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News & Opinion
High 13" MacBook Air Demand Leads to Price
Gouging
AppleInsider's Sam Oliver reports that more than a month after
introducing its latest-revision Thunderbolt MacBook Airs, Apple is
unable to meet demand for the 13" model, which can be seen listed at
prices as much as $200 to $300 above MSRP on at least one of the
Internet's largest ecommerce sites.
Seems like a bit of a repeat, albeit not as severe, of the demand
exceeding supply syndrome that kept the iPad 2 channels backlogged for months last
spring and early summer.
Oliver notes that Apple's initial build projections for the new Airs
had reportedly been weighted slightly in favor of the 11.6" models,
suggesting Apple may have underestimated demand for the 13-incher,
although he notes that nevertheless the company has been able to
produce enough supply for its direct channels, although resellers
wait.
This brings to mind what happened when Studebaker rolled out its
1953 models, which included the sublimely styled and years ahead of its
time Raymond Loewy-designed Starliner coupe.
Studebaker guessed that the more conservative and somewhat
homely-looking four-door sedan version would sell better and tooled up
for about an 80/20 split of sedan/coupe production. As it turned out,
sales demand went more like 60/40, with buyers blown away by the
beautiful two-door model. Production lines were hastily reconfigured to
crank out more coupes.
Link: Apple's Struggle
to Meet 13-Inch MacBook Air Demand Leads to Some Price Gouging
Laptop Era Over? Apple to Sell 20 Million iPads
Over the Holidays
Seeking Alpha's Jason Schwarz cites an acquaintance who says he used
to take his laptop everywhere he went, but since buying an iPad a year
ago, he has found that the only time his MacBook Air ever left his
briefcase was when he had to take it out for airport security
checkpoints, and it's gotten to the point where he hasn't taken the Air
on a business trip in months. This individual contends that we now live
in a Desktop/iPad world, and that "the era of the laptop is over."
Data supporting that point of view seems compelling, with market
research firm DisplaySearch reporting that Apple shipped 13.5 million
mobile PC units, representing year over year growth of 136%, 80% of
which were iPads, and with notebook sales growth up only 2% year over
year and actually down 2% compared to the first quarter 2011.
Meanwhile, tablet PC shipments rose 70% in Q2 2011 and 400% year over
year.
Schwartz also noted that market researcher Gartner reports a 20.4%
decline of the mobile PC market in Western Europe during Q2 2011 as
netbook shipments fell 53%.
In summary, Schwartz observes that Apple looks like the sole
beneficiary of this new trend in mobile computing, citing the HP's
TouchPad debacle - a spectacularly failed attempt to market a tablet to
make up for weak laptop demand - and suggesting that if HP can't
compete with Apple, who can?
Schwartz says that Apple competitors face the "brutal reality" that
there is only one tablet to replace the laptop market, and that's the
iPad, with a 75% market share according to ABI research. He predicts
that Apple could sell as many as 21.9 million iPads in this year's
holiday quarter.
Link: The Era of the
Laptop Is Over: Apple to Sell 20 Million iPads Over the
Holidays
Apple Switching Macs to ARM a Very Real and Scary
Threat for Intel
Cult of Mac's Alex Heath and AppleInsider's Sam Oliver both note
that while the long-standing rumor that Apple will eventually switch to
its own proprietary A series of ARM-based chips in its MacBook and
desktop machines is being viewed by Intel as a possibility that cannot
be lightly dismissed, moving Macs to ARM-based architecture right now
would be a total disaster, since the processing power is just not there
yet - but that Apple's use of its A4 in the iPhone 4 and A5 in the iPad
2 demonstrates how successfully integrated software and hardware can
work together. If Apple were to use its own chips in its internally
designed hardware on its own software, the MacBook (and possibly iMac)
would have a huge upper hand.
And a quad-core A6 chip is anticipated for next year, which could
tip the power deficit issue. Oliver notes that an A6 chip, expected to
debut with the iPad 3 in early 2012, has just entered trial production,
though no details on its design have yet to surface.
Link: Intel: Apple
Switching MacBooks to ARM Is a Very Real and Scary Threat for Us,
Alex Heath, Cult of Mac
Link: Intel Also Hearing Rumors Apple
Testing MacBooks Based on Own A-Series Chip, Sam Oliver,
AppleInsider
Reviews
The Register Reviews 'Bloody Expensive' 17" MacBook
Pro
The Register's Alistair Dabbs says the 17" Core "i" MacBook
Pro is beautifully built notebook, slightly marred by its high cost
and lack of ports, but it's no ordinary laptop. Rather, it's an
exceptional one - a beautiful feat of engineering encased in a single
piece of seamless aluminum, so as well as not collecting dust in cracks
it doesn't have, the Pro doesn't creak or squeak when you pick it up,
open and close it, balance it on your knees, and so on.
The 17" Pro is hardly the lightest notebook in the world, Dabbs
observes, but it is perfectly weighted, and with the typical MacBook
Pro razor-sharp screen quality, the safety-first MagSafe power
connector, and the superb feel of the keyboard and trackpad all there
in the latest 17" model too.
The main downside of this machine, says Dabbs, is that it's "bloody
expensive," but nevertheless, no-one will convince him that it's money
badly spent.
Link: Apple MacBook Pro
17in 2011
Tech Trends
Will Ultrabooks Save PC Makers?
TechCrunch's Matt Burns allows that while we may be in the post-PC
era, the Windows PC is far from dead, with Intel and major PC makers
toiling away at the next generation of PCs, that, if marketed
correctly, could usher in the next golden age of computers.
That would be Intel Ultrabooks - essentially MacBook Air clones
designed around a compact motherboard, CPU, and flash storage. Burns
says the first crop of Ultrabooks is likely to use Intel's current
Sandy Bridge CPUs, but the real fun will come when the 22nm Ivy Bridge
models hit later this year for under a $1,000, and suggests that HP,
which he says essentially exited the consumer PC realm last week, may
have jumped ship a bit too soon.
Burns thinks Ultrabooks are exactly what the Windows world needs -
ultraportable notebooks running "rock solid" Windows 7 should run
perfectly fine, conceding that Apple had the foresight to see that
mobile computers needed a shot of excitement, resulting in the MacBook
Air and iPad, which are the major reasons why Apple dominated other
players in Q2 2011, with 136% year-over-year growth in that segment and
shipping 13.5 million mobile devices, but predicting that Ultrabooks
will cause many consumers to give up their bully Windows notebook and
join the true portable computer revolution.
Link: Intel to Computer
Makers: Ultrabooks Will Save You
Ultrabooks and Windows 8 to Drive Sales Momentum
for Notebooks in 2012
DigiTimes' Aaron Lee and Steve Shen cite Simon Lin, chairman of
Taiwan-based notebook ODM Wistron, predicting that the market launches
of new thin-and-light PC notebooks based on Intel's Ultrabook
specification and Microsoft's Windows 8 OS will be the notebook
industry's growth drivers in 2012, estimating that Ultrabook shipments
will account for 10-20% of Wistron's total notebook shipments next
year. [Publisher's note: Wistron designs
and manufactures computers for other companies.]
Lin also contends that economic turbulence due to debt European and
US sovereign debt issues won't affect Wistron's 30 million notebook
target for shipments in 2011 and anticipates that that the company's
notebook shipments will maintain single-digit rate sequentially in the
third and fourth quarters, although the target for mobile devices is
being scaled down from 10-12 million units to nine million.
Link: Ultrabooks and
Windows 8 to Drive Sales Momentum for Notebooks in 2012 - Wistron
Chairman (subscription required)
Cnet Talks Ultrabooks with Intel Exec
Cnet's Brooke Crothers reports that the first wave of superslim
Ultrabook PC laptops are expected to be shipping in volume by the time
the holiday season runup is underway, and earlier this week, Crothers
spoke with Intel's Ultrabook group director Greg Welch to get a better
idea of what an Ultrabook is.
Intel won't be manufacturing Ultrabooks itself, but will supply the
core (no pun intended?) components. Welch describes the Ultrabook
platform as "an initiative to advance the state of the art of the
notebook experience across several years." The operative question, of
course, and on which much hangs in the balance, is whether Ultrabook
engineering can advance past - or at minimum match - that of Apple's
pioneering segment-leader MacBook Air, especially in consumer
perception.
Link: Intel Executive
Talks Ultrabook Form, Function
Apple Dominance of Metal Notebook Chassis
Fabrication Capacity Pushing Ultrabook Vendors to Fiberglass
DigiTimes' Aaron Lee and Joseph Tsai report that Intel and its
partner PC notebook brand vendors are beating the bushes to come up
with new chassis construction materials, being as capacity for
magnesium-aluminum chassis, the most popular choice for ultrabook
designs, is mostly fully booked. Consequently, RHCM-based fiberglass
chassis have emerged as the new top second choice among vendors,
according to sources from chassis players.
Since ultrabooks are required to have a thickness of less than 0.8",
the chassis need to be tough and rigid in order to sustain pressure and
protect internal components and the logic board panel.
Magnesium-aluminum construction a la Apple's unibody MacBooks is
ideal, but it requires CNC lathes, whose capacity is significantly
limited, and tooling for more is expensive, creating a high threshold
for would-be competitors. DigiTimes notes that currently, Taiwan-based
Catcher Technology and Foxconn Technology have more than 10,000 CNC
lathes for metal chassis production, but both are contracted suppliers
for Apple, so ultrabook players will be obliged to compete for what
remaining capacity is available from the two firms, leaving players
unable to fully ship enough devices.
That has convinced three PC brand vendors to adopt fiberglass for
their ultrabooks, with Taiwan-based fiberglass chassis maker Mitac
Precision offering a fiberglass chassis that is produced using the RHCM
process and combined with plastic to purportedly provide toughness at a
significantly cheaper cost compared with an magnesium-aluminum chassis,
and a production yield rate currently greater than 90% facilitating
monthly shipments of 4.5 million units.
Link: Shortage of Metal
Notebook Chassis Fabrication Capacity Pushing Ultrabook Vendors to
Adopt Fiberglass (subscription required)
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