"We just completed surveys of well over 30 stores and Mac demand seems to be outpacing prior expectations," he wrote to clients. "Even with prospects for a slowing economy, we believe Mac demand can keep going strong with new products that we have detected in the supply chain. Given higher margins for the 'Mac ecosystem,' including software, we are raising estimates."

With regard to the near-term, checks show "very solid holiday demand, particularly with Macs, outpacing our prior expectations," he adds. Reitzes is forecasting that the long-rumored Mac subcompact laptop will see the light of day at next month's Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. If it doesn't ship around that time frame, it will at least be previewed, he says.

"In fact, we believe there could be multiple products of this type in Apple's product pipeline over the next few years with possibly another to be announced by the end of 2008," Reitz notes. "... Regarding features in the ultra-portable, we believe Apple would be looking at integrating the 'touch' capability from its iPhone into the ultra-portable device with Leopard obviously as the operating system. We believe Apple would only enter this market if its devices could be priced in the $1,500 range."

The analyst says the iPod and iPhone will continue to sell well, especially if Apple introduces a lower priced model of the latter. Reitzes predicts that will happen in the first half of the year. The analyst also thinks that Apple may be working on deals with the studios to bring a pay-per-view type system to the iTunes Store with movie rentals priced around $3 or $4.

On a related note, the analyst says, "In terms of new products, we believe Apple is working on improvements for Apple TV, perhaps adapting the concept a bit with the focus on advanced and increased networked storage for the home -- accessible by your Mac or PC or TV. We also believe it is possible at some point for Apple to enter the HDTV flatscreen business, with built- in Apple TV’s and hard drives -- but that may be a 2009 or 2010 event."