Mostly in agreement with you. But what i take away from all this is that the new laptops were delayed somewhat (and so is the margin hit).

At the Q3 earnings call they said that margins would be impacted in Q4 by a product transition. However in Q4 the margin was still very healthy and above guidance. The new laptops were not released/announced until Oct 14. I think the margin hit is coming in this Qtr as production of the new laptops ramps up, with higher initial tooling and component costs which should come down over time.

Well, we can all hope for something that will blow our socks off, but what I don’t get is this feeling that somehow “product transition” means earth-shattering, mind-blowing product. It means nothing of the sort. It simply means they’re transitioning a product to something else (i.e., not just a simple refresh of the old package) so margins will be impacted. It really doesn’t mean anything more than that.

If the aluminum iMacs last year were the last product transition Apple “warned” us about, then the new MacBook lines apply even more so.

Finally, Apple has already stated their holiday lineup is set. No new stuff this year. There’s always MacWorld, of course, but there’s no way Apple talks about a MacWorld product transition in a 3Q earning call! No, the transition Apple spoke of is already here.

Of course, if Apple does indeed have ‘something else’ up it;s sleeve, well the new MacBooks are still at least a great start. I just hope that’s all they are, the beginning and not the only or the final ‘transition’ product.

For what it’s worth though the change in focus for the ipod touch from media to games could also be seen as a product transition to some.

These conference calls are not places where companies can lie. They are legally liable for what they say. If Oppenheimer said the gross margins were supposed to be impacted by the unibody and iPod Touch price, then that was it. It was NOT blu-ray.

I don’t believe Apple claims lower margins are coming for something they had not yet absolutely decided to launch. They’re not that sloppy.

Apple made a similar statement about product transitions and lowered margins last Summer. What was the product in question? The new aluminum iMacs, which at the same price as the previous models were clearly pulling in less profit. I’d bet the margin delta between old and new is greater for the MacBooks than for those iMacs.