AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said in an interview that he plans to shift the company’s focus away from the U.S. landline phone business into wireless.

Apple’s iPhone has sold 17 million units worldwide since it was launched in June of 2007.

AT&T declined to comment on the report and repeated its previous statement that it had a multi-year agreement with Apple. An Apple spokeswoman also had no comment on the Journal report.

Apple has a number of relationships with other wireless carriers who service the iPhone in 80 countries. Those carriers include 02 in the United Kingdom, Softbank in Japan, Orange in France and T-Mobile in Germany.

The Journal also said Stephenson spent several months in 2008 evaluating potential acquisitions in India, including a deal with Indian cell phone giant Reliance Communications Ltd.

Stephenson ultimately decided that the potential price of as much as $30 billion, was too high, the Journal said, quoting people familiar with the discussions.

“The new Mac Pro is a significant upgrade and starts at $300 less than before,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The Mac Pro features an advanced system architecture, new faster processors and our best-ever graphics options to deliver a faster, more powerful system that our professional customers are going to love.”

The new Mac Pro includes Intel Xeon processors running at speeds up to 2.93 GHz, each with an integrated memory controller with three channels of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC memory that delivers up to 2.4 times the memory bandwidth while cutting memory latency up to 40 percent.** Every Mac Pro comes standard with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory, a high-performance graphics card with nearly three times greater performance when compared to the previous generation system.*** An optional ATI Radeon HD 4870 is available for even more performance. With both a Mini DisplayPort and DVI port, the new Mac Pro provides out-of-the-box support for the 24-inch Apple LED Cinema Display, the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display, or other DVI based displays.

An updated interior provides easy access to all components within the Mac Pro for hassle free expansion. The Mac Pro includes four direct-attach cable-free hard drive carriers for installing up to 4TB of internal storage when using 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA drives. An optional cable-free Mac Pro RAID card delivers performance up to 550MB/s **** and allows the four internal drive bays to be set up in RAID 0, 1, 5, or 0+1 configurations for improved disk performance and redundant data protection.

Continuing Apple’s commitment to the environment, the new Mac Pro exceeds Energy Star 4.0 requirements and is leading the industry as an early adopter of the more stringent Energy Star 5.0 requirements which will become effective later this year. The Mac Pro enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and the interior is designed to be more material-efficient. The Mac Pro uses PVC-free internal cables and components and contains no brominated flame retardants. The new Mac Pro achieves EPEAT Gold status.*****

Every Mac includes Leopard(R), the world’s most advanced operating system which features Time Machine(TM), an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac; a redesigned Finder(TM) that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs; Quick Look, the best way to instantly see files without opening an application; Spaces(R), an intuitive feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; Mail with easy setup and elegant, personalized stationery; and iChat(R), the most advanced video chat. Every Mac comes with Apple’s innovative iLife(R) ‘09 suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. iLife ‘09 features iPhoto(R), which introduces Faces and Places as breakthrough new ways to easily organize and manage your photos; iMovie(R) with powerful easy-to-use new features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand(R) which introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar. Optional Apple professional applications include Aperture(TM), Final Cut(R) Express, Final Cut Studio(R), Logic(R) Express, Logic Studio(R) and Shake(R).

Pricing & Availability

The new Mac Pro will be available next week through the Apple Store(R) (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

The new quad-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

• one 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3500 series processor with 8MB of L3 cache;
• 3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 8GB;
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB of GDDR3 memory;
• 640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
• Mini DisplayPort and DVI (dual-link) for video output (adapters sold separately);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire(R) 800 ports;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
• ships with Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Mighty Mouse.

The new 8-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $3,299 (US), includes:

• two 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 series processors with 8MB of shared L3 cache;
• 6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB of GDDR3 memory;
• 640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
• Mini DisplayPort and DVI (dual-link) for video output (adapters sold separately);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
• ships with Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Mighty Mouse.

Build to order options and accessories include: one 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor for the quad-core Mac Pro; two 2.66 GHz or two 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors for the 8-core Mac Pro; up to 8GB for the quad-core Mac Pro and up to 32GB for the 8-core Mac Pro of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory; up to four 1TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm; Mac Pro RAID card; up to two 18x SuperDrives with double-layer support; ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics with 512MB of GDDR5 memory; AirPort Extreme(R) 802.11n; Apple Keyboard, Apple Wireless Keyboard; Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse; Mac OS(R) X Server Leopard. Complete build-to-order options and pricing are available at www.apple.com/macpro.

“Imagine, you come back to your car from dinner and find a ticket on your windshield and you were positive you had parked legally. Now, without even leaving the scene, you can use your iPhone and begin to fight your ticket. You react instantly to a ticket using your iPhone,” explains Glen Bolofsky, President of parkingticket.com.

The process begins by navigating the iPhone’s Safari browser to the parkingticket.com website where you’ll find a straightforward means to fight a parking ticket; whether the ticket was issued in New York City, San Francisco, Boston,Philadelphia or Washington, D.C. Simply register for a free account and choose the city in which the ticket was issued. Enter your ticket and vehicle details then answer a few quick questions. The detailed process takes about ten minutes, from A-Z. To allow easy entry of your ticket, a look-a-like parking ticket is displayed – for your specific city – with interactive functionality.

Thanks to iPhone’s camera, parkingticket.com suggests the recipient snap lots of photos including: the actual sign, a full perspective of the entire street showing all the signs and the actual street address of where the ticket was issued. “Multiple photos’ can help you win the case,” says parkingticket.com.

To have parkingticket.com prepare a guaranteed dismissal request letter customers post 50 percent of the fine amount at the onset of the process. If parkingticket.com is successful in assisting you in getting the ticket dismissed, then the upfront deposit is retained by parkingticket.com. If, after a hearing, the parking ticket fine is reduced, rather then dismissed, parkingticket.com retains half of the amount you saved and refunds the balance. After the hearings take place, if parkingticket.com is unsuccessful in getting the ticket dismissed or reduced they will not only refund the posted payment, but also pay you an additional $10.00 just for trying! So, now, iPhone users will get paid to fight their tickets if they are not dismissed or reduced.

The software is made for an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch and works over any available network connection. Transactions can be processed at places such as conventions, street fairs, antique shows, and by business owners performing mobile detailing, on-site consultation or construction. The list is endless on who could benefit by offering the convenience of accepting credit cards on the spot and the confidence of getting immediate authorization for a credit card payment.

The software performs captures, authorizations, voids and credits. It utilizes multiple database tables for recording transactions and repeating sale information, such as order, shipping, and customer info. There is also an option to add a gratuity to the final charge.

“Since the announcement of ProcessAway last month, there has been a tremendous amount of interest for versions that operate with other gateways,” states Randy Palermo, Member of Rapadev, LLC, the developer of the software. “We are currently expanding the line to accommodate these requests.” The current version of ProcessAway works only with the Authorize.net gateway. “We realize there is a large number of gateways and resellers that can benefit by offering iPhone credit card processing. We hope ProcessAway can fulfill this need, and welcome contact from interested parties wanting to adapt the software for specific gateways.” Currently under development are versions for NMI, PayLeap, and Chase Paymentech, along with privately branded version for specific resellers.

ProcessAway for Authorize.net is available in Apple AppStore for $19.99. Additional information, video, screenshots, and FAQ’s can be found at http://www.processaway.net.

Apple also added the Cover Flow interface now found in almost every piece of its software to let users scroll backwards through browsing history as if they were flipping through album covers, and what appears to be Apple’s own implementation of FireFox’s Smart Location “awesome bar” called Smart Address Field.

The new beta version is available for download at Apple’s Safari Web page with both Windows and Mac OS versions ready for testing. Mac users need to be running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 and Apple’s latest security update or Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 on an Intel Mac or a G3 or better Mac. Windows users need Windows XP SP 2 or Vista.

Safari is used by about 8 percent of Internet surfers, according to Net Applications, trailing Internet Explorer and FireFox.

Apple senior director of system software Brian Croll said the performance improvements are the result of a new JavaScript engine called Nitro. Apple used the SunSpider benchmark to post the JavaScript results, and the iBench benchmark for the HTML numbers, he said.

Croll emphasized Safari 4’s support for Web standards like HTML 5, which allows Web applications to work while offline, and CSS 3 for adding graphical effects. Safari 4 has passed the Acid3 test developed by the Web Standards Project, while FireFox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 have yet to do so, he said.

As far as changes that will be more visible to average users, Safari 4 moves the tabs from below the address bar to the very top of the window, and allows you to add a new tab by clicking a “+” sign in the uppermost right-hand corner of the window.

Apple added some new history browsing options, such as the aforementioned Cover Flow interface in the basic history view as well as a new feature called Top Sites, which checks the various Web sites you visit most frequently and arranges them in a grid pattern. If one of your Top Sites has published new content since the last time you visited, a white star on a blue background appears in the upper right-hand corner of the view for that site.

Windows users will notice a new “Windows-native look,” according to Croll, that uses the standard Windows font rendering. Safari has been available as a Windows browser since June 2007.