MacBook

The Apple Store is back up

The yellow Post-it is usually a sign that something new is coming

[UPDATE: The store came back up shortly after 6:00 a.m. EST Sunday. If there were any changes, I can't see them.]

Sometimes Apple (AAPL) takes its online store off-line for cosmetic changes -- like maybe a Father's Day sale. Sometimes it's to clear the decks for a new piece of hardware. What that might be, we can only guess. Among MORE

J.P. Morgan sees the MacBook Air as a $3 billion business

Expects average sales of Apple's "quasi-tablet for productivity users" to hit 700,000/quarter

In early April, J.P. Morgan's Mark Moskowitz issued a glowing report on Apple's thinnest notebook computer in which he predicted that Apple would sell $2.2 billion worth of MacBook Airs in the next 12-18 months.

On Thursday he revised his estimates -- upward. Not only did the new models released last October sell like crazy in the Christmas quarter, but MORE

Consumer Reports [hearts] Apple's MacBooks

Apple's notebooks sweep every category in the latest report, despite middling reliability scores

Consumer Reports doesn't always love Apple's (AAPL) products. It still doesn't recommend the iPhone 4 because of problems its testing lab had with the external antenna. But in its survey of the current crop of notebook computers released Tuesday, the magazine gave the MacBook line its highest ratings in every category in which Apple competes, from the 11-inch MORE

The Apple Store is down

New Sandy Bridge iMacs expected shortly

[UPDATE: The store is back up with new iMacs on display starting at $1,199.]

As expected, Apple's (AAPL) online store early Tuesday displayed its Post-it yellow "We'll be back soon" note, the universal sign that a new product is about to be released.

This time the new entry is widely expected to be an updated iMac, the workhorse Apple desktop that hasn't been refreshed since July 27, MORE

NPD: New MacBook Pros pushed U.S. Mac sales up 47% y/y in March

While the rest of the PC industry lost ground, Apple's computer sales were growing

Once again, Mac sales zigged while PCs zagged.

In a note to clients Monday afternoon, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster summarized data from the NPD Group for the last quarter:

In the month of March, U.S. Mac sales were up 47% year over year, driven by the new MacBook Pros that started shipping Feb. 24.
That 47% uptick followed growth of MORE

How many Macs did Apple sell last quarter?

Estimates from the analysts we polled range from 3.34 million to 3.87 million

Apple's (AAPL) computer line celebrated a unusually merry Christmas in its first fiscal quarter of 2011, selling more than 4 million Macs for the first time it its history.

In what was a difficult quarter for the rest of the PC industry, Mac unit sales were up 23% year over year.

None of the 43 analysts we polled -- MORE

The $2.2 billion MacBook Air

Apple's break-out notebook, says an analyst, may represent a new category: the quasi-tablet

With so much attention focused on the iPad, J.P. Morgan's Mark Moskowitz chose Monday to change the subject.

He issued a note to clients that focused instead on the fastest growing member of Apple's Mac line: The MacBook Air.

According to Moskowitz, revenue from Air sales tripled and units quadrupled year over year after Apple (AAPL) cut the price, added MORE

How Britain lost Apple's Jony Ive

A profile in the Daily Mail blames it on an assignment to design a toilet

Lots of new details about the man it calls "the most successful designer on the planet" in Rob Waugh's long biographical profile of Jonathan ("Jony") Ive in Sunday's Daily Mail, starting with the toilet design that drove him out of England:

"The manner of his departure for the U.S. is particularly galling to Clive Grinyer, who MORE

Why I hate the CR-48 (but might like Chrome OS)

Google's cloud-based operating system seems promising. Too bad the lousy demo hardware gets in the way.

Google's Chrome OS isn't as farfetched as it sounds. The underlying concept, the computer and operating system as portals to content in the cloud, seems like an inevitability, really. While a lot of content still resides on hard or solid state drives, all signs point to a day when we'll rouse a sliver of a MORE

The MacBook Pros have landed

As widely expected, Apple (AAPL) took the wraps off its new line of MacBook Pros Thursday.

In addition to faster processors, higher-resolution cameras and FaceTime video chat software, the new models feature Intel's (INTC) new Light Peak input-output technology, which Apple and Intel have re-branded Thunderbolt. It comes in the form of a Swiss Army knife I/O port designed to eventually replace nearly everything -- FireWire, USB, Ethernet and a variety MORE