MacBook touch - here's hoping it's not a pipe dream

By Stephen Withers
Friday, 29 August 2008 07:58

Opinion and Analysis

The idea of a tablet-style Mac has been bubbling along for some time, but new information from a supposedly reliable source has thrown fresh fuel on the flames. If this is really what's coming from Apple in the next month or two, I'll have one for Christmas, please!

Earlier this week MacDailyNews published a tip that we're about to see a new Mac with a multi-touch screen. Unlike suggestions of a touchscreen device along the lines of an oversized iPod touch, this one is said to run full Mac OS X, not the somewhat reduced OS X used on the current handhelds, including the iPhone.

Other features of the 'MacBook touch', according to the anonymous tipster, include a SuperDrive (DVD burner), accelerometer, and GPS. Not only will the device run regular Mac software, it'll also handle those downloaded from the App Store too. Nice idea, if true, but some people are bound to question the inclusion of the SuperDrive given its absence from the MacBook Air. But there you go...

He or she also suggests Apple will initially sell these devices at lower than normal margins to get the volume up. That's not something we're used to seeing from Apple. Presumably the idea is that once that happens, economies of scale will kick in, restoring the company's customary above-average margins.

This ties in with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer's recent observation that a future product transition would reduce the company's margins. But which is the chicken and which is the egg? Has the tipster merely included that information, or are both statements underpinned by the same facts? Please read on.