NPD noted that all consumer electronics sales  in the US — not including Amazon Kindles, iPads, Microsoft Surface, or any phones or video games — were 6 percent lower than Black Friday last year.

From NPD’s report:

Notebook PCs continued their year long struggle as units fell 10 percent, with sales of Apple notebooks flat and Windows notebooks down 10 percent. Windows 8 represented 89 percent of notebook sales with an ASP of $368, and touchscreens accounted for 3 percent of sales with an ASP of $668.

Apple’s Black Friday discounts were relatively minor this year, as usual: a $1,699 Retina MacBook Pro, a $1,199 MacBook Pro and a $999 MacBook Air were each discounted $101. Black Friday is about finding the best deals, and Apple does not take the opportunity to draw customers in with mega price slashing. That said, Black Friday is the one time per year Apple offers any discounts for new products at all.

Still, Mac OS X based laptops did better than their Windows counterparts: Windows laptop sales declined 10 percent compared to the same day last year — and that’s despite Windows 8′s recent arrival.

In both cases, it’s important to note that this report doesn’t tell us anything about how often customers chose a tablet over either a Mac or Windows laptop, since the report doesn’t include iPad or Surface sales. Apple, for its part, isn’t likely to sweat this news too much: CEO Tim Cook has been open about the fact that cannibalization among his products is a real thing, and that some customers are in fact buying an iPad instead of a MacBook.

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PHORCE will cost $219 for the USB model and $299 for a Mac version once the early bird discount deals are gone. Here’s a detailed look at how it works:

Inside the Phorce is a 54 Whr battery, which certainly adds a little weight to carrying around. But one of the biggest challenges we have yet to overcome with mobile devices is the power supply, as battery technologies haven’t changed all that much in the past few decades. So I’d be willing to tote along a spare power pack; in fact, I often do as I always buy a spare battery for devices when I can. And when I can’t, I tend to use a portable universal type battery system.

To give you an idea of the battery capacity, Phorce can add 4 hours of run-time to a 15-inch MacBook or 7 hours to a MacBook Air, for example. If you opt for the USB model, you can recharge an iPhone 8 times, a Galaxy S III 6 times, or full-sized iPad once. That new iPad mini can be charged 2.5 times with the Phorce. There’s also a mobile app or iOS and Android that uses Bluetooth to pair your smartphone with the Phorce bag. With it, you can see how much juice is still available or be alerted when you (and your phone) stray too far from the Phorce. The bag has 3 USB ports for charging and can be recharged in about 4 hours.

As if that weren’t enough, the bag itself is impressive. Basically, you can carry it in three different configurations based on how you attach the straps. Need a briefcase bag with handles? No problem. Prefer a backpack? Yup, you can do that too. Or change it to a messenger bag for over the shoulder travel. And the bag can expand an additional 240 cubic inches with one zipper pull.

If the project raises $150,000 or more — which won’t surprise me based on what I’ve seen so far — Phorce will be funded. As always with Kickstarter projects, you’re investing in a mini startup project, not necessarily a product itself, so keep in mind that the product itself could change slightly.

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The combination of the overall change in computing, from something that occurs at a desk to something that happens on a variety of devices throughout the day, and higher performance chips based on the ARM architecture planned for next year are probably the spur for the latest rumors. The change in computing has been happening for some time, but only last week did ARM announce its next generation processor cores, the A-53 and the A-57. The big focus of those cores was that they can support 64-bit computing — a necessity for servers and the personal computer markets today.

Better chips mean a better experience

In a conversation last week with Nole Hurley, VP of marketing and strategy for ARM’s processor division, we briefly discussed the likelihood of one of ARM’s new A-50 cores having the chops to make it into laptops and other devices dominated by CPUs. The 64-bit compatibility associated with the next generation ARMv8 architecture means that the cores will be able to address more memory. That gives devices the ability to support having scores of open tabs on their browsers while running a dozen different programs or apps.

Until these cores were announced, ARM cores have supported 32-bit processing. That’s fine for mobile devices where ARM has dominated, but when it comes to content creation, 64-bit compatibility is crucial, as you can see from my colleague Kevin Tofel’s review of a Chromebook running on an ARM chip versus one running an Intel chip. Thus, with these new cores, ARM has a product that could possibly compete in the laptop and personal computing market. Those cores will be out next year with devices running that IP expected in 2014.

If Apple is contemplating this switch it is because it realizes that now that computing has gone mobile, the x86 architecture, which was optimized for performance at all costs, has been superseded by the ARM instruction set that optimizes energy efficiency at all costs. The difference now is that ARM has also been boosting performance while optimizing for efficiency and has reached a level of performance parity that supports today’s application needs. Intel’s focus on efficiency in x86 is kind of like retrofitting a Ferrari to be more fuel-efficient while ARM has been building a Tesla.

Apple hasn’t stood still however waiting for better ARM cores. It has built a better core using its ARM architecture license to tweak the current generation ARMv7 instruction set to increase the performance of the A6 processor in the iPhone 5. (An architecture license lets Apple tweak the core designs that ARM builds.) As this deep dive from Anand Tech illustrates, Apple has already made a processor for phones that could rival a traditional CPU.

Apple hasn’t forgotten about the need for software

And Apple may have already started down the path of optimizing its OS X Mac operating system for the ARM-based architecture, one major step it needs to take before any transition off Intel’s x86 platform. Back in 2007 Apple said the iPhone runs OS X and Apple later clarified that it runs on the same kernel software. Thus, must of the optimization needed to fully retrofit OS X for the ARM instruction set may already be done. That only leaves the popular software running on the MacBook left for a retrofit, and because Apple already has adapted popular programs of its own such as iMovie and iPhoto for iOS, that work may also be done.

The biggest holdout is probably Microsoft Office, and one would assume that Microsoft, once it got word of Apple’s plans it would act to preserve that software on the popular Macbook platform. However, Microsoft has been dragging its feet with ARM. For example it supports Windows RT and has a mobile platform that runs on ARM chips, but Windows 8 still doesn’t.

So, as the rumor mill works over the possibility of an Apple switch from Intel to ARM-based chips in the Macbook, it’s worth noting that the hardware is almost in place and the software is probably mostly there. The biggest unknown in this plan is how Intel might react to the threat of an Apple defection.

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Surprise! The display is as good as I expected — it is very easy on the eyes and makes using many of the websites and apps I look at every day oh-so-much crisper and noticeably brighter. But what intrigued me was the size and weight.

By design, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is not as thin and light as the Air. It occupies the middle of Apple’s notebook lineup, fitting between the Air and the larger 15-inch MacBook Pro. But this computer is deceptively small. It measures 0.75 inches thick and weighs 3.57 pounds, according to Apple. That’s a pound lighter and 20 percent thinner than the older model 13-inch MacBook. But I was interested in how it matched up to the 13-inch Air, which weighs 2.96 pounds and measures 0.11 inches at its thinnest point and 0.68 inches at its thickest.

It’s true that the Air is thinner. But the 13-inch Pro somehow seems to take up less space, in terms of surface area. You can see it in the photo. The smaller bezel puts the screen closer to the hinge. The Air, on the other hand, has a larger bezel and more extra space around the keys, on the sides and especially in the wrist-rest area. The Pro is still a bit heavier, sure. But the interesting thing is that it feels like Apple cut it down a lot, getting rid of extraneous surface areas, so what you have is just the amount of space that you need.

The 13-inch MacBook Air, on the right, is thinner and lighter, but its screen and body are slightly larger than the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Going into this test, I was sure the extra weight and thickness of the Pro would disqualify the device for me. I love the Air because I work remotely and change locations often, from my living room to a variety of local coffee shops, airports and a number of press events. The Air doesn’t weigh down my computer bag, so I’ve never minded dragging it anywhere with me. And it’s plenty powerful for my work and personal needs, which are mostly browser-based, in addition to managing iTunes content and photos.

But the 13-inch Pro makes a good case for itself. Besides the display and size, the build quality feels a bit higher-quality than the Air. The keys have a somewhat more satisfying click — likely because it’s newer — but the track pad feels more solid too. The black bezel around the display is sleeker than the cheaper-feeling silver one lining the screen of the Air. The Pro’s 2.5 Ghz Core i5 processor makes it plenty speedy for my needs; but again, my everyday use of my computer consists of me uploading photos and having two browsers with a dozen tabs open simultaneously.

While I really am impressed by the new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, it’s a personal policy of mine not to buy a new computer every year when a better one comes out. I like to get several years of use out of each machine. If I were in the market, however, I would give the 13-inch Retina MacBook a really close look. For now though, I’ll wait.

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Following the release of Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter earnings on Thursday, the company also forecast the results for the next quarter. While it predicted it would take in the most revenue ever in company history – $52 billion — for the months of October through December, it’s also projecting earnings per share of $11.52. That’s quite a bit below the $13.87 per share it brought in the same quarter a year ago: albeit ridiculous profit by that standards of the mobile industry.

CFO Peter Oppenheimer blamed slightly lower profits on a shorter fiscal quarter — 13 weeks this year instead of 14 weeks like last year — but also “changing gross margins.”

Asymco

The refresh of the entire mobile lineup and most of the Mac lineup and Apple’s decision to ramp production on all of these products at almost the same time has costs, CFO Peter Oppenheimer explained in a call with investors.

“The margins on our new products are lower than their predecessors, including iPhone 5, and we’ve been very aggressive on iPad mini,” he said, indicating that Apple is keeping the iPad mini price low to be competitive.

“We’ve never introduced so many new form factors at once. All of these products have higher costs than their predecessors,” he said. Sure, that happens every time Apple refreshes a product, however, “the difference this time is the sheer number of products we’re introducing in a short period of time,” Oppenheimer added.

For years Apple’s reputation held that it built premium products, charged premium prices, and delivered premium profits. But with the introduction of the iPhone and later the iPad, the company has become known for something else: affordability. At $499, the original iPad was and remains cheaper than much of its competition, except for the more recent introduction of Amazon and Google tablets at very aggressive (and unprofitable) prices. Yet, Apple has managed to grow its profits while keeping its mobile products affordable. And investors have gotten comfortable with successively larger, more impressive earnings results. But it seems there is a limit: transitioning the majority of the product lineup at once does require some sacrifice.

Ramping its new product lineup all at once also seems to be having another effect: constrained supply. CEO Tim Cook talked repeatedly about demand for products outstripping the supply and Apple is trying to keep up. The iPhone 5 is backordered at most major carriers; Apple’s own website shows the wait is between three to four weeks. The iMac, he promised, would also be “significantly” constrained during the quarter.

“With each new product we see learning curves associated with ramping production,” said Cook. “The new products we have now are no exception to that — the difference is the number of new products we have moving at once.” The iPhone 5 in particular is presenting a challenge its manufacturer: Foxconn says it’s “the most difficult device” it’s ever built.

Apple is stressing that accepting lower margins and being behind on production is only temporary and that it plans to get its costs down as soon as possible.

While lower product margins are sometimes seen as a sign that trouble is around the corner, as was the case for Research in Motion in 2010, in Apple’s case, it has its strongest lineup of products ever heading into a vital quarter. Not all history repeats itself.

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• It seems clear that Apple is about to refresh its Mac lineup, which was last updated in July 2011. The latest rumor, from an analyst who spoke with AppleInsider, is that not only will the 17-inch MacBook Pro be dropped, but that Apple will resurrect the MacBook name — after killing it off last summer — for a pair of 13-inch and 15-inch laptops, with the latest Intel chipset, a Retina Display, and the choice of a solid-state or traditional hard drive. But like the MacBook Air, it will supposedly ditch the optical drive. The two new MacBooks, reportedly, will exist alongside two refreshed MacBook Airs and two new MacBook Pros.
• Plenty of whispers have indicated Retina Displays are coming to Macs. More evidence showed up in the form of an app in the Mac App Store newly labeled with “retina graphics,” as spotted by The Next Web. (Be sure to see Kevin Tofel’s thoughts on how much such an upgrade would cost.)
• T-Mobile may be the only major carrier in the U.S. that can’t offer the iPhone, but it’s going to use WWDC to test its upgraded 4G network. On Thursday the carrier confirmed to 9to5Mac that it is doing a trial run with its 4G HSPA+ service in the 1900 MHz band around San Francisco’s Moscone Center, where, “coincidentally,” iPhone-toting WWDC attendees from all over the world will be swarming starting Monday morning.
• Bloomberg Businessweek has a great profile of one of the most familiar faces of the annual WWDC event besides Steve Jobs: Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller. The piece focuses on the pressure he’s under — as holder of the company’s nearly $1 billion annual ad budget – to keep the company and its products “cool” and relevant.
• The aftermath of every Apple event is clouded by unmet expectations on the part of Apple fans and critics alike. If you want to see what the people who trade Apple stock are expecting and how they view Apple stock’s potential, take a look at Fortune’s roundup.

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Predictably, many are running with this. An Apple computer starting at $799 would be a big deal — the cheapest traditional laptop the company has ever made. The Digitimes report had few details, but the theme that’s emerging in the flash analysis around the idea of a $799 Air is that Apple wouldn’t do it by choice, but would be “forced to” out of some sort of response to the threat of Intel-based ultrabook notebooks — which, mind you, are direct rip-offs of the Air.

It’s not impossible Apple would make a $799 Air. They could, but if they do, it wouldn’t be for the reasons many think.

Apple is not scared of ultrabooks. Intel’s thin-and-light, optical drive-less laptop concept with a solid-state drive and all-day battery life isn’t a monolith. As Dan Ackerman wrote for CNET in March, the term “ultrabook” has been clouded as a marketing term thanks to its overuse by mainstream laptop makers, and there’s not even an accepted definition anymore — it’s essentially the catch-all term for new mid-priced laptops. Apple has never been worried about competing with mid-priced laptops from HP, Dell, Acer or Samsung.

Today, you can buy an “ultrabook” that’s thicker than an inch, is heavier than 4 pounds, has a 14-inch screen, a traditional spinning hard drive, and decent battery life. They’re also priced between $700 and $900, or slightly below the $999 entry level 11.6-inch MacBook Air. In other words — nothing has changed. PC makers have been making laptops for years that could beat Apple on specs and often price and still Apple has done its own thing and continued to rake in profits.

Ultrabooks aren’t actually selling very well. It’s old news that Intel’s $300 million initiative intended to jumpstart this category is having a rough go of it. Holiday sales of the devices were described as “ugly.” And why not, when some consumers are putting off new computer purchases as they migrate some computing experiences to mobile devices such as iPhone and iPads?

People are already buying the $999 Air. The Air is doing fine on its own after beginning life in 2008 as a niche concept and very expensive design. Once Apple redesigned it and lowered the price two years later, it’s apparently done decent business for the company. Apple has never said how many Airs it typically sells each quarter, though analysts pegged the Air as responsible for a little more than a quarter of MacBook sales back in October. It’s also the company’s entry-level computer, so it’s not unreasonable that the cheapest computer would also be one of its best-selling computers.

Apple doesn’t typically do price cuts as a response to competitors. The idea that Intel aiming for $699 ultrabooks would suddenly “force” Apple to move down in price on its successful MacBook Air doesn’t match up with Apple’s practices. Apple has indeed lowered pricing on its most successful products over the last few years. But the way in which it’s cut prices isn’t with a new model — it’s been by lowering the price of older devices.

Apple’s most important product, the iPhone, has remained priced between $199 and $399 (with two-year wireless contract) since 2008 for new models. In 2009 Apple first discounted its popular device for older models. While simultaneously introducing the typically priced new iPhone 3GS, it kept the older model iPhone 3G for sale for the discounted price of $99. The same happened with the introduction of a new phone in 2010 — the 3GS stayed around for $99 — and in 2011, the two-year old iPhone 3GS became free with contract, while the iPhone 4 went down to $99. It has followed a similar pattern with the iPad — with the introduction of the third-generation iPad in January, Apple began offering the year-old iPad 2 for $399 instead of the normal $499 entry price.

So if Apple does decide to price a MacBook Air at $799, it likely won’t be to replace the $999 11.6-inch model that’s selling just fine, but perhaps as last year’s model simply discounted. But in general, this is a Digitimes report we’re talking about — I wouldn’t hold your breath for a cheaper MacBook.

Note: This was updated to clarify that a $799 MacBook Air would be Apple’s cheapest laptop ever, not cheapest computer, and that the first iPhone discount was in 2009.

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Step one: Find out if your Mac can handle it

Not all Macs are eligible for memory upgrades, or at least not ones you can perform easily at home. Some might already be equipped with their maximum supported memory, and some might have more difficult to replace memory kits, like the MacBook Air does, for instance. But in general, you can find out if your Mac could take on more memory by checking your system stats.

In Lion, this is easy. Go to the Apple menu, click “About this Mac,” and then click “More Info…” Then, click the “Memory” tab along the top and it’ll show you how much memory you currently have installed, and the capacity of each individual module. In my example, I have 4 x 4 GB modules installed on my iMac, which is the most this model officially supports. Many base configuration models of iMacs currently available ship with two slots free, as mine did before I upgraded.

To find out the maximum memory your model supports, you can do two things. First, click the link in that Memory information page that says “Memory Upgrade Instructions” to be taken to the relevant Apple support site for your computer. So long as you know when your computer was released, you can find all the information you need, including Apple’s maximum memory capacity for your specific model here. If you need to find when your Mac was released, check our guide for finding that out.

You can also take a second option, which is to visit OWC, find your Mac of choice under the “Memory” section and see what options the site provides. OWC actually offers kits that provide memory in capacities that often exceed Apple’s official supported specs, but will still work fine with your hardware.

Step two: Figure how much memory you need to upgrade

OWC is a great resource for figuring out how much RAM you need to purchase to upgrade. Navigate to the Memory section on the OWC homepage, then find your model of computer. Now, the site will provide you with a number of options for memory upgrades and replacements. OWC had basically done the thinking for you, so you can just click on a combo package greater than your current memory configuration and not worry about whether or not the modules will work with each other or your machine.

The other benefit of going through OWC is that they have very fair prices, and they even offer rebate pricing on the memory that shipped with your Apple computer. You won’t get much, but it’s more than you’d make by throwing your old RAM in the garbage.

Step three: Install the RAM

Following Apple’s installation guides is the best way to go about replacing your RAM. Here are links to the instructions for upgrading iMac memory, Mac mini memory, MacBook Pro memory, and MacBook memory. It’s not difficult and requires a minimum of tools, but you will need a small screwdriver, like one you’d use for eyeglasses repair, in order to replace memory on iMacs and MacBooks.

Step four: Enjoy considerable performance boosts

When I upgraded my 2011 iMac from its basic 4 GB of memory to 16 GB, it was definitely like getting a new machine. Things never grind to a halt anymore; I can run Photoshop alongside other demanding applications without major slow-downs; and my computer seldom requires an actual restart or power-down to get things moving smoothly again. The entire upgrade cost me less than $100, too.

If you love your Mac but find yourself less than impressed with its performance lately, a memory boost could be just the thing to put the spark back in your relationship.

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Apple spent $17.3 billion on semiconductors in 2011, driven mostly by the popularity of the iPhone, iPad and solid-state drives that ship by default with its MacBook Air. Apple’s spending increased 35 percent from 2010, when it spent $12.8 billion on semiconductors. HP, which had spent $17.6 billion in 2010, saw its PC shipments decline 16.2 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2011. That, combined with a lackluster year overall for PCs, drove HP’s spending down to $16.6 billion in 2011.

It is no coincidence that Apple’s biggest competition on the mobile device front was also its closest rival when it came to semiconductor spending. Samsung spent $16.7 billion in 2011, a 9 percent increase over its spending in 2011.

Apple’s massive spending on semiconductors is a result of huge sales of its products, but that kind of spending power will also help it continue to secure and maintain its supply-chain advantage. Expect to see the gulf between Apple and HP in terms of this measure of success widen further, as mobile devices increasingly overtake PCs as the central device in users’ daily lives and as Apple continues to shift its focus to notebooks and computers that rely more on solid-state storage.

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The MacBook Air was the only notebook that saw increased shipments during the quarter, according to Digitimes Research, which said on Monday that notebook shipments slowed by 8.7 percent sequentially to 48.59 million units worldwide during the quarter.

In Apple’s last quarterly earnings report, it reported 4.89 million Macs sold, meaning if we use Digitimes’ estimate of 1 million MacBook Airs sold, the notebook represented roughly 20 percent of the total. We know Apple’s iMac is also performing well, but it’s logical to assume the Air is growing in influence in terms of the overall Mac picture. Expect that trend to continue, since analysts expect the so-called Ultrabook category to explode in the next six years.

Apple doesn’t usually break out sales of individual Mac lines from the overall Mac category total, but it will still be interesting to see if it has any official comment on the success of the Air during its quarterly earnings conference call on Jan. 24.

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