And to what end? Their netbook-less laptop lineup is growing faster than netbooks are.
perhaps you refer to the "mac people" as there is at least one of us out here who "likes" the asus netbook he typed this with and uses every day, and LOVES.
But everyone I know that has purchased a netbook and doesn't know an Atom from Adam has been disappointed. (None of them own Macs, btw) I also noted Michael Dell's recent admission that most netbook purchasers are chasing a price point and are disappointed in short order. So I feel it's a fair opinion, not limited to 'mac people'.
I'd be very interested to see proper customer satisfaction surveys though.
I use it in meetings, on the train, in coach seats on the plane (with room for a mouse on those tiny trays), out in the park. It's so stupid small and lightweight I basically just pack into my backpack even if I don't plan to use it. It's never let me down, and done exactly what I've asked of it. I'm not trying to run Crysis on it, but it surfs webpages fine (even Wave runs pretty okay on it), loads all my Office Apps, plays music, let's me compose music if I want. I can even do some lightweight programming on it. Basically all the stuff I want to do in a pinch but never do because carrying a laptop (even a 13") is just too heavy and cumbersome.
The only thing that would make me stop using it is if they came out with a version with a flip screen I could turn into a 9" tablet pc for maybe $50 more.
Plus it fit's into every hotel safe I've ever tried.
Apple's decision making looks to me more like (as with the MB Air), "can we develop a high-margin product that will draw NEW (ex-Windows) customers (and maybe some wowee press coverage)?"