[Macworld]

Post your comments for Reports: Apple netbook to launch later this year here

[Schneb]

"We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk."
If that were said 15 years ago, it would be, "We don't know how to make a $1,500 computer that's not a piece of junk."
Technology changes to keep prices down, yet quality high. Look at the changes in Hard Drive technology and pricing. How soon before companies can actually "print out" memory for RAM and SSDs?

[kronos46]

This would be a great idea if it comes to the light of day. Finally I could use my MAC and do the things on it that it was meant to do. While my wife plays on facebook with the new netbook.

[FrenchKheldar]

I think the only way a touch screen tablet works out in the end is if it provides some kind of retractable keyboard, but somehow, I don't see Apple introducing this kind of clunky technology. If there is no physical keyboard (and don't tell me about Bluetooth, you don;t want to carry two pieces of hardware around and imagine how you would deal with it in your couch...), what you can do on such machine is only marginally more than you can do on the iPod touch. Still no serious office work, no long forum posts, no long emails,... This would be a niche gadget. Oh and assuming this netbook runs the iPhone OS X (which means no iLife on it, not enough CPU power for it), this new device has to have ties with the App store...

[Kyle_Varnell]

Netbooks are trashy, plain and simple. They look cheap & they most definitely feel cheap. I have no doubts that Apple would make a high-quality netbook. I also see that a netbook might make sense to Apple's bottom line as netbooks are an expanding market but I hope that Apple doesn't go down this road.
Quality is why I got an iPod, a MacBook Pro and why I'm getting an iPhone. If I wanted a cheap computer laptop I'd get a Dell, Acer or any of the other brands cluttering the marketplace right now.
Cheap is not what I want. Apple quality is.

[ppartekim]

Isn't that what the iPod Touch and iPhone really are anyway. I guess they could be classified as mini-netbooks.

[trip1ex]

The MacTouch.

$600-$800. 16gb flash. MOre powerful & more featured version of the iPod Touch with a bigger screen.

[natmusak]

I don't buy it and here's why:

1) If they felt like making a traditional netbook, they wouldn't have discontinued the 12" PowerBook G4 and replaced it with the 13" MacBook Air.

2) If they were going to make a keyboardless tablet (if such a thing weren't exorbitantly expensive and impractical), they'd have stopped the ModBook makers by now.

3) A hybrid of the two - a netbook tablet - would be just as expensive and impractical as the Windows-based tablet laptops that have failed in the marketplace.

4) If #3 were practical, Apple wouldn't have introduced glass, MultiTouch trackpads to their laptop line. That would be duplicative.

All this report leads me to believe is Apple plans to replace those glass, MultiTouch, static trackpads with glass, MultiTouch displays that double as trackpads.

By default they would be trackpads and then when activated through a hardware button or software, they would enable you to drag things from the main display down into the touch panel, manipulate them with your fingers directly, and then throw them back up into the main display when finished.

[icerabbit]

Kyle_Varnell said:

Netbooks are trashy, plain and simple. They look cheap & they most definitely feel cheap. {quote:title=}{quote}

Don't put them all in one basket. Sure they're not aluminum but certainly not all of them are "trashy". We have two netbooks (MSI & Acer) and they get more praise, interest and positive opinions from other people, including those who are not techie, than some other (Apple) products we have owned. There is some serious interest in these things. The MSI looks like a miniature MacBook from the previous generation. Anyway. The two we have are pretty solid.

[MarkMervich]

And having a CPU design devision on hand can take care of the "too slow" part of the equation.
Mark

[leskern]

I have two of them from ASUS, one Linux, one XP, and they aren't bad. Apple would be stupid not to address this market. While I'm no huge fan, I AM smart enough to know Apple could turn the netbook world on its ear.

[montgomery_burns]

I would like to see a convertible 13, 14 or 15 inch Mac laptop that has a multitouch screen which can be rotated and folded down over the keyboard. HP and Dell already sell such convertible laptops. And before anyone starts claiming that Apple will never make such a product:

Apple will not make a video iPod. Nobody wants to watch video on an iPod.

Apple will not make a mobile phone.

Apple should not allow third parties to create native iPhone applications. Nobody needs third party iPhone applications. Web apps are really SWEET.

Apple will not make a multibutton mouse.

Apple will never switch to Intel processors.

[Peter Cohen]

montgomery_burns said:

Apple will never switch to Intel processors.

Don't forget the newest one: "Apple will never survive without Steve Jobs."

[johndrake]

[quote name='Peter Cohen']
>

montgomery_burns said:

> Apple will never switch to Intel processors.

Don't forget the newest one: "Apple will never survive without Steve Jobs."

Geez Peter, cut Steve a break, he is only on sabbatical, you've got him dead and buried already. :-

But you are right that if things do not get better for The Steve, that quote will be coming out of every naysayer with a forum.