"Inspired by iPad."

A new update for OS X, now in developer hands, is set to launch this summer. “Inspired by iPad” indeed. Things are getting more iOSy in the Mac desktop.

Among the new, but familiar, features:

• Messages, which you can download in beta today
• Notifications
• AirPlay mirroring
• Game Center
• Reminders
• Deeper iCloud integration, with the full iWork suite now available to sync via the cloud
• Baked-in Twitter

Looks sharp so far.

“TVs are ultimately about picture quality. Ultimately. How smart they are … great, but let’s face it that’s a secondary consideration. The ultimate is about picture quality and there is no way that anyone, new or old, can come along this year or next year and beat us on picture quality.

“So, from that perspective, it’s not a great concern but it remains to be seen what they’re going to come out with, if anything.”

Obviously, Moseley’s talking about one strength of Samsung’s products — an area in which he thinks his company is particularly competitive among television manufacturers.

Still. This makes me chuckle a little because I have relatives who have bought 42-inch-plus flat panel HD sets … and then have declined to upgrade their cable TV package to HD.

For them, picture quality? Not so big a deal.

But they will complain to no end about how confusing those TVs are to use and set up, with their baffling, incompatible remotes and byzantine settings menus. And that’s before you plug in a STB and are confronted with the programming guide provided by your cable or satellite content provider.

(And it’s to say nothing of the rat’s nest of wires you’ll have once you add a DVD or Blu-ray player, maybe a receiver and some speakers.)

This isn’t to say that Apple’s TV could compete only on a user experience/user interface basis. They know a thing or two about high-quality, flat-panel displays of many sizes.

Nor is it to say that Samsung doesn’t make jaw-dropping displays built on deep experience and patented technologies Apple doesn’t possess.

But it is to say (and I bet Moseley might agree) that it’s not all about picture quality. Indeed, for some people, the question is, “How much more picture quality do I really need?”

There’s much more to the television experience than that, and lots of room for improvement.

(Via Brian Ford, Gruber.)

“Lillyhammer,” Netflix’s first “original series,” began streaming this week, with all eight episodes of season one available now. Coming next to Netflix: an original series from David Fincher and Kevin Spacey, as well as a fourth season of Fox’s cult comedy hit “Arrested Development.”

I am a huge “Sopranos” fan. And “Lillyhammer” is not “The Sopranos.” It’s not even “Northern Exposure.” But judging by its first episode, it’s light and fun. It’s even better if you watch it like it’s Silvo Dante’s coma dream.

It’s starting to look as if the economy is on a steady, if unspectacular, upward trend. Considering how beaten down the economy has been, it might not take much growth for people to start to feel a lot better. Republicans will claim that Obama’s policies deserve none of the credit, but they also blamed them for the economic slump within minutes of his inauguration. Fairly or not, presidents tend to get the blame for everything bad that happens on their watch and credit for everything good.

Today’s U.S. unemployment report showing the fifth straight month of job growth, however tepid, certainly helps matters for Obama. But with the unemployment rate to set to linger in its current range for the rest of the year, will it be enough?

To me, that’s really the only question of this election cycle. Has the economy improved enough for you?

Arkansas Business reporter Luke Jones’ full story on the YMCA in central Arkansas right here.

Tonight

I’m back on AETN’s “Arkansas Week,” which airs at 8 p.m. tonight, along with host Steve Barnes, KUAR-FM’s Malcolm Glover and Doug Thompson of the northwest Arkansas edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

On the docket: legislators angle to fill two holes in the state budget, the latest on Arkansas’ economy, a lawsuit over redistricting, Gov. Mike Beebe weighing in on the severance tax, and this week’s GOP match-up in Florida.

You wait until tonight, or catch it online here later this afternoon.

See that image above? That’s former Apple retail store chief Ron Johnson’s full-page ad in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, and it heralds a new era for JC Penney, the lagging department store chain Johnson now leads as CEO.

From The Associated Press:

Johnson, who joined the company’s board in August, already has put his stamp on the retailer. He has tapped former colleagues at Apple and Target to join him at Penney. That includes Target’s top marketing executive Michael Francis to be Penney’s president.

Johnson also is borrowing from the playbook of Apple, which shuns discounting and focuses on selling products and offering services.

This will be fun to watch.

The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $26.74 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 44.7 percent compared to 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

As Slate tech writer Farhad Manjoo noted on Twitter yesterday:

Apple’s profits ($13 billion) exceeded Google’s entire revenue ($10.6 billion).

— Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) January 24, 2012

And he’s right. Google’s most recent quarterly earnings report shows revenue of $10.6 billion, with a profit of about $2.7 billion.

Now, just for fun, let’s see how that compares with the world’s largest retailer. In its most recently quarterly earnings report, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville reported revenue of $109.5 billion. Profit was about $3.3 billion.

Finally, Apple’s current rival for world’s biggest company (by market cap), Exxon Mobil: its most recent quarterly profit? $10.3 billion.

So to recap: Apple has bigger quarterly profit than the world’s leading oil company, the world’s largest retailer and the world’s biggest search engine. In fact, it has more profit than Google has revenue.

How’d Apple do it? By selling lots of stuff:

The Company sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

Heck, Apple even sold 1.4 million Apple TVs, which it still considers “a hobby.”

Other fun facts:

Matt Richman notes:

In 2009, Apple sold more iPhones than it did in 2007 and 2008 combined. In 2010, Apple sold more iPhones than it did in 2007, 2008, and 2009 combined. Last year, Apple sold 93.1 million iPhones, slightly more than it did in in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 combined.

And then there was this yesterday from Verizon’s earnings release, as reported by Bloomberg:

While iPhone sales more than doubled from the third quarter to 4.3 million units, total smartphone sales fell short, signaling waning demand for handsets that run on Google Inc.’s Android operating system, said Walt Piecyk, an analyst with BTIG LLC in New York.

“This is a little surprising during a holiday period, especially given all the marketing around 4G phones,” he said. Total smartphone sales were 7.7 million units, 1.5 million fewer than Piecyk predicted.

So more than half the 7.7 million smartphones Verizon sold were iPhones.

More: Dan Frommer’s excellent SplatF blog has the charts; John Gruber’s DaringFireball has the claim chowder.

A web video channel programmed by eHow Home and featuring Arkansas-based garden guru P. Allen Smith has launched on YouTube, the massive online video website owned by Google Inc.

Smith’s channel, which features video segments on gardening, landscaping, home construction and sustainable living, is among 100 other channels of original content that celebrities and media brands are programming for site and launching this year.

In one video series, Smith and friends plan and build a $150,000 environmentally friendly home in 150 days. Sounds like fun.

Episode one below:

Beginning next month, Andrew Beaujon will join the Poynter Institute as a media reporter, filling out the void left when Jim Romenesko quit late last year. Mr. Beaujon is currently the arts and entertainment editor at TBD.com, a Washington D.C. news site.

Prior to TBD, Mr. Beaujon worked at Washington City Paper, Martha Stewart Living and SPIN. He is the author of Body Piercing Saved My Life, a nonfiction book about Christian rock.

I’m sure Beaujon might be a tad irked at the “new Romenesko” billing the Observer has put upon him, given that the former TBD writer points out how his blog will be different from Romenesko’s.

On another note, I remember reading Romenesko’s original Poynter blog before I even understood what a blog was. In the relatively early days of the web (also the early days of my journalism career), the river of aggregated media news and gossip was like crack.

Here’s wishing Beaujon luck. And remember that “the old Romenesko” is still at it, churning out good stuff at his new site, JimRomenesko.com.