Apple to talk about its notebook computers

Apple Inc. has invited the press and industry analysts to an event at its Cupertino headquarters on Oct. 14 to talk about notebook computers.

Apple's MacBook line of laptops are long overdue to be refreshed, analysts have said. The question is price: Will Apple introduce laptops that are under $1,000?

The timing would be right for a new line of notebooks starting at $800, says VentureBeat, given that consumers are scared about the economy, their jobs and their retirement. Apple's stock price is down more than 50% from the beginning of the year, in part out of fears that consumer spending has already seized up.

The invitation comes when there have been rumors for weeks that Apple has built a new manufacturing process to make less expensive laptops that appeared to be carved out of a single brick of aluminum. But AppleInsider this morning dismissed this new manufacturing talk, claiming it has photos of the real new laptop.

In its last earnings call, Apple executives did hint there was a "future product transition," which would cut into the company's bottom line. It would be something, they said, that the competition would find difficult to catch up to.

Those intriguing sentences made some think Apple was planning a tablet-style computer. With Apple, it could be anything.

-- Michelle Quinn

Image: Invitation to the Apple event

Comments

[ucla2k3]

Apple should have produced laptops for less than a $1,000 years ago. I'm surprised Steve Jobs does not recognize the size of the market for inexpensive laptops. There is so much advancement in notebook technology that the high-tech features of a sophisticated laptop becomes almost obsolete in a few years. There really is no point in spending that kind of money only to upgrade in a few years time. I just spent $700 on a Toshiba Satellite A305, and I'm sure it'll serve me well for the next several years. I just can't fathom spending $1500 on a piece of machine that I know will need to be replaced in 3-4 years.

[LPD]

I'd buy one immediately. I have an iBook G4 on its last legs but I can't justify however good the machine has been, spending another $14-1500 on one. Not when I have the iPhone too. And $800 laptop would be great.

[tomK]

Yea but a Toshiba is a piece of crap compared to a Macbook pro, it's like comparing a Apple with a Lemon. Mac's have a longer life than a PC. I'm working off of a 1ghz Powerbook G4 that I bought 5 years ago and it's still current, the OS has been upgraded 3 times, the memory from 256 meg to 1 gig, the hard drive from 60 gig to 200 gig. Try loading Vista on a 5 year old PC laptop and tell me what happens, it will grind to a halt, you are lucky if you can upgrade one OS on a PC platform.

[kathleen]

And if we could use the 3G wireless technology of our iPhones as modems for our new laptops, life would be wonderful!

[Jon]

umm tomK? if i had the opportunity to UPGRADE components like you did to your powerbook i would be able to install vista on the "5 year old pc."

[Jason]

That's an unfair comparison for several reasons tomK. OSX has had far more reiterations that any recent edition of windows; of course you'll have upgraded more. Furthermore, if you took a near top of the line pc laptop from 5 years ago (presumably of the Turion or early Intel dual core Centrino processors) and pumped it full of ram it would in fact run Vista albeit without Aero running. Also, while Mac laptops are built to higher standards, they cost between 2 to 2.5 times as much for the exact same amount of processing power.

Macs are great if cash is not an issue, but for this student, PC's still remain a far better choice.

PS There is no reason for only 1 mouse button.

[Svetlana Gladkova]

I like your closing sentence and this is exactly what I love about Apple - no matter what our wild guesses are for their events, they will still manage to surprise us more often than not.

[dave from Detroit]

it is a 15" Itouch cloud computer.

[Rinold Poindexter]

"Also, while Mac laptops are built to higher standards, they cost between 2 to 2.5 times as much for the exact same amount of processing power."

This is one of the biggest myths out there. Although Apple has nothing to compete with the cheap WinTel laptops at the low end, it is very competitive in all other market segments.

A couple of years ago when my son was starting engineering, I thought that it would be cheaper to go with a PC laptop. However, after considering Dell, HP and Sony laptops that met the minimum requirements for engineering, the price was at or higher than a similarly configured Macbook Pro.

only one mouse button yes... but right click with two fingers on trackpad.

[cheap computers]

It sounds great that the recall affects only Apple notebooks using PowerPC processors from IBM, not the newer models with chips from Intel

[computer repair toronto]

You cannot say Mac better than pc or PC better than Mac. Each one has a different platform and specification.