Monday’s Apple Rumors — Mac Attack

Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Monday:

Mac Continues to Grow: While Gartner found that the PC market shrunk 1.1% in the first quarter, that decline hasn’t hurt Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL)�Mac business. According to an IDC report detailed at All Things Digital, Mac shipments grew for the 20th consecutive quarter, with 27.7% more Macs shipped in the first three months of 2011 than a year ago. Consumer sales grew 21.6% in the period, keeping pace with previous quarters, but Mac sales to businesses saw a massive spike, up 66%. With major U.S. PC manufacturers Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) increasingly relying on business customers for their own PC sales, Apple’s growing influence in the sector should be every bit as concerning as the iPad and its PC-sales-cannibalizing popularity. Of course, analyst Charlie Wolf of Needham says that it�s the popularity of portable Apple devices like the iPad that is fueling the jump in both consumer and business Mac sales.

Screen Time: A Monday report from DigiTimes (via Engadget) provides some more details on the next iPhone from Apple. Word is that the next version of the smartphone will feature a curved glass display not unlike the kind seen on Apple’s ultra-small iPod Nano media players. The curved, smaller displays will also reportedly speed up production of the new iPhone, helping to ease some of the supply problems that have plagued past iPhone updates.

Privacy Please: A Friday report at Electronista detailed a recent Apple patent for new screen technology that would make iPad and iPhone viewing more private for users. The new screen would use a “scattering module” fitted behind the display so that the illuminated screen would only be visible to the user. The patent also descirbes the technology’s application for driver-only screens in new cars. Private screen technology is a popular feature in notebook PCs marketed toward businesses. Given Apple’s increasing popularity among small and large businesses alike, it wouldn’t be surprising to see this technology pop up in the next generation of iPads and iPhones.

As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at�@ajohnagnello�and�become a fan of�InvestorPlace on Facebook.