Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Monday:
Mad for MacBook Air: Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore expects great things from Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) still-unconfirmed new MacBook Air laptops, which are expected to be the fastest laptop Apple has made to date. In a Monday note to investors, Whitmore said he believes Apple may sell as many as 1.5 million of the laptops every quarter, or half of Apple’s total laptop business. Whitmore also said that he believes the new Lion operating system, which will cost $29.99 and only be available as a downloadable product through the Mac App Store, will be the best-selling version of the operating system to date because of its accessibility online. Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities confirmed for Apple Insider on Friday that Apple will deliver a new model of MacBook Air before the end of June.
Union!: Cory Moll, a part-time Apple Store employee in San Francisco is looking to form a union to acquire better benefits and wages As a Monday report at CNBC emphasizes, there are two factors that are unusual about Moll’s effort. First, Apple’s employees have a reputation for corporate loyalty, almost to the point of zealotry. Second, the majority of Silicon Valley employees are not unionized. Moll’s movement, which he began in May, hasn’t garnered a huge following among Apple Store employees yet.
Fall iPhone: Another rumor pointing to the release of a brand new model of iPhone in September began circulating the Web on Sunday. According to a report from 9 to 5 Mac, the next iPhone is already in the final stages of pre-production testing. The website’s source says that Apple is still negotiating with Verizon (NYSE:VZ) to support FaceTime, the iPhone’s video chat app, over the telecom’s 3G network but also hints heavily that the new phone will be a 4G device that would support the feature.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook.
