by Doug Aamoth on October 14, 2008
Tags: apple, netbooks
When asked these days about the likelihood of an Apple netbook, Steve Jobs mentioned some thing towards the influence of, “The market is simply finding started out – we’ll see how it goes.”
Huh? Here’s how the netbook market’s going,
Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, Steve: virtually each significant computer company has a netbook however you. Apple’s a prime candidate for the netbook, as well. Know why? Because it is nearly the one business that can get away with selling it for well about $500. I wager Apple could offer a netbook for at the very least $600 or more.
So why need to Apple, particularly, get into netbooks?
1. It will get folks from the door at a low value level. Remember the Mac Mini? The Mac Mini’s sole purpose is to get folks that are terrified off by Apple’s fairly high costs into the sport. But there’s an issue; no one actually buys desktops any much more — especially not novice and/or basic pc users. Everyone buys laptops now.
At $999+,
Windows 7 Professional 32 Bit, getting into an Apple laptop is a bit daunting for most folks. But offer the Apple portable computing experience at near Mac Mini charges, and see what happens. There is no big danger in offering an Apple netbook at $600 or even more, so long as the next minimum expensive option remains at $999. PC notebook manufacturers don’t have that same luxury. You can’t price netbooks higher than your cheapest notebooks.
2. Netbooks are big on the whole alternative operating system thing. Regular people who would normally buy Windows-based computers are buying Linux-based netbooks without ever having used Linux before. It’s an even shorter leap to OS X. I mean, you already own an iPod, right? I use a PC for day-to-day stuff but I’d buy a Mac netbook for traveling due to the fact I know it’d be well-built, fast,
Office 2007 Enterprise, and great for surfing the web.
“Regular” individuals would probably do the same thing. They’d say, “Oh,
Office Professional Plus, this doesn’t have Windows but at the very least I’ve heard of Apple and I like how it looks.” Plenty of people have at least used a Mac before, too, even if they usually use Windows.
3. It’s time for Apple to put out another small-ish laptop. No matter how light the MacBook Air gets, some people still want a computer that’s dimensionally small and lightweight. Howsabout a 10-inch screen? Even bring back the 12-inch screens. I saw an old 12-inch iBook G4 on the train the other week and did a double-take. They just don’t make ‘em like that any a lot more.
4. The iPhone and iPod Touch desperately need to be integrated with some thing substantial. I’m not saying to go the RedFly or Palm Folio (R.I.P.) route and make the netbook useless on its own,
Download Windows 7 Beta Software Free, but maybe make the netbook the one device that lets you easily tether your iPhone or perhaps include pre-set wireless synchronization or one thing. I’m also a huge fan of the idea of letting the iPhone/iPod Touch serve as the trackpad for the device, but you want to make the netbook so that people can buy it without having to own the other devices.
5. Make the decision easy for everyone by giving it a multi-touch screen like the one on the iPhone/iPod Touch and a good keyboard like the one on the MacBooks. Men and women complain relentlessly in regards to the trackpads, mouse buttons,
Buy Windows 7 Enterprise, and keyboards on today’s currently available netbooks. It might take an innovator like Apple to fix that issue.