MacBook Air

Why Apple's sales jumped in Japan

Japan continues to be "our most challenging major market," Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer told analysts last month during the company's fiscal fourth quarter earnings conference call.

That may be, but one of the numbers that jumps out of the Form 10-K that the company filed with the SEC on Wednesday is 39% -- the percentage Apple's net sales grew in Japan last year.

What makes that number remarkable is that it follows MORE

Apple's new MacBooks: What to expect today

With only hours to go before Apple (AAPL) unveils its new lineup of MacBooks, the rumor sites have been working overtime, trying to make sense of blurry spy photos and purloined price lists.

But on Tuesday morning, Daring Fireball's John Gruber -- a blogger with particularly good sources in Cupertino -- cut through the fog and offered some clarity.

According to Gruber's remarkably detailed report:

The photo here of a MacBook Pro, which MORE

Analyst: New MacBooks will start at $899-$999

In a report to clients Thursday, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster added some meat to the bare-bones invitation Apple sent out a couple hours earlier. (See here and here.)

The most important news, according to Munster, is that Apple for the first time since it discontinued the iBook will be offering its premium notebook computers below the psychologically-important $1,000 barrier. Specifically:

Higher quality, lower-priced MacBooks. Munster expects the new MacBooks, which currently sell MORE

All eyes on the MacBook

With this year's iPhone and iPod updates behind them, Apple watchers have shifted their attention to the products that matter most to the company's bottom line: the MacBook and the increasingly long-in-the-tooth MacBook Pro.

Steve Jobs likes to refer to the Mac as one of the three legs of Apple's stool (the iPod and iPhone being the other two). But that makes for a pretty tippy stool; Macs represent more than MORE

Apple teases with mysterious 'product transition'

The biggest mystery to come out of Apple's Q3 earnings conference call Monday -- besides the state of Steve Jobs' health -- was the "future product transition" that CFO Peter Oppenheimer mentioned as one of the three reasons he expects the company's gross margins to fall from 34.1% to 31.5% over the next three months.

For a company that doesn't talk about future products, Apple spent a lot of time Monday talking MORE

Save 16% on Apple's solid-state MacBook Air

The prohibitively expensive solid-state version of Apple's MacBook Air is suddenly 16% less so.

While Apple watchers were focused on the upcoming launch of the iPhone 3G, the company quietly lopped $500 off the 64-GB SSD MacBook Air, reducing it overnight from $3,098 to $2,598.

The price cut, just six months after the product was introduced, is at least partly the result of Apple's transition from expensive single-level cell flash to multi-level MORE

Scandal: La Pinguina, Argentina and the MacBook Air

There's a Sherman Adams-style political controversy heating up in South America in which the role of the vicuna fur coat is played by a MacBook Air.

The star is Cristina Kirchner, the president of Argentina -- the second woman to hold that office (after Isabel Martinez de Peron).

The supporting role is played by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the second richest man in the world, who controls Telefonos de Mexico (TMX) and MORE

Buyer's Guide: MacBook OK to buy; iPhone only if you need it

MacRumors has issued an update of its immensely useful Buyer's Guide -- a consumer-oriented cheat sheet that tracks the update cycle of Apple's product line and offers informed opinions about whether you should go ahead buy that MacBook Pro you've been lusting after or wait for the next model. As MacRumors put it:

Apple updates their products in a very consistent manner. A Mac comes out at a certain price with MORE

Karl Rove loves his iPhone

This was a week for unsoliticited celebrity Apple (AAPL) endorsements.

First there was Charlie Rose, falling on his face to save his MacBook Air. Then Martha Stewart, posing her French bulldog Sharkey in front of the "razor-thin" machine.

And now, via Newsbusters.org, former Bush political advisor Karl Rove. Here he is, interviewed by Matthew Sheffield, talking about his iPhone and his MacBook Air:

NB: All right, I've got just one more quick question MORE

Analyst: Apple appears 'recession proof'

With less than two weeks before the end of Apple's March quarter, Shaw Wu of American Technology Research expects the company to shake off the doldrums that are dragging down the rest of the U.S. economy.

"Our sense is that the Mac business is recession proof," he writes in a report to clients issued Thursday morning. Based on his supply chain checks, Wu sees good news throughout Apple's (AAPL) product line:

Rather MORE