Apple

Apple seems to be looking forward to the launch of Windows 7 almost as much as Microsoft, but for very different reasons.

(Credit: Apple)

While Microsoft may see Windows 7 as a way out of the failure of Vista, Apple plans to take advantage of the launch by catering to the customers who are fed up with the Windows user experience and want to make a change.

"Users are really growing tired of Windows and the headaches it brings," said Brian Croll, Apple's vice president of Mac OS X worldwide product marketing. "We've seen this with Vista, XP, and the other Windows operating systems going all the way back."

While Apple clearly believes Mac OS X Snow Leopard is a superior operating system, the company doesn't believe it comes down to a comparison of the latest releases that will make the difference. Apple believes that for a lot of users it is an accumulation of issues.

The latest issue will be the amount of work that Windows XP users have to go through to upgrade to Windows 7. The need to erase the hard drive, install Windows 7, re-install applications, and update everything may be too much for some users to handle.

"We think a lot of folks will look at that as the straw that broke the camels back," Croll said. "People are tired of the headaches with Windows and this is another great excuse for people to check out the Mac."

Apple is also betting that many XP users who will have to upgrade their computers in order to run Windows 7 will instead choose to check out a Mac. But the cost of the new computer isn't the only thing users have to look forward to; there's also the software price tag.

For many consumers, Apple feels it has that covered too, especially with iLife, its suite of applications that includes iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD. iLife is included for free with every Mac.

"That's huge. It's a key part," Croll said. "You have the entire software environment, and you have iLife built-in. Everything you need is right there. With Windows 7 there is a lot of assembly required and even after that, it doesn't compare with what you get in iLife."

Apple declined to say if it was planning any price cuts, TV commercials, or special events at the its retail stores to welcome potential Windows 7 users.

"There's not going to be a lot of change in the Windows world," Croll said. "At the end of the day it's still Windows."

(Credit: Apple)

Apple on Tuesday added an antiglare upgrade option to its 15-inch MacBook Pro line of notebooks.

The option of an antiglare display has already been available on the 17-inch MacBook Pro. The 13-inch counterpart continues to offer only a glossy display.

First reported by AppleInsider and confirmed for CNET by Apple, the antiglare display is a $50 upgrade via Apple's online store.

The glossy versus antiglare debate has been ongoing since the glossy version was first introduced on notebooks. For some, it's a matter of aesthetics or eye strain. And then there are creative professionals who maintain that color is more accurate on an antiglare display. Others say it doesn't really matter.

Owners of Apple MacBook Pro notebooks with 7200rpm 500GB hard drives have been complaining for months of clicking sounds followed by temporary stalling. According to Apple, a fix is in the works.

(Credit: Apple)

"We are aware of the issue and are working on a software update," Apple representative Bill Evans, told CNET News on Monday. He gave no time frame for the release of the software update.

People have been reporting that they hear a beep from the computer shortly before the hard drive clicks and then the computer stops responding. The computer is unresponsive for 10 seconds or so and then begins to work normally again.

The hard drive issue does not require the user to force-reboot the computer, which would cause any unsaved work to be lost. Simply waiting out the unresponsive system apparently works every time.

There doesn't appear to be any specific task that triggers the hard drive to enter its unresponsive state. Users on Apple's support forums are reporting that it seems to be completely random and doesn't matter where they are or what they are doing when it happens.

It does appear that the issue only affects the 500GB hard drives that run at 7200rpm.

Apple's decision to cut prices across its MacBook lineup is about to be validated, according to an analyst's estimate.

(Credit: Apple)

After several months of declining Mac sales compared against 2008 numbers, Apple looks to be back on track with its June Mac shipments, says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. His firm initially estimated that Apple would sell 2.2 million Macs during its third quarter of 2009, which ended in June. Munster now says he's "increasingly confident" in that report because Apple is having trouble keeping its new 13-inch MacBook Pro in stock.

The 13-inch MacBook was rechristened the 13-inch MacBook Pro at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8, and at the same time, Apple lowered the price of its Mac notebook lineup, bringing the cost of the cheapest MacBook Pro, the 13-inch model, to $1,199.

Either because Apple didn't plan well enough, or customers were encouraged by the price, Apple's Web site shows that it's now a 7- to 10-day delay to order one of the 13-inch MacBook Pro configurations.

"We track product lead-times and our records show that Apple has never had a 7-10 day delay on its most popular 13" model, with the most recent significant delay being 5-7 days over 2 years ago in 9/08," Munster wrote in a research note Monday evening. "We see this as a sign that demand is outpacing the company's build expectations, and it may take several weeks to reach a supply demand equilibrium."

Some brick-and-mortar Apple stores were also showing shortages of the same model, he reports.

That's encouraging news for Apple, which up until June had seen its Mac sales slowly slide, albeit more gently than the rest of the PC industry. Apple desktops and laptop sales dropped in February and April, by about 1.8 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Munster now says he believes once June sales are tallied, Macs will have actually increased 1 percent for the third quarter.

We'll know for sure in two weeks. Apple is set to report its third quarter 2009 earnings on July 21.

It's been a tough road for everyone in the tech sector over the past year, but there are small signs of recovery, especially for Apple.

(Credit: Apple, Inc.)

Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty says Apple is outperforming the PC market in sales growth, and this was before Apple released its new MacBook Pros in June, according to a report on Fortune's Apple 2.0 Wednesday. Of course, releasing a new notebook would only spur sales for the months after its release.

Huberty said that in May, Apple shipments were up 25 percent over April. In comparison, PC shipments for the same period were up only 1 percent, according to Fortune. As a result, she is raising her forecast for the this quarter to 2.5 million Macs.

In its fiscal second quarter 2009, Apple sold 2.2 million Macs, a 3 percent decline for the company over the year-ago quarter. While down, this isn't a significant decrease considering the economy.

However, if Huberty's predictions are true and Apple does sell 2.5 million Macs in the third-quarter, the company will see a nominal increase from the 2.496 million sold during last year's third-quarter.

Consumer interest in its products led Apple to the top of Nielsen's report released on Tuesday, documenting the most trafficked hardware Web sites. Apple more than doubled the traffic of its nearest competitor Hewlett-Packard.

Apple has released an update for its newest MacBook Pro notebooks introduced at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month.

According to notes provided with Monday's MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7, it allows drives to use transfer speeds greater than 1.5Gbps. Specifically, these drives are based on the SATA 3Gbps specification.

Apple does note that use of these drives is completely unsupported. The company has not qualified any of the drives for use and does not offer any of the drives itself.

The update and instructions for applying it are available from Apple's support Web site.

The white laptop on the left is the sole MacBook left in Apple's lineup, now dominated by MacBook Pros.

(Credit: Joshua Goldman/CNET)

Despite the litany of Apple announcements at the opening keynote speech of the company's developers' conference, what could turn out to be more interesting than the new products it named is what Apple didn't say Monday.

The bumping up of the 13-inch laptop to MacBook Pro status, and the price cuts along the MacBook Pro line certainly grabbed headlines. They did something else: they left the little $999 white MacBook as the only true MacBook in the bunch. Gone now is the option to buy a silver unibody design version of a MacBook. The rest are all MacBook Pros now, which leaves buyers with little choice if they don't want a high-end notebook from Apple.

So what gives? Apple doesn't talk about products before it's ready to, but with that subtle change it may be signaling some tantalizing possibilities for upcoming products.

The white MacBook, at $999, is the cheapest notebook Apple offers right now. It also looks a bit out of place, compared to the clean, silver, cut-from-a-single-block-of-aluminum design of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. More importantly, there is a big gap in Apple's product lineup between the $299 iPhone and iPod Touch and the $999 laptop.

Apple could bridge that with the much discussed touch-screen tablet, which, of course, Apple has never actually said is in the works. If it were, the tablet could certainly make sense with the MacBook name attached, especially if its primary purpose was as a portable device for reading e-books, reviewing documents, and viewing videos.

But there is also room for a lower-cost laptop, with fewer bells and whistles aimed specifically at the education market. It would be similar to what the rest of the computer world calls a Netbook, or a mini-notebook. If Apple did make one, it would seem to represent a change in attitude toward "junky" Netbooks. But here's the thing: Apple wouldn't have to make a poor-quality mini-notebook. Historically, in the tug between features and style, and affordability, Apple usually errs on the side of features. But the company can, in fact, aim for a broader Mac market from time to time. It did so with the eMac in 2002, which lasted until 2005. That Mac desktop was aimed at students, and no one would call that a junky version of an iMac. It was however available with fewer features and a corresponding (slightly) lower price.

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Apple got aggressive on pricing at WWDC 2009.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--The big knock on Apple--whether or not it's always been accurate--is that its products are more expensive than most of its competitors.

But in the keynote speech Monday that opened Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, it became clear the company is tackling the price question head on.

The best example of this new attitude is the decision to keep the 8GB iPhone 3G, but sell it at $99. That was the most aggressive price move it made Monday. But Apple was price conscious in other ways, too: It upgraded its 13-inch unibody MacBook to specs worthy of its more high-end MacBook Pro line, while also reducing the price. The MacBook Pro 15-inch and MacBook Air also received price cuts. And Apple didn't stop there. The new Mac OS X 10.6, known as Snow Leopard, will cost current Mac OS X 10.5 owners just $29 to upgrade when it becomes available in October.

The price cuts on the MacBook lineup and the iPhone 3G are clearly intended to bring more "switchers" over to the Mac and iPhone platforms. And it shows that Apple is acutely aware of the financial problems facing potential new customers. But will it work?

There are two things that lowering the price of the iPhone to $99 does: It broadens the potential base of people who can now afford the iPhone. It also kneecaps Palm. The $199 8GB Palm Pre has been touted as a potential "iPhone killer," or at least a very nice alternative to Apple's device. But the Pre is now $100 more than the comparable device from Apple. That could make the decision very easy for people who are on the fence.

But this isn't just about Palm. It's about all the other phones that are currently sub-$100 right now, too. As of the beginning of the year, Apple owns just under 11 percent of the smartphone market, and that could increase exponentially now. In order to figure out just how much a price cut from $199 to $99 on the 8GB version will affect consumers, the best example is what happened when Apple cut the iPhone from $399 to $199 last year. That was also a 50 percent price reduction.

Apple watcher and Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster notes that the price cut last year tripled the sales of the device, from 4.7 million iPhones sold in the three quarters before the price cut, to 15 million iPhones sold after the release of the $199 iPhone 3G. There are other factors of course: greater visibility for the iPhone after a year of being on the market, people who had been holding out for a 3G version of the phone, and more availability in international markets. But Munster says demand in the U.S. alone increased 100 percent with that price cut.

Whether Apple can repeat this is going to be determined by a number of factors. Of course, the economic environment isn't the same as it was a year ago, plus far more people have iPhones already, and there are more smartphones on the market now.

In any case, the decision on price shows Apple is being aggressive, and it makes a statement about the kinds of customers it is courting.

The same is true of its pricing approach to the Snow Leopard upgrade. While there are plenty of flashy new tweaks to the operating system, they're just that: tweaks. The updated OS is not a monumental change from Leopard, which is why Apple likely went with the easier-to-stomach and surprisingly low upgrade fee for current Leopard users of $29. (When Leopard was introduced, it cost $129).

Jab at Redmond
The move also clearly puts pressure on Microsoft vis a vis Windows 7, which will start shipping in October. Microsoft executive Bill Veghte told CNET News last week that Microsoft is considering whether to offer a lower-cost Windows 7 upgrade for Vista users--and hinted as much in a speech earlier on Monday. A leaked Best Buy memo says the retailer plans to pre-sell Windows 7 upgrades for $50. However, it is unclear if that is a promotional price; Microsoft has yet to publicly detail its plans.

That wasn't the only jab at Redmond during the presentation. Some were more subtle than others (Like Bertrand Serlet's remark about "Windows 7 is just another version of Vista.") Microsoft has worked hard to make the choice of buying a Mac or a PC about the price--just witness its series of I'm a PC ads that send moms, kids, aspiring actresses, and college students searching for inexpensive laptops at retail stores. Apple, however, has never really engaged on the issue of pricing--the company's messaging on Macs has always been to position it as "the best computer" period. But the aggressive pricing on Mac laptops revealed at WWDC today shows that Microsoft (and Hewlett-Packard, and Dell, and Sony, etc.) has Cupertino's attention.

Prices were cut across the board, from the newly introduced 13-inch MacBook Pro to the MacBook Air. The 13-inch now starts at $1,199 and 15-inch at $1,699, though both received upgrades to battery life, the screen technology, and a new SD card slot. The MacBook Air price was the biggest change: It now costs $1,499 for the low-end Air and $1,799, down from $2,499, for the high-end version packed with a 128GB solid-state drive.

Apple is obviously hoping to rejuvenate its Mac sales. While the overall market for computers has dropped steeply, Apple's sales have fallen but not as drastically. Its market share stands at about 7.5 percent, but sales for February and April this year were both trending at about a 4 percent to 16 percent declines in unit growth from the same time a year prior. Price cuts across the board could definitely get people to shop again.

Perhaps even Laptop Huntresses "Lauren and Sue" will want to reconsider that 15-inch MacBook.