Truly yours

Yeah, I did end up buying that netbook for my kid (Asus, not Dell, as it turned out) because Apple doesn’t offer that middle-ground solution. Not right now, at least.

But it may have been shortsighted of me to assume Apple has to mimic (or put their on spin on) the netbook concept in order to compete against netbooks.

After paying better attention to what JayPen and Jason Harris said earlier in this thread, I can now see that Apple has probably determined that the netbook concept is indeed just a cheap imitation of a laptop. It probably signals the laptop lifecycle is coming to an end. And based on that, Apple has probably already moved ahead and set their sights beyond the netbook idea. They are already zeroing in a more innovative concept: the tablet.

It was enlightening for me to check out: http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/16/technology/apple_tablet/

and,

http://www.businessinsider.com/look-its-a-copy-of-sports-illustrated-from-the-future-2009-12

Now, if the tablet is another $1000 alternative to a laptop, no thanks. But if it is a $500 alternative to a $350 netbook, that makes sense.

Oh, and you are wrong about Mac users wanting all power, speed, and cool shiny logos. A lot of us just want simplicity, smoothness, and ease. The power needs for simplicity are all we want. We’re not looking to make iMovies or run intensive apps on our netbook… we want a simple companion to smoothly run our simple tasks. The iPhone falls short on being a decent wordprocessing utility, and your MBA rises to far beyond the simplicity we want.

This is what an Apple netbook should be… Apple is plain ignorant if they continue to ignore the netbook market.

“Sure, it would be great to have a $500 MacBook. But do you really want to spend that much for a Mac that has limitations that might include a smaller keyboard, a smaller screen, a stripped-down OS, the inability to edit or even watch videos with smooth playback, or a hard drive only large enough to keep a small sampling of your iPhoto and iTunes collection on in order to save room for other documents. I sure don’t, and I suspect that I’m not alone.”

Yes, 100% there is a market for sacrificing features for users who do not need a ton of memory or processing power. Sorry but it’s true.

Look, I’ve been a loyal Mac user for more than a decade. We have five Mac laptops in the house right now (three in use, two out of date). My 13 year old son is torn between an iTouch (a mini-netbook if you ask me) and a Dell netbook. It kills me to go to the dark side, but that’s the decision we’ve made: Dell.

The iTouch for $300 is not as much value as the $500 netbook and the $1000 MacBook is not worth twice the money as a netbook. It’s that simple. Yeah, I don’t want to sacrifice those features, but, even more, I don’t want to pay twice the money. Not in this economy, for sure.

Jobs can talk all he wants about not wanting to be in the Netbook market, but I think Apple is going to take a big hit. The market will divide and conquer them by positioning netbooks between the Apple hand helds and the expensive laptops.

The other option would be a 15″ MacBook Pro that I can dock to a non-Apple monitor when I want to ‘see large’? HELP…need to make a decision soon. -R

Apple currently can not compete against the ASUS eee pc 1005ha netbook with the six cell battery.

For under $300 (from PC Mall) I have a laptop with 1 gig of ram (extra ram purchased separately), a 7 hour battery, built in camera with mic.

I can watch Hulu, access Facebook, post to Twitter, use Skype’s video and edit my research database online for all of seven hours. With the built-in usb port I transferred all my movies and pics off my camera to post online with ease during my trip last week.

Battery life is a nightmare on Apple products. I’ve had 1 iPod & 3 iTouch but their battery life when watching video can not compete with the ASUS 6 cell/ 7 hour battery. My newest mac laptop purchased in February 2009 only provides 4 hours of battery life.

For those of us who are older with bigger less nimble fingers the iTouch’s keyboard make it a nightmare to use. The ASUS keyboard while cramped is far easier to quickly type with than the iTouch.

Enabling wifi on the iTouch drains the battery so quickly a power gorilla is required for any extended use beyond a couple of hours.

I can never get the iTouch to recognize the Apple Snow airport I use at home. The little ASUS pc had no problem accessing my home airport. The little netbook meets all these needs.

The ASUS netbook will not be my primary computer for video or graphics editing because I have a mac desktop and a couple mac laptops customized for that purpose. However, the ASUS eee pc 1005ha has become the primary laptop I carry with me every day.

I’ve heard all the same old criticisms about Netbooks: screen size, weak processors, cramped keyboard etc.. etc …

Do I-Touch’s and I-Phones offer 160GB-250GB drives and robust operating systems? Can you run and efficiently use a word processor on an I-Touch? Is a Blackberry keyboard a form of torture? Is it fun and efficient surfing the net on a 3.5 inch screen?

The keyboard is the “key”. Consumers are tired of pecking at their MID’s and Smart Phones when trying to text one small sentence. A mini-notebook remedies this perfectly by providing a smaller (although useful) keyboard, portability, and larger screens than smaller MID’s.

Apple makes some great stuff, but I am not blinded by their products. We really have a new breed of computer users that I refer to as Apple-Snots!

I cannot help but wonder if Apple has been a little blind-sided by Netbooks. Apparently the Apple Tablet is in its 3rd or 4th incarnation as a proto-type. Have they waited too long to release this product? Hearing Jobs whine about Netbooks claiming that Apple will not release a similar device because of quality concerns and price point makes me laugh. This is the company that brought us the I-Pod (a revolution) but it is unable to tackle Netbooks! (LOL) Time will tell.