While being a long-time member of the Blu-ray Disc Association, Steve Jobs-led Apple Inc. still has yet to reveal its true leaning at the on-gong format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD.

Analysts, however, have a good reason to believe that everything will become known come Macworld Expo 2008.

More details after the jump!

 

If the rumors of a cheaper iPhone are true, then it's not the first time that Apple developed a more affordable variant of its popular product to better reach out to the general market. Shaw Wu of American Technology Research believes that Apple will react favorably to the market pressure brought about by the immense popularity of the iPhone.

"Apple needs to round out its iPhone product line at lower price points," he said, "if it expects to replicate the success of its iPod with sales of 100 million units." It's not really rocket science, but hearing it said by a professional in the field makes us feel a bit more positive about the likelihood of seeing inexpensive iPhones.

Wu also mentions that there will be "lower cost iPhone prototypes for release at unspecified future dates," according to his sources in the market. He goes on to give another reason why the iPhone will be a hit with the general market:

We believe one overlooked advantage iPhone may have over other smartphones is that when making calls, its virtual dialer has no extra clutter, and it is likely easier to dial unprogrammed phone numbers than on fixed QWERTY keyboards.

That's all good, if the rumored affordable iPhones will even have the touchscreen feature.

  

The clock's ticking to the official release of Apple's iPhone. But who will be their carrier partner? Up to now, there's still no final word from the fruity giant, but Wall Street analysts are predicting that Vodafone just might be the chosen one for Europe.

Shaw Wu, American Technology Research analyst, reveals that their sources, so far, are indicating that Vodafone will most likely be Apple's top pick for its European distribution. "We believe Vodafone's 200 million subscriber base (compared to 61 million for AT&T, its USA partner), broad and country coverage, and investment in advanced technologies make it a strong fit for Apple."

Apple intends to launch its iPhone to Europe come the fourth quarter of this year.

Don't look now, but the always-innovative Apple corporation may shake the playing field and change the way we look at laptops and at the same time force hard disk manufacturers to lower their prices.

Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research says that Apple will soon sell blazing-fast laptops which use flash memory as the main storage device instead of the traditional hard disk. The idea is patterned after the popular iPod mp3 players of the company which use precisely that kind of storage medium.

Flash memory is much faster than the hard drives of today. This means that if the project materializes, long start-up times and file transfers may be a thing of the past. This, Wu says, will put pressure on hard drive makers to improve their wares and at the same time lower their prices to compete with the flash memory market.

Further, flash memory comes in a smaller package, is lighter and more energy-efficient than a bulky hard disk. It also doesn't have spinning parts, which makes it less prone to wear and tear. That means a much sleeker notebook is possible, all the while extending battery life.

The storage capacity of the new notebook's flash memory is yet to be determined, but knowing Apple, experts say that it should be pretty good. The machine will be running on a miniature OS X especially configured for the hardware.

Seeing the initiative from Apple, Wu challenged the flash memory industry, saying "Apple, from what we understand, is pretty much ready. The ball is in the flash vendors' court."

There's been much talk about Apple's big media event on September 12. And yes, there have been rumors, lots of rumors, about what they're going to reveal next week. What will it be, really? A new product in the whole iThis, iThat, iFranchise? American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu has an idea.

Their research has shown that an Apple smartphone has moved from concept stage, to prototype, to testing, and to what could now be nearing completion as a production unit. An Apple smartphone? Yes, it seems as if its already been under development for twelve months now, with Apple trying to produce the right blend of cell phone and media player. And Wu has provided us with a rather detailed account of what we could expect:

"The design will be an iPod nano-like candy bar form factor and come in three colors (we are not certain of the exact colors but we suspect black, white, and platinum, similar to Apple's current color scheme of iPods and iMacs)."

Errr... "Candy bar form?" Well, it definitely sounds intriguing, and all we can do is sit and wait patiently for Steve Jobs to finally spill the beans by next week. Still, an iPod-phone will definitely revolutionize the mobile-media-device arena, and we're definitely keeping our fingers crossed for this.

Due to a speculation authored by Shaw Wu about the major delay of the next-gen iPod, shares of Apple Computer Inc. on Wednesday (June 28), fell to an 8-month low. The stock fell 2.5 percent to $56.02, after hitting a session low of $55.41. It was among the biggest drags on the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq market amid heavy trading.

Definitely the guys over at Cuppertino ain't having a field day about this. The stock price decline comes amidsts various warnings from analysts that the iPod Nano has been performing sluggishly in the sales department and that it would most likely not hit the Apple iPod sales' forecast.

As we have mentioned in the earlier report, Apple has remain mum about the major delay speculation. But analyst Shaw Wu is just getting warmed up. He also added that "the stock has pulled back as the overall tech market has been weak, but there is also a lack of new product momentum...The Nano was introduced last October, it was very strong but it hasn't done that well, and it is in need of a refresh."

The highly anticipated debut of the next-gen iPod expected late this year could be a no-show. Instead, the new apple of Apple investors' eyes may surface in the first quarter of 2007.

According to Shaw Wu of American Technology Research, the delay was caused by Apple's switching of chip supplier from PortalPlayer to another chipmaker. Apple engineers also need more time to kick up the power of the video iPod's battery life and increase its screen size. The next-gen iPod nano is expected to have twice as much capacity as the pre-gen (4GB and 8GB).

Despite the production glitches, Wu expects Apple to introduce yet another new high-end iPod model. So far Apple has no comment on the issue.

According to analyst Shaw Wu, who is known to have pitted himself against the great Gene Munster in a free-for-all death match for the title of world's most kick-ass Apple analyst, Apple seems on track to exceed its sales goal for the third quarter. According to Wu, the introduction of the new version of the Macbook a little earlier than expected should serve to give the company a boost in sales.

"MacBook is shipping one to two months ahead of our checks," wrote analyst Shaw Wu in a research note. "We thus have a higher degree of confidence that Apple is on track to hit the upper-end, if not exceed, its guidance."

Wu thinks that the pricing scheme for the latest Macbook makes it an attractive alternative to many consumers out there in the market for a good laptop. With its ability to boot Windows XP with Boot Camp, the computer is poised to see record sales, though Wu believes the $1,499 black version may be a little overpriced. I guess he didn't read one of our previous posts, huh?