Due largely to the high cost of most products, Apple needs to address this to maintain consumer confidence.

As PR Director, I would put spokespeople in the public eye to reinforce the quality of Apple products. Additionally, I would remind the public of the latest additions and modifications to existing lines, like the new, less expensive iMacs and Mac Pros, as well as the new iPod Shuffle.

It is important with Steve Jobs nowhere to be found to reinforce consumer confidence in the company’s ability to maintain growth and continue to carve out a greater percentage of market share.

With much more cost-efficient alternatives, Windows-based computers have an immediate upper-hand at sales. However, Apple needs to draw attention to consumer dissatisfaction with Vista and security concerns with the Windows operating system, while touting the overwhelmingly positive customer support and absence of security issues with the Mac OS.

If sales continue to fall, Apple will have to address the absence of CEO Jobs in a more open and transparent manner, or face shaken confidence in its ability to perform by shareholders.

Unit sales of Macbook laptops dropped 7 percent, while Windows laptops jumped 36 percent. Without netbooks, Windows laptops rose 16 percent, NPD said.

NPD figures are a closely watched measure for Apple sales, but they do not include data on direct sales from PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) and Dell Inc (DELL.O). The figures include sales from Apple stores, retailers such as Best Buy (BBY.N) and e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com (AMZN.O). Data from Wal-Mart (WMT.N) is not included.

NPD analyst Steve Baker said Apple’s high-priced products are proving to be a tougher sell as U.S. consumers struggle through a crippling recession.

“I think the issue for them remains pricing in this kind of an environment,” he said.

However, Baker noted that “demand is difficult everywhere … even though Apple unit volumes may be challenged right now, at the end of the day, they’re a lot more likely to be profitable than other manufacturers.”

Prices also came down in February. The average selling price on Mac laptops dropped around 7 percent to $1,512, NPD said. On the Windows side, netbooks’ popularity was evident as the ASP on laptops tumbled 22 percent to $560.

Mac desktop units fell 36 percent in February, while Windows-based desktops dropped 10 percent.

Apple refreshed its line of desktops two weeks ago, and analysts expect sales to pick up in March.

Apple does not give mid-quarter updates on sales.

Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple closed the regular session down 51 cents at $95.42. (Reporting by Gabriel Madway; Editing by Bernard Orr)

From: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsnews/idINN1653665020090316?rpc=33

Never content to let a good thing be, Apple released its latest incarnation of its smallest, most cost-efficient iPod, the Shuffle, yesterday.

No doubt an effort to combat complaints regarding the Shuffle’s lack of a screen, this latest model actually talks to listeners, telling them the song title and artist, battery life, and other information previously unattainable if away from a computer.

Clearly an attempt to push its lower-priced model in a time of economic recession, I think now is the right time for Apple to release the new shuffle.

At only $79 for a 4GB player, the new Shuffle is a much more affordable way to listen to your music on the go than any other current iPod model. This is an excellent PR move, allowing consumers acces to a low-cost iPod without sacrificing useful features.

Apple focused on all the right things with this release, the size, innovation, cost, and features all make the Shuffle a great symbol of the Apple brand and its commitment to creativity in technology.

CUPERTINO, California—March 11, 2009—Apple® today introduced the all-new iPod® shuffle, the world’s smallest music player at nearly half of the size of the previous model, and the first music player that talks to you. The revolutionary new VoiceOver feature enables iPod shuffle to speak your song titles, artists and playlist names. The third generation iPod shuffle is significantly smaller than a AA battery, holds up to 1,000 songs and is easier to use with all of the controls conveniently located on the earphone cord. With the press of a button, you can play, pause, adjust volume, switch playlists and hear the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle features a gorgeous new aluminum design with a built-in stainless steel clip that makes it ultra-wearable.

“Imagine your music player talking to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPod and iPhone™ Product Marketing. “The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists.”

iPod shuffle is based on Apple’s incredibly popular shuffle feature, which randomly selects songs from your music library. And now, when you can’t remember the name of a song or an artist playing, with the press of a button iPod shuffle tells you the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle can even tell you status information, such as battery life. With the ability to hold up to 1,000 songs and the VoiceOver feature, you can now easily switch between multiple playlists on your iPod shuffle. iPod shuffle can speak 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The new iPod shuffle comes in silver or black and features a sleek and ultra-wearable design with a built-in stainless steel clip. iPod shuffle is the smallest music player in the world and is incredibly easy to clip to almost anything and take with you everywhere you go. iPod shuffle features up to 10 hours of battery life.*

Pricing & Availability
The third generation 4GB iPod shuffle is now shipping and comes in silver or black for a suggested price of $79 (US) through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. iPod shuffle comes with the Apple Earphones with Remote and the iPod shuffle USB cable. iPod shuffle requires a Mac® with a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS® X v10.4.11 or later and iTunes® 8.1 or later; or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows Vista, Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 3) or later and iTunes 8.1.

*Battery life and number of charge cycles vary by use and settings. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information. Song capacity is based on four minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding; in 256-Kbps AAC format, song capacity is up to 500 songs; actual capacity varies by encoding method and bit rate.

<!–BULLET LIST HEADER (as needed)

• BULLET 1
• BULLET 2
• BULLET 3
• BULLET 4 etc…

–>

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

From: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/03/11ipod.html

I think Mac does a great job in this piece of highlighting the increased speed and capacity, as well as the lower price.

In these economic times, it’s hard for people to justify dropping the heavy price tag that comes along with an Apple product. The more Apple talks about the lower prices and continued efforts to reduce costs to users, the better.

I think that they could improve this aspect by focusing a little more on the longevity of the product, as well as the outstanding customer service that has come to be associated with Apple products.

If you’re going to spend a couple K on a computer, you need to feel that a) it’s not going to break on you in 6 months, and b) that you’re not going to need to upgrade after a year.

Point of interest, this release was definitely designed for the tech savvy. As an average consumer, there is much more information in here than you need. This is selling the company more than the product. This release is saying, “Apple is so dedicated to making sweet technology, you won’t know what the hell is in it, but you’ll know it’s good.”

I think that despite the abundant coverage Apple receives, it’s still important for Apple to try and shape the conversation with what it puts out in its PR department.

CUPERTINO, California—March 3, 2009—Apple® today introduced the new Mac® Pro using Intel “Nehalem” Xeon processors and a next-generation system architecture to deliver up to twice the performance of the previous generation system.* The new Mac Pro starts at $2,499 and features the latest graphics technology and an updated interior that makes expansion even easier than before.

“The new Mac Pro is a significant upgrade and starts at $300 less than before,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The Mac Pro features an advanced system architecture, new faster processors and our best-ever graphics options to deliver a faster, more powerful system that our professional customers are going to love.”

The new Mac Pro includes Intel Xeon processors running at speeds up to 2.93 GHz, each with an integrated memory controller with three channels of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC memory that delivers up to 2.4 times the memory bandwidth while cutting memory latency up to 40 percent.** Every Mac Pro comes standard with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory, a high-performance graphics card with nearly three times greater performance when compared to the previous generation system.*** An optional ATI Radeon HD 4870 is available for even more performance. With both a Mini DisplayPort and DVI port, the new Mac Pro provides out-of-the-box support for the 24-inch Apple LED Cinema Display, the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display, or other DVI based displays.

An updated interior provides easy access to all components within the Mac Pro for hassle free expansion. The Mac Pro includes four direct-attach cable-free hard drive carriers for installing up to 4TB of internal storage when using 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA drives. An optional cable-free Mac Pro RAID card delivers performance up to 550MB/s**** and allows the four internal drive bays to be set up in RAID 0, 1, 5, or 0+1 configurations for improved disk performance and redundant data protection.

Continuing Apple’s commitment to the environment, the new Mac Pro exceeds Energy Star 4.0 requirements and is leading the industry as an early adopter of the more stringent Energy Star 5.0 requirements which will become effective later this year. The Mac Pro enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and the interior is designed to be more material-efficient. The Mac Pro uses PVC-free internal cables and components and contains no brominated flame retardants. The new Mac Pro achieves EPEAT Gold status.*****

Every Mac includes Leopard®, the world’s most advanced operating system which features Time Machine™, an effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac; a redesigned Finder™ that lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs; Quick Look, the best way to instantly see files without opening an application; Spaces®, an intuitive feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; Mail with easy setup and elegant, personalized stationery; and iChat®, the most advanced video chat. Every Mac comes with Apple’s innovative iLife® ’09 suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. iLife ’09 features iPhoto®, which introduces Faces and Places as breakthrough new ways to easily organize and manage your photos; iMovie® with powerful easy-to-use new features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand® which introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar. Optional Apple professional applications include Aperture™, Final Cut® Express, Final Cut Studio®, Logic® Express, Logic Studio® and Shake®.

Pricing & Availability
The new Mac Pro will be available next week through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

The new quad-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

• one 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3500 series processor with 8MB of shared L3 cache;
• 3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 8GB;
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB of GDDR3 memory;
• 640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• Mini DisplayPort and DVI (dual-link) for video output (adapters sold separately);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire® 800 ports;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
• ships with Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Mighty Mouse.

The new 8-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $3,299 (US), includes:

• two 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 series processors with 8MB of shared L3 cache per processor;
• 6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics with 512MB of GDDR3 memory;
• 640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• Mini DisplayPort and DVI (dual-link) for video output (adapters sold separately);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
• ships with Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Mighty Mouse.

Build to order options and accessories include: one 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor for the quad-core Mac Pro; two 2.66 GHz or two 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors for the 8-core Mac Pro; up to 8GB for the quad-core Mac Pro and up to 32GB for the 8-core Mac Pro of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory; up to four 1TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm; Mac Pro RAID card; up to two 18x SuperDrives with double-layer support; ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics with 512MB of GDDR5 memory; AirPort Extreme® 802.11n; Apple Keyboard, Apple Wireless Keyboard; Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse; Mac OS® X Server Leopard. Complete build-to-order options and pricing are available at www.apple.com/macpro.

*Testing conducted by Apple in February 2009 using preproduction Mac Pro 8-core 2.93 GHz systems and previous generation Mac Pro 8-core 3.2 GHz systems. Based on estimate SPECfp_rate_base2006 results, SPEC is a registered trademark of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC); see www.spec.org for more information.

**Testing conducted by Apple in February 2009 using preproduction Mac Pro 8-core 2.93 GHz systems with 6GB of RAM and shipping previous generation Mac Pro 8-core 3.2 GHz systems with 8GB of RAM. Results are based on the STREAM v. 5.8 benchmark (www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/ref.html) using OMP support for multiprocessor-compiled builds. Memory latency data provided by Intel.

***Testing conducted by Apple in February 2009 using preproduction Mac Pro 8-core 2.93 GHz systems with 6GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GT 120, and shipping previous generation Mac Pro 8-core 3.2 GHz systems with 8GB of RAM and ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT. Results based on Call of Duty 4 v1.7.1, Timedemoambush, Timedemobog, Timedemopipeline, maximum graphics quality, 4x antialiasing, at 1680 x 1050.

****Testing by Apple in February 2009 using preproduction Mac Pro 8-core 2.93 GHz configured with Mac Pro RAID card. Testing conducted using Iometer 2006.07.27 with a 30-sec ramp-up, five-min run, 512KB request size, and four outstanding IOs. System configured with the OS and test volume on a single four-drive SAS RAID 0 volume. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac Pro RAID Card.

*****EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit www.epeat.net. Systems configured with multiple graphics cards, a Mac Pro RAID card, or a Fibre Channel card do not meet Energy Star or EPEAT Gold requirements.

<!–BULLET LIST HEADER (as needed)

• BULLET 1
• BULLET 2
• BULLET 3
• BULLET 4 etc…

–>

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

From: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/03/03macpro.html

By focusing on the new innovations and speed of Apple’s browser, Safari,  the day before its shareholder meeting, Apple is clearly trying to bring media focus away from the health and absence of its CEO and onto what they are doing despite his physical absence.

I feel this shows a strong Apple front, continuing to strive for excellence and retain brand loyalty with its ever-evolving software. The release focuses mostly on the speed and ease of use of the new Safari, two of the staples of Apple’s success.

CUPERTINO, California—February 24, 2009—Apple® today announced the public beta of Safari® 4, the world’s fastest and most innovative web browser for Mac® and Windows PCs. The Nitro engine in Safari 4 runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3.* Innovative new features that make browsing more intuitive and enjoyable include Top Sites, for a stunning visual preview of frequently visited pages; Full History Search, to search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages; Cover Flow®, to easily flip through web history or bookmarks; and Tabs on Top, to make tabbed browsing easier and more intuitive.

“Apple created Safari to bring innovation, speed and open standards back into web browsers, and today it takes another big step forward,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Safari 4 is the fastest and most efficient browser for Mac and Windows, with great integration of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards that enables the next generation of interactive web applications.”

Safari 4 is built on the world’s most advanced browser technologies including the new Nitro JavaScript engine that executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3. Safari quickly loads HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3.*

Apple is leading the industry in defining and implementing innovative web standards such as HTML 5 and CSS 3 for an entirely new class of web applications that feature rich media, graphics and fonts. Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies so web-based applications can store information locally without an Internet connection, and is the first browser to support advanced CSS Effects that enable highly polished web graphics using reflections, gradients and precision masks. Safari 4 is the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG web standards that are specifically designed for dynamic web applications.

Safari for Mac, Windows, iPhone™ and iPod® touch are all built on Apple’s WebKit, the world’s fastest and most advanced browser engine. Apple developed WebKit as an open source project to create the world’s best browser engine and to advance the adoption of modern web standards. Most recently, WebKit led the introduction of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards and is known for its fast, modern code-base. The industry’s newest browsers are based on WebKit including Google Chrome, the Google Android browser, the Nokia Series 60 browser and Palm webOS.

• Innovative new features in Safari 4 include:
• Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a stunning wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click;
• Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they’ve seen before;
• Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes®;
• Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones;
• Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history;
• Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches;
• Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site’s layout and text;
• built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility; and
• a new Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications.

Pricing & Availability
Safari 4 is a public beta for both Mac OS® X and Windows and is available immediately as a free download at www.apple.com/safari.

Safari 4 for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X Leopard® version 10.5.6 and Security Update 2009-001 or Mac OS X Tiger® version 10.4.11, a minimum 256MB of memory, and is designed to run on any Intel-based Mac or a Mac with a PowerPC G5, G4 or G3 processor and built-in FireWire®. Safari 4 for Windows requires Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista, a minimum 256MB of memory and a system with at least a 500 MHz Intel Pentium processor. Full system requirements and more information on Safari 4 can be found at www.apple.com/safari.

*Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection and other factors. All testing conducted on an iMac® 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Windows Vista, with 2GB of RAM. JavaScript benchmark based on the SunSpider JavaScript Performance test. HTML benchmark based on VeriTest’s iBench Version 5.0 using default settings.

<!–BULLET LIST HEADER (as needed)

• BULLET 1
• BULLET 2
• BULLET 3
• BULLET 4 etc…

–>

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

From: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/02/24safari.html

Shareholders particularly have a vested interest in Jobs’ status, and when they do not get what they are looking for from the company, it is not good PR. Perhaps the company feels that keeping the situation mum is a better overall PR tactic than the anger and suspicion generated from silence. In which case, what is so bad that it would be worth the trouble?

Skip to next paragraph

Robert Galbraith/Reuters

Apple’s chief executive Steven P. Jobs at a media event in September.

Multimedia

Interactive Feature

On Wednesday, the company’s shareholders had their chance to press for more information — but they did not get far.

At its annual shareholder meeting here on Apple’s corporate campus, run by the chief operating officer, Timothy D. Cook, the company responded to inquiries about Mr. Jobs by saying that he still planned to return to the company in June.

“He is deeply involved in all strategic matters and has delegated day-to-day authority to Tim Cook and his team,” said Arthur D. Levinson, a co-lead director of Apple and the chief executive of Genentech. “That’s where it stands.”

Mr. Levinson said that Apple’s board regularly discussed the matter of succession at the company and that “if there is new information we deem of import to disclose, that will happen.”

Daniel Cooperman, Apple’s general counsel, declined to answer a question about a reported investigation by securities regulators into how Apple has handled the disclosure of information about Mr. Jobs’s condition.

At the meeting, shareholders approved the re-election of Apple’s eight-member board, which includes Mr. Jobs, Al Gore and Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt. All of the board members were present except for Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Jobs.

Shareholders also voted down a proposal, offered by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, that would have given investors an advisory vote each year on the pay packages for top executives. Congress is considering mandating a similar measure.

Apple’s response to questions about Mr. Jobs’s condition did not satisfy some shareholders. Brandon Rees, a representative of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Reserve Fund, who raised the issue during a question-and-answer session at the meeting, said afterward that the company needed to say more about an issue that could clearly affect its stock price.

“I was disappointed by the fact that the board was not more transparent about the health of Mr. Jobs in addition to a succession plan,” Mr. Rees said.

But other shareholders said that Mr. Jobs was entitled to some amount of privacy, even as they lamented his absence.

“I came to see if he was here,” said Steven Winegarden, a longtime shareholder. “I do believe he has made a very significant contribution over the last 12 years, and it will be very difficult for someone else to capture the attention of everybody in the same way.”

At one point, Apple shareholders acknowledged Mr. Jobs’s 54th birthday, which was Tuesday, by standing and singing “Happy Birthday.”

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/technology/companies/26apple.html