to Apple's new operating system, Leopard, users are likely to notice the flashy graphics and animations, the tight integration of applications and the speed with which it churns through data. What they don't see are a large number of the under-the-hood changes that Apple built in so that its own developers -- and those who come up with third-party apps -- use all of that underlying software goodness.