Ahh, yes.

I was having this discussion with a certain unnamed individual the other day, who was saying something to the effect that Apple's hardware costs about 2x as much as it should. Well, obviously, he hasn't taken a look at the latest iBook, announced Tuesday, May 1. The 'Books start at $1299 at Apple's store, and will ship in 3-5 weeks.

Even a typical laptop configuration, (128 MB memory, 10 GB drive, built-in DVD, Ethernet, Modem, RGB out, 2 x USB, and 1 x FireWire) costs only $1499, and you can get a DVD/CD-RW combo drive for only $300 more, and add an Airport card for $100! Looks like a pretty good deal to me. (And they don't even skimp and put in one of those cheesy passive-matrix screens)

MacNN has a short feature on the new laptop as well.