Next week, Apple is turning its attention to their notebook
line, which has been wanting for a while. The Cupertino, CA
company issued invitations on Thursday to media and analysts for an event to
take place on Tuesday. The invitation, shown to the left, hints that the event
will focus on the Macintosh portable computer line.
It will take place next week, at 10 a.m. PDT in Cupertino. Several select
media personages have been invited to provide live coverage of the event. They
represents websites like Engadget, CNET, VentureBeat,
Digital Daily, Gizmodo, Ars
Technica and several more, so be sure to tune in to their websites for
on-site information.
The two biggest rumors regarding the new laptops are that
for one, they’ll be constructed using an all-new spiffy technology called “brick”
which uses lasers and very price jets of water to cut notebook cases from a
single block of aluminum. The new models are said to be more resistant, slimmer
(about time for Apple), and more cheap to fabricate. Some however say that the
outer cases will still be plastic, with only the insides being crafted from
aluminum.
The other whisper going around is that Apple is going to
release one laptop below the $1,000 price mark. The most circulated figure is that
of $800. Given the current economic troubles such a laptop may well be the only
one that apple will sell in any significant numbers in the near future.
Another hint is that Apple is going to introduce an
ultra-portable computer as a replacement for the current 12" PowerBook.
According to a report
by AppleInsider, there will certainly be a 15" MacBook Pro, and they
have the pictures to prove it.
A more affordable line of Macintosh computers would be well
in line with the aggressive price cuts that have been a staple of the industry
of late, and would probably give investors more confidence in Apple’s stock,
which has fallen to levels unconceivable a few months ago.
Apple Macintosh, the company’s computer line, is an
essential branch of the company. Although it has expanded to areas way beyond
computers, in the quarter that ended in June $3.6 billion of Apple’s stock came
from computers. That’s 43% more than the same period last year. Notebook sales amounted
to about 61% of that.
Even if one of the new Apple laptops were to sell for as
little as $800, it would still be above the price of some of competitors’
full-featured PCs, which sell for around $450, and even as low as $399. The
company has to take that into consideration when the mainstay of its sales is
based on the North American and European markets, which are some of the hardest
hit by the economic recession.
