Apple Computer

With the rest of us tightening our belts in the economic downturn, laptop manufacturers have decided to play along after a fashion: Cutting-edge laptops are losing weight. The latest diet program comes from Intel, whose Centrino three-chip package is designed to deliver performance, wireless connectivity and long battery life in laptops that weigh less. Just a year ago, Intel-based laptop manufacturers such as Sony and IBM were focused on building thin laptops that did not have a built-in CD or DVD drive, and thus needed an attachable expansion dock to be fully functional.

Q. I am interested in investing in Apple Computer. I like the computers it makes and I think the company has a great future. However, I don't know if the time is right to buy. What do you think?4 A. It's the apple of many a stock analyst's eye.Buy shares of Apple Computer (around $65, over the counter) because this famous personal computer company controls a key element to success -- its software, said Bruce Lupatkin, analyst with Hambrecht & Quist.That puts the company in a great position to define its destiny, he said.

Marc Steiner is in a quandary. The WJHU-FM talk-show host adores his Macintosh Powerbook 520c. He takes it everywhere, even into the woods. He's been using Apple computers for years -- to write, research and, lately, to experiment with multimedia."

Want a look at the future of personal computing? Try Newton, a personal digital assistant being developed by Apple Computer Inc.The sleek, black, suit-pocket-sized machine is designed for everyone from business people to students to whoever wants to take notes, make appointments, sketch, summon information and communicate with distant computers and faxes.Apple started to develop this machine in response to several strong trends. One was the increasing digitization of information: Words, numbers, sounds, pictures -- all are being stored and manipulated as bits these days.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc., continuing to cut prices but still not reducing them to IBM clone levels, introduced six computers last week -- half of which will sell for under $2,000.Also included is the first color model of Apple's wildly popular PowerBook notebook computer.The machines extend a shift in the company's sales to less profitable computers. Apple hopes to offset this by selling more computers, but it could be forced to trim expenses if the gamble doesn't pay off. The company said it sold 30 percent more computers in its most recent quarter than it did a year before, and expects the growth to continue.

CUPERTINO, Calif. - Apple Computer Inc., maker of the iPod portable music player, indicated yesterday that it may take action against RealNetworks Inc. for circumventing controls on the device to allow music downloads from sources other than Apple. The iPod is designed to restrict downloads to Apple's Web-based iTunes Music Store, the most popular legal music-download service. Apple denounced RealNetworks' creation of iPod-compatible software by calling it the technological equivalent of breaking and entering.

Apple Computer Inc. and Novell Inc. have engaged in top-level discussions in recent weeks about the possibility of rewriting the rules of the computing world by merging their companies into an $8 billion hardware-software giant.The talks between Apple's president, John Sculley, and Novell's president, Ray Noorda, have been a closely held secret, known at the two companies only by an elite group of senior executives. But information about the discussions was provided by a person in the financial community with contacts at both companies.

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc. said it expects a loss this quarter because of price cuts and lagging sales of its personal computers, a stunning disclosure in the strongest selling season of the year.The news surprised Wall Street, which was expecting fiscal first-quarter earnings of 78 cents a share based on estimates of 22 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research. Apple's shares fell $3, or 7.8 percent, to $35.25, yesterday, after falling as low as $34.75.The loss is more bad news for the world's No. 3 PC maker, which is struggling to slash expenses and cope with price cuts while holding onto market share and boosting earnings.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc. is running out of time to mount a serious challenge to the potent Microsoft-Intel personal computer and should move as quickly as possible to create a Macintosh "clone" market, according to several analysts following the company's deepening troubles.Although Apple's overall share of the worldwide computer market has grown slightly in each of the past three years, its gains are not coming at the expense of computers with Intel Corp. chips running Microsoft Corp.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc., returning its attention to the desktop publishing market that made the Macintosh computer so popular, has introduced two new laser printers and a remarkable new scanner system.The scanner software, in particular, is a breakthrough product that promises to make it much simpler for average users to incorporate pictures into their laser-printed documents.Three new technologies are employed in Apple's products. One is called Fineprint, which is built into both of the new printers and which appears to be very similar to the Resolution Enhancement Technology pioneered by the Hewlett-Packard Co.Fineprint alters the placement of the little dots that make up text and drawings, reducing or eliminating jagged lines.