MacBook mini
Apple's Snow Leopard may be delayed - analyst
March 11, 2009: 10:03 AM ET
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the update of Apple's (AAPL) current Macintosh operating system that Steve Jobs said would ship in "about a year" when he introduced it last June, may not arrive until later this summer or fall.
That's one of the nuggets of news offered by Kaufman Bros.' Shaw Wu in a report to clients issued Wednesday.
Among other findings Wu turned up in a check of his sources in Apple's supply chain and distribution network:
- Mac build plans have increased. Due to stronger-than-expected reception of Apple's newly introduced Macs, Wu says that the Street's current estimates of 2.2 - 2.3 million Macs shipped in the March quarter may turn out to be on the low side.
- New products in the works. Commenting on recent speculation about an Apple netbook, Wu says his sources suggest that "several initiatives" are being worked on, including perhaps a smaller MacBook Air or "MacBook mini" (essentially a netbook) and oversized iPod touches.
- The Mac mini is a "sleeper hit." Wu is seeing "surprisingly positive feedback" on Apple's cheapest Mac. He would liked to have seen lower prices, but he says the $599 display-and-keyboard-less box is being "warmly received" for its larger hard drive, faster processor and NVIDIA graphics chip.
- Delayed quad-core iMac. Wu, like many other hardcore Mac users, was hoping for a quad-core iMac, as opposed to the dual-core machine Apple released last week. Now he says it makes more sense for Apple to wait for Snow Leopard, which takes better advantage of the quad core processors, and for lower-power parts from Intel that don't run quite so hot.
Wu's track record on Apple hardware predictions is mixed. He correctly predicted the release of new desktop Macs, but he also said that they would be unveiled two months earlier at Macworld, along with a new combination Apple TV/Time Capsule that never materialized. (link)
Apple has yet to respond to our request for comment.
-
What's Macworld without its "living legend"?
If it was Steve Jobs' intention to take the wind out of Macworld's sails, he's done a pretty good job.
"Expectations are low," wrote Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster in a note to clients early Tuesday, one week before the first Macworld Expo keynote since 1997 that won't be delivered by Apple's charismatic CEO. "No significant new products are expected."
"Fairly modest" is how Kaufmann Bros.' Shaw Wu described investor expectations for the MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 30, 2008 12:08 PM ETPosted in: Apple, Apple TV, Gene Munster, iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone nano, Mac mini, MacBook mini, Macworld, Phil Schiller, Shaw Wu, Steve Jobs -
Anatomy of an Apple rumor: 'The Brick'
Like nature, the Apple rumor mill abhors a vacuum, and for much of this month it has been filled with talk of "the Brick."
What is the Brick? The question was first posed the day after Steve Jobs' "Let's Rock" keynote address by Cleve Nettles on the Apple blog 9 to 5 Mac. He wrote that a tipster with "a solid track record" told him that the mid-October introduction of a MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Sep 28, 2008 7:50 AM ET -
Apple's Fall product lineup
None of this is set in stone -- especially as long as Steve Jobs retains the prerogative to change his mind at the last minute -- but AppleInsider has posted the most definitive road map to date of Apple's (AAPL) fall product lineup.
Citing unnamed "people familiar with the situation," AppleInsider's Kasper Jade ticks off a schedule of release for a batch of new iPods, overhauled notebooks and refreshed iMacs, confirming MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Aug 28, 2008 10:38 AM ETPosted in: Apple, iMac, iPod, iPod nano, iPod touch, Mac mini, Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook mini, MacBook Pro, Macintosh, Steve Jobs -
Macworld 2008: How can Steve Jobs top the iPhone?
The Macworld Conference & Expo, Silicon Valley's largest technology trade show, opens Monday. But the moment everyone is waiting for comes Tuesday morning, when Steve Jobs makes his annual keynote address at San Francisco's Moscone Center.
Jobs has set a high bar for himself. At Macworld 2006, he introduced the first Intel (INTC)-based Macs -- sparking a burst of sales that nearly doubled Apple's (AAPL) market share from roughly MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 14, 2008 2:00 AM ETPosted in: 3G, Apple, Apple TV, Beatles, Digital Rights Management, DRM, Flash-drive MacBook, Fox, Hollywood, iPhone, iTunes, Keynote, Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook mini, Macworld, Market Share, Microsoft, Office 2008, Steve Jobs, ThinBook, Xserve -
Shaw Wu's Macworld: Blu-ray, movie rentals, MacBook mini or slim
With less than two weeks to go before Steve Jobs' Jan. 15 keynote, analyst Shaw Wu of American Technology Research offers his best guess for what Apple's (AAPL) CEO might have up his sleeve at Macworld Expo 2008. In a note to clients issued this morning, Wu predicts:
Blu-ray. Citing unnamed sources, Wu says that Apple will outline an HD strategy that backs Sony's Blu-ray format over the HD-DVD standard favored MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 3, 2008 12:34 PM ETPosted in: Apple, Apple TV, Blu-ray, HD DVD, iPhone, MacBook mini, Macworld, Movie rentals, Shaw Wu, ThinBook
