Comments on: Rumor redux: Apple Netbook coming in October?

After a report by the Mandarin-language publication Chinese Times, rumors accelerate about the potential release of an Apple Netbook this fall.

[monsterbeats44]

Quite frankly, as a PC owner but Mac lover I have discovered that Macs are so over priced it almost isn't worth the quality difference. I mean come on an estimated 800 dollars for net book without a keyboard?I bought my 17 inch HP laptop with 2.0 ghz duo processor and 4 gigs of ram for 760 bucks. But maybe like the iPhone the touch screen's comfortability will be worth the dough...

[streamline35]

Try touch typing on a flat surface - it just doesn't work accurately without the keyboard feedback. There's a reason those projection keyboards never took off. If it does end up coming without a keyboard, it's basically going to be a large smart phone/media player, rather than a lower powered laptop (like netbooks are).

[yahoo!!!]

$800 for a netbook come on what a load of bull ****!!!

[Perry_Clease]

The only people calling it a netbook are the pundits and the trolls. Finally it is a RUMOR not a PRESS RELEASE.

[BobForsberg]

Read a book on a 13" laptop, maybe. Magazines in .pdf, maybe.

Apple will never be in the business of inexpensive Netbooks. But, a large touch screen iPod using the app store competing with Amazon's Kindle will find its way here before the end of the year.

A nitch Wi-Fi iPod product...between a laptop, phone & Kindle. The debate will be why buy a large touch screen iPod when you can buy a MacBook Pro doing the same things for a little more money.

[sath71]

If you look at Apple's track record, the louder they deny they are developing a product, or don't have interest in a market segment, the more likely it is they are up to something. Remember Steve Jobs being questioned about convergent technologies and he stated unequivocally that he didn't see the market going that way and that people preferred to have a separate music device and separate phone? Then came the iPhone, which is everything that he said was against - this of course was a clever strategy on two fronts 1) The convergent iPhone wasn't released yet, and because we weren't expecting it, he continued to sell us more iPods in the meantime 2) When he was making these comments about convergent tech, Apple would've been deep into the development of the iPhone, so the comments were designed to throw off his competitors. He knew that his comments would carry significant weight because Apple has always been a tech leader and if Steve says that convergent tech is not where it's at, well it mustn't be right?

Look at the switch to Intel chips, Apple had a plan B with the Marklar project and were always ready to switch to Intel chips when IBM were unable to come up with a decent laptop chip, and after years telling us how much better the G4 and G5 chips were than the Intel chips.

And now, look at the way they have been bagging the netbook market, which now accounts for around 25% of global notebook sales. That is a market segment that Apple can't ignore, especially in tough economic times. And of course they are going to rubbish them as they don't yet have a solution for this market segment - this means that they are almost certainly going to enter this segment, but not unless it is able to distinguish itself from the competition - I suspect they may be fiddling with Nvidia Ion platforms and that graphics/HD performance will be a central to this.

Furthermore, with the global economy tanking, and with the transition of the aluminium unibody 13 Macbook to to Pro status leaving only one Macbook, the time is ripe for at least one more addition to this product family line. Although, I also would not be surprised to see white plastic 15in and white plastic 17in value Macbooks arriving as a direct response to the 'value' attacks that Microsoft has been making - and why not? It would give consumers greater choice and offer Apple two distinct product lines for the rapidly expanding notebook market.

[SteveW928]

One note on the Intel chips.... when Apple was saying the G4 and G5 were better, they really were. Intel chips were pretty poor, especially performance / power usage until the Core Duo lines of chips... which Apple switched to. It would be interesting to know how influential Apple was in Intel making this major shift in their CPU strategy.

[CodePackage]

Looks a lot like Arrington's Crunchpad

[LaptopMemo]

It would be very cool to have a touchscreen Apple Netbook. I think it's real. I actually covered this story on my blog called LaptopMemo. I'm a 12 year old tech news and reviews blogger.

[aqnguyen87]

IF Apple decides to make this tablet/touch screen/PDA/netbook whatever you people call it, they will heavily center the device on the multi-touch platform they created from the first iPhone. Spaces and expose are already finger swipe friendly and the layout to MAC OSX is perfect for being in tablet form. Anyone who has used OSX know that its been optimized for very few clicks (or touches)... but... the probable lack of a physical keyboard is one corner that I don't see how Apple could make a good turn. Maybe connecting the current wireless Apple keyboard over bluetooth when docked??? Ah Hell... just slap a slide out keyboard on it and tilt the screen like the N97 and call it a day... my guess on specs...

9.7 inch wide screen glossy/matte (hopefully matte) display
Intel core 2 duo (penrynn) @ 1.6Ghz w/ 6mb L3 cache and 1066 FSB
2 GB DDR3 @ 1066mhz
Nvidia 9400m w/ 128mb shared memory
64GB SSD
Airport Extreme Wireless-N
Bluetooth 2.1 + edr
1 usb 2.0 port (most probable)
1 headset/microphone w/ digital out
1 mini-display port
1 sd-card reader???????
1 Mono speaker
Full slide out qwerty keyboard
Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard!!!!!!!

Basically its Macbook air specs with a touch screen...

[SteveW928]

Any 'slide out' keyboard they might try to put on it wouldn't be worth typing on anyway... I'd rather just have the virtual and then optional external. Also, I think they would have to go with a lower heat/power chipset.

[streamline35]

You want to guess the cost of those specs? (I'll give you a hint - those specs in that package would cost alot more than $800 coming from a cheap PC manufacturer - from apple, with its macbook air specs it would also come with a macbook air price).

[Barçafan]

Yes, it's real. It will probably cost two grand.
...I'm just not $-cool-$ enough to be a Mac guy..

[ywkhgqo]

If Apple releases a netbook it will NOT be only $800.
The iphoe 3GS by itself costs $600 without subsidies. You're telling me you're going to have a screen three times as big, a twice as fast processor (at the very least), a bigger battery, 4x the ram, USB ports, ethernet port and all that for only $200 more? My bum.

That's not even accounting for the apple tax.

[jmgiv]

I'd be perfectly content if they'd fix the Touch so that it could surf the 'net...the entire net. The pocket-sized MID would meet my needs *if* it could play streaming content without relying upon applications that may or may not give me access to to the streams that interest me. Let me listen to the internet radio/streaming broadcast stations *I* want and let me play the videos I choose...just as I do on my desktop. Flash suport is all I need to make me happy...

[SteveW928]

I guess it would be nice to have that ability.. yes... but just realize Flash is pretty poorly written. It uses huge CPU power, so you'd drain your battery in almost no time.

[happygolucky101lol]

America has been begging forever, just make one for the kids who love Macs but can't afford/carry a full size Mac.

[JBoxer5]

So I may be completely wrong, But I have 2 observations / questions:

1) Isn't the macbook Air by definition a netbook? No optical drive, limited hard drive....ect.... The screen is larger, but other companies seem to be moving up past the 10" mark...

2)If this does get introduced, wouldn't it be more of a tablet? No keyboard and all....

Whatever it is, I am sure it will be attractive, expensive, and most likely sold out for at least a few weeks after release.

[sav1981]

Man I thought Sony's netbook was expensive but this really cut the cake. For $800 I could get a premium desktop, a premium laptop, HDTV, surround sound, PS3 and a 360, or I could use that money to pay off the repo man. Monster Cable is also guilty of price guaging. $100 for HDMI cables by butt!

[carlfri]

I'll take my msi u100 running windows 7 rc, using lightroom and photoshop instead of $$$$$$$ I say this as a person who used a 12 G4 macbook a long time a go. If I so choose, I can put any version of linux on it or hackintosh and not spend the $$$$$$$$.

[applefan2]

I don't know Apple needs to come up with something better than a giant iphone because then it's an iphone without cell service and it isn't pocketable... They need to come away from the Iphone and iPod touch and yet still redefine the netbook.

[Neumenon]

The artist's rendition looks pretty cool.

It would be really cool if it had Windows 7 on it.

:)

I got the perfect name, the Dyanbook!

[dionysussc]

Apple will "break the box" and debut its "non standard" netbook.... with and optical drive....

[fcukhomos]

MacFags status = TOLD

[flosstein]

Did anyone possibly notice the netbook in the Disney movie "G-Force"?