Question: Is Apple really immune to the economic downturn?

Answer: I doubt it.

Participating in his first earnings conference call in eight years (and doesn't that very fact say enough?), Steve Jobs did his best to sound confident and cocksure. But this recession isn't exactly leaving Apple untouched. While sales still seem relatively robust, Apple's stock price is off 50% from its height, and even Apple's once mighty refusal to reduce its prices has recently fallen to market pressures. But the real revelation from the conference call was Jobs' answer to the question of when Apple would be a low-priced laptop. Apples, Jobs insists, doesn't "know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk."

As I sit here writing this blog on a great Compaq laptop that cost all of $400 and is decidedly no piece of junk, I think it is that attitude that may ultimately turn the tide in Apple's seemingly endless capture of market share. Jobs may not know how to build a low-cost laptop, but the American public sure as hell knows how to buy them. And after the steep discounts on many laptops that this Christmas season has seen, you'd better believe that people aren't going to be content to blithely pay $800+ for the privilege of computer portability.

Even Mac lovers might find that Apple loses its shine if it becomes the most expensive technology on the block.