Apple was expected to unveil new notebook computers, perhaps even one priced for those with tight budgets, at a “town hall” gathering at its northern California headquarters yesterday.
In typical enigmatic style, Apple hinted at the theme of the invitation-only event but provided no details other than that it would be held on Tuesday morning at the firm’s headquarters in the city of Cupertino.
Invites sent out by e-mail late last week bore the lone message “The spotlight turns to notebooks.”
That was enough to ignite a firestorm of rumor on the Internet as Apple’s cultish followers began feverishly trying to deduce what the California company might be planning to unveil for the year-end holiday shopping season.
By Monday, speculation online included talk that Apple will introduce a Macintosh laptop computer priced perhaps as low as US$800 in an unprecedented break from selling premium products at premium prices.
Apple has never marketed a Macintosh laptop computer priced less than US$1,000.
“I think Apple has to go less than US$1,000,” analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley said of pricing for Macintosh laptops.
“With the economy the way it is, holding on to a premium price point would mean taking a bath in the Christmas shopping season. It is tough to move premium products. That category is at huge disadvantage,” he said.
Apple’s Macintosh computers remain a distant second place to world-dominating PCs based on Windows operating systems from Microsoft but have been gaining market share.
Analysts believe the popularity of Apple’s trendy iPod MP3 players and iPhones revived the company’s cachet and attracted buyers to its computers.
A “refreshed” line of Macintosh laptop or notebook computers is likely to feature technical upgrades made possible by powerful NVidia or Intel processors that serve as computer engines.
Not everyone is convinced Apple is ready to begin battling on price in a fat but heavily competitive segment of the laptop market.
“There is a possibility they might go there, but in general they have consistently played at the very high end of the market,” Gartner analyst Van Baker said.
“While I would love to see Apple compete in the US$799 to US$999 price range, based on past history I am skeptical they are going to do that,” he said.
Baker says it is more likely Apple is giving its MacBook Pro line of laptops a thinner, more industrial design that proved successful with its MacBook Air model.
Apple is expected to shift from plastic laptop casings to more stylish and eco-friendly aluminum.
At least one Internet Web site known for keeping tabs on Apple says the firm might surprise the world with a TV customized to link to the Internet and download digital movies from iTunes.
An Apple TV set-top box for routing movies or high-definition TV shows or movies from home computers to TVs has been a slow seller.
“Apple has had this all-in-one idea for a while,” Enderle said. “Apple TV built into a television could be interesting. I think it is at least possible.”
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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