Hacker News Reader

Comment by floozyspeak | Hacker News Reader

PC sales rise.. they need to breakdown just what is rising there. I bet PC desktops are dead and that PC netbooks are the cause of sales rising. And why wouldn't they at $300 a pop.

Apple meanwhile is realizing the AIR is not a netbook and cursing every moment of it despite it being a slick machine. They need to get into the netbook offer and they may or may not do that, its not as if they are strapped for cash, but they don't like missing out on the limelight because that sparks trends, and the more people that get cheap netbooks and install osx on them the more they crinkle inside with anger.

iMac sales are stalling, hence the price reduction. Laptop sales are flat. The mini doesn't even count.

The only thing making Apple hotter than Jesus right now is the iPhone and App Store.

View on HN

"Apple meanwhile is realizing the AIR is not a netbook and cursing every moment of it despite it being a slick machine."

I don't think so. They're pretty short-sighted, but although I didn't get the impression that the Air sold all that well, the technology that made it possible (like the SSD) are making their way into other products, and coming down in price.

You're probably right about netbooks... but I have a feeling that Apple's response to the netbook will be a souped-up iPhone rather than a trimmed laptop. Take the iPhone, throw in a bit of extra horsepower like an Atom processor and/or a few ARM processors, and make it a bit bigger, and you have an iPhoneNetBook.

Yes, I'm oversimplifying, but you get the point :)

At least for the first revision of the Air, they couldn't produce them fast enough to keep up with demand.

Won't those netbook buyers wake up in a couple of weeks and realize that they need a real PC?

No. Netbook sales have been growing for a couple years and they're like 10% of all portable computer sales.

So folks are buying serious desktops for gaming then? Screw that 360 or ps3 experience? Or maybe they've been buying serious PCs for all those newly unemployed?

I dont know if you are trying to be comical or not, but the experience on 360 or ps3 is miserable when compared to most PC gaming, especially if you game consistently and prefer aiming over auto targeting. Very distinct from the Wii, which fits well and has its own niche.

So yes, most people who buy powerhouse computers do it either becuase they think they need to, or they really do need to to play the newest games.

I agree. I'd also add that the game industry is never given enough credit for the PC revolution. I remember back in the 80s when people started buying PCs and Apples (and others)... almost everyone I ever met said they bought them for word processing or spreadsheets, but what they actually did was play Wizardry and Castle Wolfenstein.

Doubtful. A real PC for what.. surfing on the net, checking your facebook status and twittering? You need serious CPU for that eh? Anything you want to do, you can basically do in a browser. Serious PC's are still out there, but the trending market of rising sales has not been on serious PC power its been on cheap, affordable luxury and thats come in the form of netbook.

Probably not. Most computer users today don't need anywhere near the capabilities of even a low-end PC, whether it runs Windows or OSX.

Except for the tiny screens. I agree that CPU power is not much of an issue, but it doesn't seem like fun to cope with the tiny screens for everything.

Uh, all the specs I've seen for those netbooks are basically "real PCs" from just a few years ago. Fuck the treadmill of hardware upgrades.

Who says that they don't already have a "real" PC? From what I've seen (anecdotal), many buyers are buying these netbooks explicitly as secondary machines because of the price-point/portability.

What? You think the average individual has heard of a 'netbook' or wants one?

For me yeah - I get friends/family of all ages asking about them all the time.

Here they go for 100€ if you sign up for a mobile internet connection. They are advertised in all phone shops, so most likely everybody has heard about them. And yeah, probably the sales increase comes basically from these devices.

About needing a real PC... Does the "average individual" really need one? :)

An average computer-illiterate individual might not know what a 'netbook' is but he/she can see a price tag ["I can buy a computer for $300" /think bubble].

At least two average individuals who have seen my Aspire One went out and bought one. I bet a couple more do the same soon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com