September 9 is indeed the day for the next official Apple press event, according to Apple itself via press invitations that were sent out today. The event will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, CA at 10AM Pacific. That’s 1PM Eastern for those of us over here on the other coast. Other time zones will have to do their own fancy math adjustment.

The tagline for the event is “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it,” and the image being circulated with the invitation features a traditional dancing silhouette with white iPod and headphones. All of which makes it seem very likely that people expecting a tablet announcement will be somewhat disappointed, but that those looking forward to new iPod models will probably have something to celebrate.

The title is a riff on British rockers The Rolling Stones’ track “It’s Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It).” There has been speculation that fellow British rock sensation The Beatles would finally be coming to the iTunes Store at this event, since it’s the same day Beatles Rock Band ships, but so far that remains up in the air.

Another possible reason for the September 9 date, which falls on a Wednesday instead of following the traditional Apple-event Tuesday pattern, is iTunes 9. Recently, there have been many rumors surrounding the next major point upgrade of Apple’s music and media management software, so expect to see it arrive next Wednesday, complete with added social networking capabilities and possibly additional features that take advantage of new iPod hardware improvements.

Now that many of us have upgraded to Snow Leopard, I would like to start a forum where you can share your favorite UI changes. Use Command + Shift + 3, Command + Shift + 4, a third party screenshot capture tool, or links to your favorite photo sharing site. I’ll start it off with my favorites.

Expose

Below is a screenshot of a new Expose feature in Snow Leopard. I opened six Safari windows and simply clicked on the Safari dock icon for a second. The dock icon lights up while the rest of the dock darkens. Very fast. Very slick.

Airport

Next is the new Airport menu. We finally have signal strength next to the network name. Before, a third-party tool was required for this.

Services

Honestly, I have never used the Services feature in the Finder. It’s cluttered and confusing. Now, it’s smart enough to know what I want to do and provide the correct options. A more thorough write up of the new Services feature is coming to TheAppleBlog shortly.

Leave a comment with links to screenshots of your favorite UI changes in Snow Leopard!

We love Apple. We love its style. We love its vision. We love its marketing and PR. A generation of the worlds best designers cut their teeth on Apple computers, much as they might dislike admitting their sense of taste was shaped by a consumer electronics company.

In business, too, Apple has proven to be a visionary. Entrepreneurs often look to Apple for inspiration. Software startups the world-over are compelled to study Apple so as to learn how best to do it — whatever it may be.

I dont know — do entrepreneurs look to Microsoft for inspiration? Arguably one of the greatest speakers on entrepreneurship and startups, Guy Kawasaki, was Apples first Macintosh evangelist and still praises the company today. Kawasaki picks winners — after all, thats his job — and he chooses Apple every time.

In the bad old days, back when Microsoft was The Borg and Apple hadnt released an iPod yet, a big part of the reason for loving Apple was our affinity with the underdog. After all, people root for the underdog, and, back in the nineties, a waning Apple couldnt hope to compete with Wintel dominance.

Today, despite Microsofts monopoly continuing to grow in the last decade, Apple has risen from the proverbial ashes. It might be in Microsofts shadow (where all software companies can be found) but this Apple shines. (Sorry — terrible pun, I know.)

This is a company that sweeps in to well-established markets (MP3 players, online music, mobile phones) and fundamentally changes them. It establishes itself as the Porsche of a laptop market otherwise saturated with Fords; it launches an operating system so advanced that, eight years and (nearly) six updates later, makes Microsofts latest-and-greatest efforts still look like Redmond is playing catch-up. And dont forget the stores. Every expert, analyst and critic said they wouldnt work. Yet in the midst of a global recession, Apples retail stores are seeing increased profits.

Apple today is a different company to the limping, broken one in which Microsoft invested $150 million 12 years ago. At Bostons Macworld in 1997, Steve Jobs said that Apple had to change its (then) dominant mentality; that is, …for Apple to win, Microsoft must lose. We have to embrace the notion that, for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job.

And what a fine job it has done despite what it was up against. So when it starts behaving unscrupulously (or if thats too strong a word for you, try questionably) we get concerned, even angry. Pundits like Calacanis publish diatribes on everything they think is wrong with the company. The Arringtons of this world declare they are quitting the iPhone in protest (but really, does anyone care all that much if Arrington uses an iPhone?)

Apple has, for a long time, apparently subscribed to the treat em mean, keep em keen school of thought, doling out products and services that are just what we need, just when we need them. Jobs has referenced Henry Fords statement about customers desire for a faster horse. In short, Jobs is saying we have no imagination, no inspired vision of what we really need to improve our lives. Oh yeah, and we have absolutely no style.

It seems we agree, judging by how eagerly we embrace the solution — buying what Apple tells us we want, when we want it because, if we own the latest iMac, iPhone and plastic white earbuds, were automatically imbued with impeccable taste, right? Well, I dont know about you, but I know I am. I have two Apple Cinema displays, several Macs and an iPhone 3GS and I feel positively groovy, thank you very much. (Of course, I also live in fear, anticipating the time Apple updates its hardware, at which point I will automatically be not quite so groovy.)

We dont want to see Apple turn into the Borg we used to despise but, for all its sexy unibody curves, funny commercials and Simpsons episodes, thats precisely what has happened. Apple is today the megalithic entity it once derided. But even that would be tolerable if only it didnt do stupid things, like inconsistently approve/reject/pull apps from the store and then deliver wishy-washy statements when taken to task for it. (I say wishy-washy, some people would call them lies.)

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Baron Acton so eloquently put it. Apple might not be as big as the Microsofts of this world, but it arguably has power. An awful lot of power. Apple sells more digital music than anyone else by a wide margin. It has arguably the most important (and fastest selling) mobile platform in the world. It’s deeply-established inroads into the education and entertainment industries establishes it firmly in the minds of countless young and creative minds in the western world.

So Apple must tread carefully. Its bigger now than it has ever been, with fingers in more pies than ever before. Its growing and, paradoxically, proving profitable in markets where far-cheaper alternatives are widely available.

Lets hope Google Voicegate teaches Apple a sobering, but not too damaging, lesson about the importance of transparency and honesty. We dont expect to know Apples deepest darkest secrets (Id rather not), but these days a degree of openness is not only preferred by customers, its expected.

Even if Apple approved Google Voice in the coming weeks, would it make practical, useful and obvious changes to its app store approval process as a result? I like that Apple doesnt have its collective minds fixed unimaginatively, like the rest of us, on faster horses — but just because we dont share its vision doesnt mean we are owed anything less than respect and honesty.

The mobile content distribution industry began to undergo a seismic shift last year with the launch of Apples App Store, and a host of competitors from across the mobile spectrum are in various stages of following Apples lead.

Google was first with Android Market, which is built on an open-source platform backed by a consortium of dozens of key players in wireless. Research In Motion jumped on the bandwagon in recent weeks with its BlackBerry App World, and Microsoft, Nokia and Palm - among others — are set to launch offerings this year.

Colin Gibbs takes a look (subscription required) at the major players in the application-distribution model and looks at how the trend will affect carriers, handset manufacturers, developers, content owners and end users. He also examines key factors that will contribute to the success or failure of specific app stores, general shortcomings in the new app-store model, what solutions are already needed and how the space will evolve over the next several years.

Check out the full report ? (Subscription Required)

Poor NVIDIA, it looks like your honeymoon with Apple is over. There hasn’t been an official announcement from Cupertino yet, but a glance at the customization options for high end iMacs (the ones that use discrete graphics) and Mac Pros reveals that ATI Radeon HD 4000-series cards are already available as new configurable alternatives to NVIDIA products.

ATI was shown the door at Apple when the computer maker introduced its notebooks and desktops which feature integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics cards. Many suspect that things turned rocky between Apple and NVIDIA thanks to the faulty GeForce 8600M GT cards that resulted in Apple offering customers an unprecedented warranty extension for problems related to that component.

We didn’t see the effects right away, because Apple’s supply chain is likely structured in such a way that its product line was probably in place long before any of the hardware problems began to surface. Adding the Radeon HD 4850 to the iMac line and HD 4870 to the Mac Pro as configurable options may not seem like much in the way of retaliation, but it was probably the first option available to Apple short of overhauling its product line.

Both new ATI options are easy single component swap-outs. If Apple intends to get rid of the integrated GeForce 9400M cards, it will have to wait until the computers themselves receive a major update.

ATI is touting the ability of the new cards to fully utilize and benefit from Apple’s implementation of Open CL Version 1.0 in Snow Leopard, which developers can incorporate into their software to allow a sharing of processor load between CPU and GPU. The HD 4850 is a $50 upgrade, available on the 2.93GHz and 3.06GHz 24-inch iMac models, and the HD 4870 is a $200 upgrade for the Mac Pro.