Apple’s answer to netbooks? Unlikely.
leonidkhachaturov answered to my Twitter post:
I hope Apple is well prepared for the upcoming notebooks update and has produced a 8” alternative to Asus, Dell and Acer.
Here is his answer:
Since the comments are not available on Tumblr, I’m answering here — it’s not gonna happen.
Apple has always been about great user experiences. 8” netbooks, sporting cheapish hardware and batteries do not provide such experiences, by any definition of “great”. Besides, a $500 PC is nothing new — they’ve always been there, but Apple never competed with them, concentrating on the higher-end market. Of course, they could’ve come up with their answer to the netbook craze, but hardly in a form of an 8”, $500 under-performing machine — whereas “$500” is really the definition of a netbook. Still, I’d gladly welcome their efforts — might be really interesting if done right.
So, here are my thoughts: I completely agree, the 8” form-factor wouldn’t provide good user experience, but by my post I didn’t really mean the exact 8” rather than some kind of “alternative”, which could be an already existed 13” but much lighter. The $500 isn’t really the definition too. But $800 sounds really close to that price, keeping in mind that’s Apple. I guess, users need something more portable.
To be honest, I don’t believe Apple will release something like this. At least this Tuesday. But let’s take a deep breath and wait until 14th.
