OSNews

This global recession doesn't look like it'll get better anytime soon.

I suspect that Apple is facing a bigger drop in sales outside the U.S than inside.

I agree that Apple make some (not all) good hardware, but their prices outside the U.S market are tantamount to daylight robbery, especially in many Asian nations.

I live in Singapore, and although the price difference between Apple hardware and the competing brands isn't as big as some other neighboring countries, there's still a rather noticeable difference nonetheless.

Here, the only people that buy Macs are people in the graphic arts and the fashion victims. Some people I know have said they would consider a Mac (for whatever reason) if the prices were a bit lower, so lets hope Apple will lower prices for it's computing products to gain more customers (if they care, that is)

As for me, I'm also in the arts, but my next workstation will definitely not be an overpriced Mac Pro. I've recently almost mastered Inkscape and CinePaint, and their output matches and sometimes surpasses anything I've created on Adobe software. So I don't really see a need to stay with patent-crazy Apple (all that architecture, architecture, architecture nonsense doesn't work on me) anymore. The only thing Linux doesn't make easy enough for most people in my field is color management, but that too can can be overcome if you know what you're doing.

As for the netbook comments,
Where I live, computer prices (with the exception of Macs) are pretty low compared to many other parts of the planet, and buying a reasonably good desktop + a netbook would be around the same cost as getting a full-featured laptop. Most people here do that, and they get a desktop for all the serious work at home/office and a netbook with good battery life for travel/road use (most people only type documents, use VOIP, watch Youtube and check emails when on the road anyway).

Just my 2 cents.