CF Apple Computer

Apple is beginning to experience harsher conditions than it is used to, say analysts in the wake of yesterday’s Q4 results call . Researchers from Needham & Co. comment that Apple’s guidance for the next quarter is “downbeat,” as a result of worries about a looming recession. UBS’ Maynard Um is still more pessimistic, downgrading Apple’s rating from “Buy” to “Neutral” based on the economy, which Um suggests will hurt Mac sales.

The company’s average selling price of the iPhone, $635, is further said to be “unsustainable” in a competitive environment with longer replacement cycles. Um’s price target has slid from $125 to $115. Needham, UBS and Piper Jaffray all agree on disappointment with Mac shipments for the quarter, which amounted to just over 2.6 million, as opposed to the 2.8 million expected in many quarters.

It had been thought that Apple’s giveaway of iPod touches and nanos during its Back-to-School promotion would fuel higher Mac numbers. iPod shipments of about 11 million are said to either be in line with expectations, or below them; Piper observes that iPods or no longer a key growth driver for Apple, and shipments may be expected to shrink in year-over-year terms by 16 percent in the next quarter.

The analysts are not universally pessimistic however, due in great part to Apple’s shipment of nearly 6.9 million iPhones, which Um contrasts with UBS’ predictions of 4.2 million. In this regard, Apple’s non-GAAP results — which include the Apple TV and the iPhone — are said to be surprisingly high, producing $2.69 EPS off $11.7 billion in revenue, compared to UBS forecasts of $1.37 and $9.5 billion. Both Needham and Piper have taken optimistic views on Apple’s long-term prospects.

Apple did lower its least expensive laptop, the existing version of the entry-level MacBook, by $100 to $999. But in the updated versions of its MacBook and MacBook Pro machines, Apple focused mainly on adding features. Some had been in the svelte MacBook Air, including thinner laptop casings and a “multitouch” track pad, which, like the iPhone, understands gestures for spinning and zooming.

In an event at Apple s headquarters, Steve Jobs, Apple s co-founder and CEO, also said Apple broadened its use of graphics chips and associated technologies from Nvidia Corp., at the expense of Intel Corp., which still supplies the computers central processors. Jobs said the change speeds up processing-intensive activities playing popular 3-D video games, for example as much as six-fold.

As at other events in the last few months, Jobs appeared thin but, in a tongue-in-cheek nod to persistent questions about his health, projected a slide with his healthy 110-over-70 blood pressure reading. The redesigned laptops are thinner and lighter, and use what Apple touted as a construction “breakthrough” when it debuted in the super-slim MacBook Air in January. All the new laptops now use casings cut and tooled from aluminum, without a stronger skeleton fused to the insides.

At the lowest end of the redesigned laptops, a MacBook will cost $1,299, while the most expensive MacBook Pro, which comes with two graphics chips from Nvidia for extra-fast graphics processing, costs $2,499 a $300 reduction from the previous top model. An updated MacBook Air, the ultra-thin portable notebook that does not have a CD or DVD drive on board, begins at $1,799, just as the previous Air did. The track pads built into MacBooks and MacBook Pros also got a makeover.