Dell Mini 9 running Leopard
Apple COO Tim Cook, who is currently filling in for Steve Jobs, went to town on the concept of an Apple netbook at their recent quarterly earnings call:
“When I’m looking at what’s sold in the netbook market, I see cramped keyboards, junky hardware, very small screen, bad software. Not a consumer experience that we would put the Mac brand on. As it exists today, we’re not interested in nor would it be something customers would be interested in the long term. We are looking at the space. For those who want a small computer that does browsing/email, they might want an iPhone or iPod Touch.”
Read on for our take on his comments.
“Cramped keyboards”
HP Mini 2140 Keyboard
That’s odd – because I have an HP Mini 2140 sitting next to a black MacBook on my coffee table right now, and the HP has bigger keys than the keyboard on the MacBook. They’re closer together, but it’s still far nicer to type on than the MacBook – and the HP is half the price of the last-gen MacBook.
“Junky hardware”
The Atom CPU is more capable of running OS X than some of the G4 PowerBooks that are still in commission. Die-hard Apple fans are buying “junky” machines from your competitors and installing your operating system on it.
“Very small screen”
Last I checked, a 10-inch 1024×600 screen was a lot easier to browse the web and check e-mail on than the 3.5-inch 480×320 screen of the iPhone. Sure, it’s smaller than the 13″ Air, but isn’t that the whole point of an ultraportable machine?
“Bad software”
Isn’t this precisely the reason why people want to have a netbook running OS X?
Cook then went on to say:
“If we find a way we can deliver an innovative product that really makes a contribution, then we’ll do that. And we have some interesting ideas in this space.”
Which is all well and good, but I’m pretty sure that people aren’t really after innovation here. They just want an affordable, ultraportable Mac. The MacBook Air, and anything Apple consider innovative that “really makes a contribution”, are not, and will not, be affordable.
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One Comment
For me apple is the Ipod/Iphone/Itunes and that’s it…….at $1000 + laptops even I can pay for that…I will not……After owning 5 laptops I have no doubt the best ones are Toshiba’s. With my new satellite m305-s4910 I can run everything = Calling around the world with skype, movies, videos, music ,etc…….I payed $649.
Real laptop with intel centrino dual core inside, 4gb sdram, dvd player/recorder, built in micro and camera which I love to call everybody with skype.
I owned an Iphone and it is by far the best cell phone device type ever made, design, you name it…..I stopped using it cause I didn’t pay the monthly $60 usd/month.