Apple notebook sales doing well - and new iPods coming soon

Analysts report Apple now has more than one sixth of the U.S. laptop market in its hands. Research firm NPD reports the MacBook and MacBook Pro accounted for 17.6% of June's notebook sales, quite a bit more than May's 14.3%.

The market share increase pushed Apple past Gateway Inc. into third place on NPD's list of laptop sales leaders, behind Hewlett-Packard Co. and Toshiba Corp. Research firm IDC also has Apple in the third spot; data it released last month put Apple's share of U.S. sales at 5.6%, far behind leaders HP (28.4%) and Dell (23.6%) but tied with Gateway.

Back-to-school sales during this month and next, Baker said, should be strong for Apple, but his forecast is that the company's share will remain stable through the quarter. "I don't expect it to improve any from the June numbers," said Baker.

ComputerWorld says Apple's next move will likely be an iPod refresh, perhaps even as soon as next week as Apple invited journalists to a press event on September 5th, 2007.

Rumours about Apple's new iPod lineup are popping up all over the web. Some people claim we can expect touchscreens, a new nano or perhaps even WiFi connectivity and FM radio.