The problem is, those students need a) web browsing b) email c) word processor d) presentation/light graphics and e) PORTABILITY. For those requirements, what makes more sense for students, and parents of students, especially in this economy:

1) lowest cost Macbook + software $999
2) Dell Mini 9 + software $499

And the Mini 9 is smaller, lighter, and honestly less to insure or to replace if – make that when – it gets damaged. I have heard some of the parents are building hackintoshed Dell Mini 9′s for their kids in these programs, at half the cost of a Macbook.

IMO Apple must address this gap in their product line to keep a hold of the student market, which has always been important to them.

For the majority of computer users it is. Unlike you and I, the cognoscenti of computing, most users struggle everyday to use their machines. Many think Microsoft Word is an operating system. If they save a file in an unfamiliar folder, a folder without a shortcut, they cannot navigate their hard disk and find it. Jef Raskin was right. The comment I wrote is not a gushing prediction of what wonderful devices are soon coming, but a cautionary tale of how simple consumers, even with a Mac, still don’t have a simple information device and would gladly sell their technological souls for such an item. Rather than seeing the computer as a device that might free them to write a book, create music, an animation, a video, all they need is a glorified tv. The wireless companies see an opportunity, via company branded netbooks, in the space of a generational turnover to make “all your computer belong to us”. Whether this will happen or to what extent, I cannot say, but the confluence of simplicity plus the low cost of a commodity item netbook, plus the wireless always on connection with cloud computing implications, makes this scenario a real possibility. Sales of desktops are already waning and large notebooks are next. With LTE coming, wired ISPs without caps and independent hardware will be but a past memory for the majority of “computer” users. And they will be happy.

ah yeah right. Maybe in a Redmond machine because it has lame integration. On OS X it’s not unusual (just gotta love T.J.) to run with 10 plus apps. It’s not the 80′s any more dude!

Apple also build a huge framework for the iPhone, building a tablet would be peanuts compared to this, then just plug and play the framework onto it and you got an instant success!

@Yacko
I like your idea, I really hope that it will not be subsidized but I can totally see the potential in shifting the paradigm towards “always online cloud computing mega phone mini laptops” the phone carriers would love that.

But I can’t imagine typing anything else that the 100 character text or the 150 character email on a touch screen, I’m an iPhone owner.