Here are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for Monday.
17-inch MacBook Pro to Disappear: KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will end production of the 17-inch MacBook Pro amid poor sales and the likelihood of a new notebook line positioned between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, MacRumors reports. Kuo said sales of the 17-inch MacBook Pro amounted to about 50,000 units during the first quarter of 2012, compared to 1.5 million of the 13-inch models and 500,000 for the 15-inch models. Kuo also estimated first-quarter MacBook Air sales at 1.1 million units, saying that Air sales have not been stronger because the available solid state drives don’t have enough capacity to entice consumers to buy them in larger numbers, MacRumors reports.
Retina Display Production Issues Limit Number of Suppliers: Ming-Chi Kuo also said that Samsung was Apple’s only supplier of retina displays for the latest iPad during the first quarter of 2012 because other manufacturers have yet to reliably produce the high-definition displays, according to Apple Insider. LG (NYSE:LGL) and Sharp are expected to eventually manufacture retina displays for Apple, but quality issues have prevented them from contributing retina displays so far, Kuo said. LG might provide displays by the current quarter, but Kuo told Apple Insider that he didn’t expect Sharp to begin “normal” retina display production until the third quarter of the year.
Magazines and Newspapers Will Be Treated the Same as FarmVille: The Wall Street Journal quotes an Apple executive telling book and magazine publishers that Apple had to treat items for sale on iBook the same as App Store games like FarmVille. The Journal noted that the 30% revenue cut is “Apple’s standard practice, not, as alleged by the government, the product of a conspiracy.” The company applies the revenue share equally across all sales on its online stores, the Journal said. Not only did the Department of Justice fail to note that in its recent price-fixing lawsuit against Apple, it misidentified the 30% figure as Apple’s margin, the Journal noted, pointing out that Apple’s model countered the “wholesale model” favored by rival Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.
