Hot on the heels of Apple’s best quarter ever, the Gartner group says Apple ought to get out of the hardware business . John Gruber over at Daring Fireball sticks it to ‘em. Choice quote? “It’s hard to get a handle on the magnitude of the jackassery here.”

You can read more here.

In the 1980s, the Macintosh made a name for itself by creating a completely new industry: “desktop publishing.” With the advent of WYSIWYG fonts, the LaserWriter printers and Postscript, along with completely new programs like PageMaker, Photoshop, Illustrator, and then QuarkXPress, design and printing departments migrated enthusiastically to Apple’s platform. This creative enthusiasm spilled over into the audio industry, where Macs still reign supreme. Even without Steve Jobs at the helm, life was good.

Then, like the title of the Joseph Heller novel, “Something Happened.” With Windows NT and 95, PCs started catching up. The next-generation OS debacles of the mid-to-late 90s stalled the Mac platform, and while there are many Mac fans – like myself – who grew up with a fierce loyalty to the classic Mac OS, but have nevertheless found enjoyment with Mac OS X, this is not the case for as many publishing houses. While it still does well in this niche, the Mac’s dominance in the field is no longer as massive, if it even exists at all.

What to do? Find another niche, and grab it. What’s that niche? “Web publishing.” I know – this area is pretty established, isn’t it? And, while it probably contains a higher percentage of Mac users than one might think, there’s no way Apple can dominate it, right? Well, maybe not, but I think they want to try. Why? Consider the developments of just the past six months:

In January, Apple announced the release of iWeb . iWeb is a logical move for Apple; iLife has enabled lots of people to create lots of interesting content, whether its photos, movies or music; why not cater to the written word (bloggers), while giving the rest tools for publishing this content online? Yes, iWeb has kinks, some of which have been ironed out, but it’s pretty clear that Apple takes web publishing seriously, when they specifically create an application for it, and bundle it with their flagship consumer suite.

iWeb is nice, but its “hide-the-source” approach and pre-made templates target a specific group; what about those more advanced web developers – the developers who may be using Windows right now? I would argue that Apple’s recent announcements – while quiet, and limited to developer websites – have been even more exciting for them. In January, Apple announced Web Inspector – a slick, integrated inspector for the DOM. Then, word came out that DashCode – ostensibly a tool for the creation of Dashboard widgets, but actually a full-fledged web authoring IDE – was more than just a rumor. Then, just today, Apple programmers announced that Safari nightly builds include Drosera , a JavaScript debugger. It seems like Apple is committed to give web developers using its operating system the best tools for their job.

“But,” I hear you say, “these are all tied into WebKit! WebKit may be a fantastic, rapidly improving rendering engine, but it’s tied to the Mac. Does Apple really expect all web developers to jump ship from Windows? I mean, at the very least, we’ll have to keep our Windows machines around, for compatibility testing!”

Ah ha! But do you? With the move to Intel processors, running Windows on a Mac has never been easier. With Boot Camp , Apple is even providing the tools necessary to do it. Why? Because they recognize the need for certain Windows software. But this software isn’t just Windows applications and games; it’s Windows itself, and more specifically, Internet Explorer. With Boot Camp or a virtualization solution, you’ll be able to do all your web publishing on one slick machine, with the best tools for the job. On one platform, you’ll be able to run every major browser, and use every major web utility or authoring environment.

The end result of this is obvious: Apple knows what its like to lose a coveted niche – pretty soon the company will find out what it feels like to capture one.

Another project begins:

Appleicious

Can’t say too much about it – but you know you want to be involved in the beta. Go there now!

After a couple of days searching, including a late-night call to Apple tech support, I have stumbled upon a knowledge base article that refers to something with which I was afflicted, and assumed was a bug. It is not. From Using your built-in iSight camera –

The iMac G5 (iSight) comes with a built-in iSight camera that you can use for several purposes, including participating in video chat sessions over the Internet with a broadband Internet connection. You can’t use the iSight to capture video with iMovie HD, but here are some ways you can use your built-in iSight camera and the images it produces.

I wonder why this is. I imagine it has something to do with the fact that the built-in iSight does not connect via FireWire to wherever it connects, but that’s the limit of my understanding of computer internals. Granted, I wasn’t planning on doing anything serious with it, and this is probably what Apple thinks, too – although I can see creaters of video podcasts finding such a limitation aggravating. But then again, maybe this is Apple trying to save them from themselves.

I awoke to find these three pictures on my otherwise pristine desktop. You can click them to get a closer look.

I must say, I’m taken aback by it’s rather agressive stance toward any other computers I have lying around (I’m not looking forward to what happens when it sees my Gateway Solo in the closet, but hopefully that won’t happen.) Still, bonus points for vigor.

Oh, and to the doubters, PhotoBooth is much more fun and addictive that something so useless should be.