I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, nevertheless...
Apple has said that they don't want to produce a netbook because they don't see value in a cheap computer.
But for me, the value of a netbook has little to do with price alone. I routinely feel like I could use a device that's smaller and more portable than my MacBook Pro and yet more functional than my iPhone.
Apple claims that people wanting to surf the internet and write emails on the go should invest in an iphone or itouch. However, while they are good for some brief emails ("sounds good, see you at 5"), they aren't always great for emails which require more thought. When I was commuting from NYC to DC on Amtrak the other day, it was especially cumbersome to try to peck out thoughtful emails while the train was bouncing up and down.
The truth is, a real keyboard is very different from an iphone keyboard. I average about 70 words a minute on my laptop keyboard, but under 20 on my iPhone. That's a huge drop in efficiency. While Steve may claim that the iPhone is a good portable email device, I usually find myself waiting to get back to a keyboard to answer emails that require more than a sentence.
Additionally, sometimes I want access to information in another window while typing an email (a restaurant address in a Safari window, or a value in a spreadsheet), and it's useful to have more than one application open at a time when composing email.
Yesterday I took my D80 outside to photograph a parade. I chose my D80 over the iPhone because I wanted great looking pictures. However, unlike the iPhone, I couldn't just upload the photos by pressing a button on my D80. I had to return home, load the photos into iPhoto, edit them and then upload them to facebook. If I had a little 3G connected laptop, I could have loaded my D80 pictures into iPhoto, done some light editing, and uploaded them to facebook from a nearby Starbucks.
I'm also a big fan of iWork (both Pages and Numbers), but it's only supported on Apple hardware. I could buy a cheap little HP or dell netbook, but I wouldn't be able to work on my spreadsheets or documents on the go. I'd love to take an Apple branded 2lb machine with me to a coffee shop and work on blog posts, or to meetings and work on spreadsheets with clients.
And for this convenience, I would likely pay a price. If this machine ran the full OS X and iLife and iWork, I would be able to work on the go without lugging around a full 10lbs of gear. I might even be willing to pay $1,000 for such a machine if it really knocked these features out of the park.
I think there is a need for a machine that is more portable than a laptop, and yet more functional than a touch screen smartphone. A 10" MacBook Air could fill a real void in the OS X market. I suppose an Apple tablet would help, but I'm not convinced that this product would work without a real keyboard. Maybe it's just me, but here's hoping...
Apple has said that they don't want to produce a netbook because they don't see value in a cheap computer.
But for me, the value of a netbook has little to do with price alone. I routinely feel like I could use a device that's smaller and more portable than my MacBook Pro and yet more functional than my iPhone.
Apple claims that people wanting to surf the internet and write emails on the go should invest in an iphone or itouch. However, while they are good for some brief emails ("sounds good, see you at 5"), they aren't always great for emails which require more thought. When I was commuting from NYC to DC on Amtrak the other day, it was especially cumbersome to try to peck out thoughtful emails while the train was bouncing up and down.
The truth is, a real keyboard is very different from an iphone keyboard. I average about 70 words a minute on my laptop keyboard, but under 20 on my iPhone. That's a huge drop in efficiency. While Steve may claim that the iPhone is a good portable email device, I usually find myself waiting to get back to a keyboard to answer emails that require more than a sentence.
Additionally, sometimes I want access to information in another window while typing an email (a restaurant address in a Safari window, or a value in a spreadsheet), and it's useful to have more than one application open at a time when composing email.
Yesterday I took my D80 outside to photograph a parade. I chose my D80 over the iPhone because I wanted great looking pictures. However, unlike the iPhone, I couldn't just upload the photos by pressing a button on my D80. I had to return home, load the photos into iPhoto, edit them and then upload them to facebook. If I had a little 3G connected laptop, I could have loaded my D80 pictures into iPhoto, done some light editing, and uploaded them to facebook from a nearby Starbucks.
I'm also a big fan of iWork (both Pages and Numbers), but it's only supported on Apple hardware. I could buy a cheap little HP or dell netbook, but I wouldn't be able to work on my spreadsheets or documents on the go. I'd love to take an Apple branded 2lb machine with me to a coffee shop and work on blog posts, or to meetings and work on spreadsheets with clients.
And for this convenience, I would likely pay a price. If this machine ran the full OS X and iLife and iWork, I would be able to work on the go without lugging around a full 10lbs of gear. I might even be willing to pay $1,000 for such a machine if it really knocked these features out of the park.
I think there is a need for a machine that is more portable than a laptop, and yet more functional than a touch screen smartphone. A 10" MacBook Air could fill a real void in the OS X market. I suppose an Apple tablet would help, but I'm not convinced that this product would work without a real keyboard. Maybe it's just me, but here's hoping...
can make a 12" unit with at least same specifications of the current MBA, for, say, 1500 USD max, I'm sold.
