Fruit-themed religion Apple is about to sign a deal with the fruit-themed mobile phone outfit, Orange, to flog its nice looking but jolly expensive laptops. Under the deal, Orange will subsidise Apple laptops and sell them through its own shops.

The dark satanic rumour mill is uncertain if it will be a Macbook or Apple's soon to be announced, but looking increasingly unlikely, Netbook. Orange has been testing its broadband dongles on the laptops and there is no plans to stick an embedded SIM into them.

Currently, Orange's cheapest free laptop deal is the Asus 901 EEE PC which cost £24.47 with 3GB usage included for a total contract price of £587. Orange has cuddled up to Apple in a number of regions in Europe with its iPhone and is Jobs' Mob's biggest phone partner.