Apple 'Netbooks', Eh?
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
The MBA already fits into all backpacks, briefcases and even those funny bags women carry around. It's very thin and light. You can't make it small enough to avoid the need for a backpack/briefcase, ie. it won't fit in your pocket, so what are you trading the screen real-estate for?
The only sensible answer would be 'money', ie. if it'd be less expensive, but Apple / S.J. says they don't know how to make it cheaper.
It's not a very practical product as is.
I imagine the attractiveness of a netbok to Apple is that it is an addition. You can have a laptop or desktop (probably not both) & a netbook & an iphone.
If it is a non cannibalising category, then it's right up Apple's game. They know & love small. It's another opportunity to brag about OSX as Windows isn't right for these. Most importantly, they know & love out-of-the-box.
There's a real market for these. It's certainly not the giant hardware guys that created it. They're supplying happily enough, but it came out of the margins. Microsoft sure isn't pushing it, these are a nightmare for them. Linux isn't working out. Who's left?
Cheap is part of the job description here. Cheap, small & out of the box. Apples is very good at 2 out of those 3. It's also another in for selling full Macs.
And Windows is gaining this ground with a 7 year old product that isn't suitable for this job. All the while cursing every sale they make. They're not exactly gung-ho excited about making brilliant netbooks. But they're still taking over.
If no one challenges & the demand persists, MS may eventually actually come out with some Windows that is suited to the job.
Precisely why Apple won't enter that market.
This is true to one extent and to another extent I don't think this market is within apple's laptop scope. Especially considering pricepoints and the recently released macbook pros.
A netbook would be cool, but I doubt it would come cheap from Apple. They also tend to be a little think (proportionally), so if they made a netbook Air that would be amazing.
The 13.3" Macbook Air is perfect form factor. As an aside, Apple is not going to make any laptops in the 12" factor.
Part of the "increase in size" is just pretend. Modern notebooks are not as large as their quoted screen sizes might imply. As 4x3 and 5x4 aspect displays have given ground to widescreen displays, display sizes of given diagonal measurement have dropped.
To wit: a 14" widescreen (16:10 or 16:9) is not as large (does not have as much area) as an old-fashioned 14" 4x3 screen, which in turn is not as large as an old-fasioned 5x4 screen. A modern 15.4" widescreen is about the same size, overall, as an old-fashioned 14" screen. Apple's current 13.3" Macbook has about the same screen size as did its old 12" notebook. It is only effectively "larger" for widescreen content that would produce black bars on the old 12" squarer screen.
More comparisions: a modern 22" widescreen is about the same size as an old-fashioned 5x4 19" screen. A modern 19" widescreen is about the same size as an old-fashioned 5x4 17" screen.
The NetBook is for the web. I can also install any OS, as it is a PC, not a phone with a built in OS.
Small, lightweight, cheap computers are a great idea, it's just not the business Apple is in.
This smells like the dreaded "Trusted Computing" with its hardware engraved DRM.
Until people are free to install whatever apps they want to install & use any operating system of their choice; Apple or any company that controls what software can be installed isn't going to derive much success from their computers.
If it's a second machine that people buy for a specific purpose, I think it's got a chance.