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Kasper Jade hears the whispers:

Once rumored for extinction, Apple’s entry-level polycarbonate MacBooks are on the verge of a refresh that will solidify them at the base of the Mac maker’s notebook offerings for the foreseeable future. … The 13-inch portables are presently undergoing an industrial design overhaul that will see them reemerge in the coming months with a slimmer, lighter enclosure and restructured internal architecture.

…
The white MacBook is outselling all other [portable] Macs. … Sales of the sub-$1000 system have remained surprisingly brisk amid the economic crunch, leaving management little choice but to allocate R&D expenses in its favor. … Apple is well-positioned to begin offering a model at considerable discount to the $999 entry-level model that exists today. MORE
Chris Foresman can’t resist:

The lonely white polycarbonate MacBook that still remains in Apple’s otherwise all-aluminum notebook lineup hasn’t changed significantly over the years. … Apple would likely use lower-end Core 2 Duo chips from Intel and could likely ditch the FireWire ports. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple dump the optical drive too, adding further cost and weight savings, nor would it be unusual if Apple designed in a non-removeable battery. (Heck, throw in a physically smaller screen, and you’d pretty much have yourself an Apple netbook.)

…

With nearly 60 percent of back-to-school shoppers looking to spend less than $750 on a new laptop, though, shaving a couple hundred bucks off the MacBook might make even more students and budget shoppers lean towards a Mac instead of a Windows- or Linux-based alternative. MORE
Harry McCracken joins in the fun , and even adds a car analogy:

It wouldn’t stun me if … Apple knocked $100 or so off the pricetag to make it into an upscale alternative to a netbook. … Only a matter of time until Apple ships a non-Air MacBook with no DVD drive–in part to save money, in part to make the system thinner, and hey, maybe even to encourage consumption of movies and music from the iTunes store.

…

One thing I hope Apple doesn’t do is to give the white MacBook’s replacement an aluminum case. … I’m not so sure that plastic-clad notebooks don’t preserve their good looks better than their aluminum cousins, at least if you drop computers as often as I do. (Hey, I used to own a Saturn car, in part because of the plastic body.) MORE
Robert Evans speaks of “Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage” (CULV) devices:

Apple needs to get prices down substantially in order to make their notebooks more competitive with the variety of netbooks and CULVs that have come down the pipe as of late. Increasing battery life by a large margin is believed to be a major priority of Apple’s when it comes to redesigning the MacBook. It’s also likely that, by using last-generation processors and components, they will be able to cut down on costs while offering a solid boost in computing power over the last generation of MacBooks.
This recession has really changed up Apple’s game. They’re focusing less and less on high cost computers and gadgets, and more on affordable, reliable products for budget consumers. The $99 iPhone, the cost reduction for the MacBook Pro line, the revamping of the MacBook line, and the upcoming iTablet are all examples of this. MORE
Dieri Castrejon can’t wait:

I long for the return of glossy white in future Macs. Aluminum (as well as the combination of grey/black) seems too bleak & uber-industrial. Very Windows-esque. MORE

If Apple’s mythical tablet is real-and given the spate of rumors from multiple sources, it certainly appears to be — the device could be a natural-born book reader, ready to compete with Amazon, Sony, and soon Barnes & Noble in the burgeoning e-book market.
In fact, “compete” may be too soft a term. Apple could easily clean its opponents’ clock. It could quickly dominate e-books much as it conquered e-music with the launch of iTunes in 2003.

 
This is a concept image of a Mac tablet by MacFormat and is illustrated by Adam Benton.Yes, it’s time for a boilerplate caveat. This is sheer speculation. My assumptions are based on what we’ve heard about the Apple tablet, and on what many users see as shortcomings of the Amazon and Sony e-readers.
First off, let’s assume the tablet — or at least the larger version of it — has a 10-inch backlit display, wireless broadband, a touchscreen, and a Web browser. If so, it would provide a better ergonomic experience than the Amazon Kindle 2, which lacks backlighting and a touchscreen. Let’s also assume the tablet’s display will have a higher screen resolution than the Kindle’s 600 by 800 pixels, and that it’ll do a better job of managing PDF files. Add it all up, and the tablet is a better user experience, excluding battery life. It’s highly unlikely that Apple’s multifunction device would outlast the Amazon or Kindle reader in that competition.
What about the Kindle DX, Amazon’s larger e-reader with a 9.7-inch display? It suffers from many of the Kindle 2’s shortcomings, and seems more like a niche player destined for the education/textbook market.
And the Sony Reader? Well, it’s improving rapidly. The Reader Touch Edition has a 6-inch touchscreen; the Reader Daily Edition has AT&T’s 3G mobile broadband. But like the Kindle, the Reader is essentially a single-use appliance. And with prices ranging from $200 to $400, it’s a fairly expensive one at that. While reports indicate the Apple tablet may cost more — probably in the $600 to $800 range — it’ll do a lot more too, perhaps even double as a notebook PC.
Apple has one big edge over Sony: Its iTunes store is an established online marketplace that already sells music, movies, TV shows, and, of course, iPhone apps. Cupertino doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to add e-books to its online retail mix. (Amazon, of course, is no slouch when it comes to online retailing either.)
To me, Apple’s biggest advantage in the e-book reader market would be the versatility of its tablet. Given a choice between an Apple tablet as described above, a Kindle 2, and a Sony Reader Daily Edition (the one with built-in 3G), I’d be willing to pay a little more for the tablet.
Will Apple enter the e-book market? We may find out as early as next month.

Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci ) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com .

Steve Jobs isn’t one to let a little thing like a liver transplant slow him down. Some of us would take it easy: catch up on our reading, maybe even take up a therapeutic hobby like painting or music. Not Jobs, though–he’s the kind of guy who does best when he throws himself into his work.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Jobs is personally overseeing the details of the continually-rumored Apple tablet device. This is, of course, a bit like the Emperor personally overseeing the construction of the Death Star, except apparently the Emperor only rarely shoots bolts of purple lightning through his fearful underlings. The Journal says that Jobs’s concern is focused primarily on the device’s marketing and advertising strategy–little surprise, given his penchant for crafting the perfect message for the company’s products.

This is hardly the first project to which the CEO has given his undivided attention: the iPhone, for example, merited a similar level of scrutiny from Jobs during its development. Despite working only a few days a week, Jobs is apparently present enough to cause unrest among his employees–the Journal describes the attention as “jarring” for Apple employees who had gotten used to having a little more leeway on their projects during Jobs’s absence.

If nothing else, though, Jobs is apparently taking advantage of his lighter work schedule to answer his e-mail, replying to the Journal’s Yukari Iwatani Kane request for comment by saying, “much of your information is incorrect.” In typical Jobs fashion, he went into no further detail.

With terse missives like that one, we’d suggest Steve take advantage of his newfound spare time to start up a Twitter account.

Apple’s latest MacBook Pro lineup has been getting rave reviews. And deservedly so. Of course, as with any new hardware, these models are prone to a few minor hiccups that don’t affect older MacBook models. Here are two of the oddest ones:

Unusual optical disk drive noises. As first reported by Apple last month, the optical drives in these new laptops may exhibit an “unusual series of noises” when starting up or waking from sleep, even though no disc is in the drive. For those wondering exactly what “unusual” means here, Apple provides a recording of the noise. Out of context, I found the noise to be a bit funny; I’ve even thought about using it as a wacky ringtone.

To banish these sounds from your MacBook Pro, insert a disc “almost all the way” into the slot-loading drive (not releasing it from your hand). Then remove the disc and reinsert it, this time letting it go all the way. This unlikely procedure, dubbed by Apple as “resetting the drive,” should eliminate the problem.

Unexpected sleep. If you are lucky enough to have more than one mid-2009 MacBook Pro (or Late 2008 13-inch aluminum MacBook), Apple advises not stacking them on top of each other (at least not with their magnetic latches all facing the same way). If you do, the top computer may go to sleep unexpectedly, even in the middle of a startup.

While not likely to be a common problem, I found it interesting to learn exactly why it can occur. It can happen because “the magnet in the bottom computer may activate the magnetic switch in the top computer.” Apple considers this to be “normal behavior,” because this is how sleep onset is normally activated when you close the lid of an unstacked MacBook. Sleep is triggered when the magnet in the laptop’s display clamshell gets close enough to the magnetic “Hall Effect” switch in the MacBook body. By the way, Apple didn’t make up the name for this switch; you can check out various Web sites, including this Wikipedia page, to learn more about Hall Effect switches.

Asus and Apple were the most reliable PC vendors in the U.S. during the second quarter this year, according to a survey released by Rescuecom on Tuesday.

Rescuecom, a third-party computer repair firm, fielded the fewest support calls to repair Asus and Apple PCs on average, said David Milman, Rescuecom’s CEO. The companies offered PCs with high-quality components and excellent support, reducing the need for consumers to service PCs through third-party support companies.

The ratings were based on 11,560 support calls fielded by Rescuecom during the second quarter and adjusted to take into account the market share of each PC maker. Lenovo, Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard held the third, fourth and fifth spot respectively in the PC reliability survey.

The study was released on the same day the University of Michigan and other organizations issued the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, which measures user satisfaction with products including cars and PCs. Apple topped the survey with a score of 85, followed by Dell at 75, and a three-way tie between Hewlett-Packard, HP’s Compaq brand, and Acer/Gateway, which scored 74.

Consumers want PCs that require minimal repairs and good support, so the calls provide a good snapshot of PC reliability, Milman said. Companies that provide high-quality components tend to rate higher, while bad components and bad support may force PC owners to call third-party repair companies.

“We review … a combination of how reliable the components are and how good the support is from the manufacturer,” Milman said. Multiple PC components, including motherboards, memory and video cards were factored into the survey. The quality of software bundled by PC makers, including security and office suites, was also part of the survey.

“If a manufacturer provides quality software that is less trialware, especially in the area of [security]… it is certainly something that makes their computer less necessary to be supported,” Milman said. Many PC makers are also bundling one-touch data restore options in PCs, which reduces the need for customer support.

Asus is relatively new to the study and is reaping the benefit of the recent craze for products like netbooks in the U.S., Milman said. Many users are buying Eee PC netbooks, but the company’s PC reliability ratings might change as components start to break down, Milman said.

“Their quality has held up from the last study, but it will be interesting in two years once the machines age a little bit,” he said. Increased support calls for Asus products may help better evaluate the company’s support, Milman said.

Among the top five PC makers in the U.S., Apple has offered a steady stream of PCs with quality components and support services, Milman said.

“With the introduction of their Apple Genius [Bar] in retail stores, they are offering support that many other manufacturers aren’t offering,” Milman said. Apple’s margins on the Mac desktop and laptop PCs are much larger compared to competitors, so Apple can afford to offer free support, Milman said. Many Rescuecom technicians are certified by Apple to repair Mac computers, Milman said.

Rescuecom received more support calls for Dell and HP PCs, which were the top two PC vendors in the U.S. during the second quarter, according to IDC. Dell rated seventh in Rescuecom’s study, with 22.1 percent of the repair calls. Though HP and Dell held close market shares in PC shipments, Rescuecom received 18 percent more support calls on Dell PCs than HP.

Rescuecom established a baseline to rate reliability by balancing the number of support calls with the market share of PC vendors, Milman said. The study was not commissioned by PC makers, and the company has no support ties with PC makers.