All right, as we reach mid-October, I continue to wonder just what is Apple planning that will result in lower profit margins as a result of a major product transition?

Or has it already arrived?

That development was signaled during the last quarterly conference with financial analysts to discuss Apple’s earnings. It sure ignited the speculative flames, as both rumor sites and regular media outlets wondered just what Apple had under its corporate sleeves.

Well, in September, the iPod line was refreshed in the typical fashion. More goodies for the same price, and a new/old form factor for the iPod nano. Certainly this will put Apple in good stead for the holiday season to sell tens of millions of iPods once again, even though sales increases are not quite what they used to be. But none of the changes can truly be characterized as major, nor would it seem that the prices are aggressive enough to hurt profits.

That takes us to this week’s note-book refresh. Now in the scheme of things, I suppose Apple didn’t really have to do much. After all, MacBooks and MacBook Pros continue to deliver great sales figures, and, aside from some flashy colors on ugly old boxes from the PC box assemblers, there’s not much competition.

So what did Apple do? Well, it was a mixed revision.

At the low end, they simply continued building a variation of the older older model with either white or black plastics for $100 less, making them the first note-books from Apple to dip below the magic $1,000 barrier in several years. But it’s not as if the price changes are aggressive enough to substantially hurt profit margins, as the older parts used in these products are cheaper than they were when the MacBook line was last revised earlier this year.

Now I suppose those precision aluminum unibody enclosures weren’t cheap to design, and it could be that the initial production ramp might prove to be extremely costly. Indeed, Apple has a penchant for expensive fabrication schemes, witness the complex plastic casings for the late, lamented Cube. So even though pricing for the new MacBook and MacBook Pro lines aren’t significantly different from their predecessors, I suppose that could hurt margins. The new NVIDIA graphics chips and the glass trackpad with embedded click button might also raise the price tag somewhat.

So perhaps that’s it, folks! I suppose we’ll know when the inevitable tear-down occurs and an estimated bill of materials is published.

Of course, some of the analysts don’t quite see it that way. I’m already hearing rumblings that Apple disappointed them because there was no $899 MacBook to compete with the cheap PC note-books. Perhaps they are still succumbing to the belief in the alleged “Apple tax,” the extra money you reportedly pay to own a computer with the Apple label on it.

Perhaps they are just following the talking points of a certain misinformed Microsoft executive who ranted on about that subject in a recent interview published over at CNET, a site that’s always had difficulty giving Macs a fair shake. They really don’t deserve the extra hits, either, but I’m presenting the link anyway in case you want a point of reference.

It’s worth noting in passing how the subject of that interview claimed that the Mac version of Office lacked an equivalent to Outlook, as if Entourage didn’t qualify. He needs to read the company’s spec sheets a little more carefully.

He also referred to the Mac Pro, which lists for $2,799 in its standard configuration, as an example of an extremely overpriced computer. Now I suppose it is, when you look at those PC boxes listing for $399, complete with display. However, the Mac Pro isn’t strictly a personal computer; it’s a workstation. When you match it up with the equivalent product in Dell’s lineup, a Precision Workstation, identically equipped of course, the Mac comes out considerably and surprisingly cheaper.

Indeed, when I did that before writing this article, the Dell, even with a $150 rebate, was still over $4,000. In Dell’s favor, they do offer a free 19-inch display, which is worth maybe $400. But that still leaves one huge price gap.

In fact, Dell actually admitted to those differences at one time, although they never explained why, nor did they attempt to reduce the price of their product to match Apple’s.

In any case, it’s a sure thing that the arguments about Apple’s prices won’t end here. There are many ways to spin that debate, and I’ve already weighed in on it far too often already.

I just believe that, when it comes to the value equation, the Mac, or most any Apple product for that matter, generally comes out way ahead of the competition.

Most of you know that I am addicted to the 17-inch form factor for my note-books. I first bought a 17-inch PowerBook G4, the one with the 1.33GHz processor, shortly after it was released in late 2003. After a couple of years of regular use, it passed on to my son, Grayson, who later sold it when he acquired a black MacBook.

I’m now on my second 17-inch MacBook Pro, and it gets more use than ever these days, as I migrate more and more of my workload to the bedroom.

That takes us to the latest Apple note-book revision, replete with the long-awaited changes to the stagnant form factors that had gone largely unaltered since the days of the Titanium PowerBook.

Normally these revisions have arrived in the form of modest speed bumps, with faster processors and larger hard drives. However, there hasn’t been all that much of an improvement in Intel’s CPUs in recent months. So what is Apple to do to refresh its note-book line and garner big sales for the holiday quarter in a seriously troubled economic environment?

Well, one thing to do is change the looks. So all but the entry-level MacBooks ditch plastics for a specially-crafted unibody aluminum enclosure that also inherits beveled edges reminiscent of the MacBook Air and black borders around the displays, similar to the iMac.

The metal trackpad is history, replaced by glass, with the MultiTouch feature that supports gestures and pinches in the fashion of the iPhone and iPod touch. Reminiscent of the famous Mighty Mouse, the entire trackpad sports an integrated click button. According to Apple, the new line meets Energy Star 4.0, EPEAT Gold and RoHS standards, making them more environmentally friendly than ever.

But skin-deep charges weren’t sufficient, evidently, so Apple addressed the serious graphic shortcomings of the previous MacBooks, which were fine for displaying regular pictures, but pathetic for gamers. So those Intel integrated graphics are history, replaced by the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, a new integrated chipset design that supposedly increases performance by up to five times. Since this chip is also included on an updated MacBook Air, it means you can actually use that model, too, for gaming and get decent performance, with performance said to be up to four times faster.

With creditable graphics on its consumer line, Apple pulls a two-chip trick on the MacBook Pro, so you can stick with the NVIDIA integrated graphics chip and get the best possible battery life or switch to the NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT discrete chip, which increases performance by 1.5 times at the expense of dropping battery life by up to an hour. Your choice, and I think 90% of the MacBook Pro owners will stick with the integrated graphics for most purposes.

Of course we’ll have to wait for the reviewers to get their hands on these units and see how well they perform in the real world.

In other developments, the MacBook Air’s pathetic 80GB drive was upgraded to 120MB, with a 128GB solid state drive available as an option. The poor, neglected 17-inch MacBook looks the same as the previous model, but is now equipped strictly with the 1920 x 1200 glossy display. The hard drive increases from 250GB to 320GB, and RAM is maxed to 4GB, all at the same $2,799 price as its predecessor.

I would hope and expect the 17-inch model will get the rest of the updates at some future time, perhaps next year?

But what of all those rumors about a cheaper MacBook, the first in years that’s cheaper than the magic $1,000 threshold? Well, Apple’s trick there is just to keep a version of the 13-inch white MacBook in production, and reduce the minimum price from $1,099 to $999. With roughly a third of the dollars spent on personal computers in the U.S. retail market going Apple’s way, clearly they want to move as many boxes as they can in the next few months.

I’m not going to cover all the raw numbers, though. Apple has plenty of online information to satisfy your cravings for all the specifics and prices.

But one omission does trouble me. You see, content creators were, by and large, not enamored with glossy displays, which are prone to annoying reflections under some lighting conditions. You could order your MacBook Pro with a matte screen if you preferred, but now you can’t. It’s now glossy or nothing.

In addition, it appears that Apple is conceding defeat to a large extent with its FireWire standard. At one time, you needed them for camcorders and external drives. But you can’t do that with the new MacBook, which omits a FireWire jack. Now that might not impact a lot of our readers, but if you have an external FireWire device of any sort, you’re out of luck.

Unless, of course, you opt for the MacBook Pro, which contains a single FireWire 800 port. And yes, you should be able to adapt that connector to the older FireWire 400 standard. Or live without.

The other important development at Apple’s press briefing answered that expected $899 entry in its price list, a new 24-inch LED Cinema Display, the first update to the line in several years. It carries the same slim form factor as the updated Apple note-books and the iMac and is due later this year.

Now if Apple would only produce a 30-inch version, I might indeed place it on my must buy list.

Let me get right to the point: I really don’t see any further point in making further predictions about Apple’s new note-books, with the event close at hand, and probably here for many of you when you read this column.

In passing, though, I might suggest that Apple has staged a major effort to fuel the speculation in the information-starved rumor sites — and even some mainstream sites — with strategically-generated “leaks,” such as a certain repair document that appeared briefly, which covered servicing an AirPort card in the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

Now maybe some of you really think such things are simply mistakes on the part of one of Apple’s Web programmers, who will soon be summarily disciplined by his or her supervisor for this evidence of sheer incompetence.

I don’t agree. I think that Apple has been doing what it can to stoke the fires, and that document was briefly available strictly to whet your appetite for the real thing.

Some years back, in fact, I’m quite certain Apple created bogus documents on an alleged FireWire audio interconnect or breakout box to see which rumor sites would lap it up. This misguided plot was intended to find out who was violating their confidentiality agreements by giving news to the purveyors of Apple secrets.

In the end, Apple lost most of the legal actions they filed as a result, though they did manage to shut down Think Secret in the process. So maybe it was a partial victory.

These days, it doesn’t appear that Apple is quite as aggressive in fighting the rumors, particularly since they’ve spread to the mainstream media, where cease and desist letters from attorneys will have no impact whatever. Those large media conglomerates have their own attorneys on the payroll who’d be delighted to fight tooth and nail with Apple should the occasion arise.

So all those photos featuring the casings of the newest Apple note-books have not, so far at least, attracted the usual takedown orders. Perhaps Apple’s marketing people finally realized they are getting tens of millions of dollars worth of free publicity, so it’s better to quietly embrace and extend the speculation.

Speaking of speculation, there are stories out now that Apple is working on a networked LCD flat panel TV. But it’s not a new rumor, but one that surfaces every now and then, only to be shot down again when it fails to occur.

The Apple TV, considered a “hobby” by Steve Jobs, has been considered the precursor to a major strategy to bring the personal computer into the living room. So far, efforts by other PC makers haven’t succeeded. The so-called media center PCs have been around for years, but haven’t been major sales successes. They are also difficult to use, and not always reliable in operation.

Right now, the question is where Apple might go, and whether existing products really meet your needs. If you already have a high definition TV, for example, you likely also have a cable or satellite set top box to receive content. This device may also include a DVD to record your shows for later viewing. That’s what the Steinberg family does, in fact, and at the end of the week, we might have a marathon session to catch up on the shows we’ve missed during the week.

No doubt, you also have some sort of DVD player to flesh out your viewing capability, and perhaps a membership with Blockbuster or Netflix to get the latest releases. A smaller number of our readers have bought into the Blu-ray high definition DVD format to get the maximum picture quality.

So where does Apple fit in? Well, Apple TV is basically a conduit to deliver the audio and video content from your Mac or PC to your TV. For that limited purpose, it works quite well, but it’s also another box and another set of wires to clutter the rear of your TV.

The speculation about the Apple HDTV has it that it would be a conventional set with an integrated Apple TV. That seems to be an unduly simple concept, simply because it does nothing that separate products can’t do now, and that isn’t Apple’s way.

Instead, should such a product appear — and I rather doubt it will — it would work best by integrating all the peripherals you normally connect to your TV. That means the cable or satellite receiver, the DVR and the Blu-ray DVD. Call it the TV equivalent of the audio receiver, where all the separates combine into a single box.

But is it logical? I mean, why limit your ability to swap the peripherals in and out to fit your needs? You aren’t, for example, necessarily married to your cable or TV provider. Today you can switch services if you don’t get the picture quality or channels you want.

When it comes to DVD or other content delivery players, why restrict yourself to a single format? What if Blu-ray fails, and is supplanted by downloadable high definition videos? What if it requires a separate player and that product isn’t an Apple TV? Do you just remove the DVD module and replace it, assuming a replacement is available?

Indeed, the problem with some of the rumors that you read is that far too many tech writers, and that includes the ones working for traditional media, are too quick to repeat what they hear without taking the time to see if the stories pass the logic test.

Just the other day, I got a press release and smiled. It came from an old friend, Evan Gross, author of Spell Catcher, that venerable system-wide writing tool. Indeed, it has gone through a number of incarnations and several publishers over the years, before Evan decided to let his company, Rainmaker, Inc., do it all.

It all began in 1985, when Thunder! was released as a Mac desk accessory by Batteries Included, a company that soon went out of business. Thunder! subsequently passed through several publishers on its path to becoming Spell Catcher.

At least Evan doesn’t have to beg for his royalties anymore, and he’s really been through the mill getting paid from those failing companies. Indeed, he deserves every bit of the success he’s earned simply by doing what Apple has failed to do all these years.

Yes, it’s perfectly true that Mac OS X Leopard has limited system-wide spell checking capabilities, and applications that support those features can get the job done, after a fashion. But Spell Catcher is so much more, and when it’s running, you barely know it’s there. That’s the hallmark of solid design.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.