Rumors of an Apple Netbook

Dow Jones and others report rumors that Taiwanese makers are preparing to ship a 10" Apple (AAPL) netbook in the second half of 2009. Speculation is that these will be touch-screen equipped machines.

On the Wintel side, low priced netbooks are the only growth area left. But the design and price points chosen by Wintel netbook makers (particularly the off-brand Taiwanese new entrants) doesn’t tell us what Apple will do.

Of course the new Apple machine will run OS X (their only OS), have Wi-Fi and work with iTunes. However, there are some not so obvious design choices:

• Is it a large iPhone or a small MacBook?
• Is it designed for standing up or sitting down?
• Does it have a keyboard?
• Does it work with the iPhone App Store?
• Does it connect to a phone network?
• Is it priced like a netbook ($400-$800) or like a MacBook ($1000+)?

The only thing I feel confident about is that it won’t be exclusive to AT&T (T): they learned that lesson.

The fundamental puzzle for me is that if it’s a small, light, slow and cheap laptop, how does it avoid cannibalizing the MacBook Air — a thin, light, slow and expensive laptop? Apple (especially under Steve Jobs) is loath to cannibalize profitable products, and with the penetration rate of MacBook Air among our (not so rich) students, I suspect the MBA has been very profitable indeed.

Comments

[Blue Duck:]

Apple already has one of the best Netbooks on the market at a great price - but they call it the Iphone:) Maybe they should have called it the INetpad?

Mar 11 08:27 AM

[MikeSX:]

It's just a matter of time. How long does Apple want to lose market share by not having a product in this segment of the market. It does not matter if it is Apple or HP or Dell. The mobil computing market is moving in this direction and it has and will continue to eat into all laptop sales. The only question remaining is do you want to recapture some or all of it.

Mar 11 10:27 AM

[sleepy:]

Macbook Air's CPU is three times as fast as any Atom based netbook; they won't be stealing sales from each other for a while.

Unit sales of netbooks are still far behind notebook sales; revenue dollars are even further behind, and gross margin dollars are further behind still. There's no hurry for Apple. Nobody's earning big money from netbooks.

".... it won’t be exclusive to AT&T (T): they learned that lesson."
No they didn't. The exclusive deals for iPhone worked out very nicely for Apple. It was the only way to break the carriers' veto on the customer relationship with handset makers. It's left the other handset makers in disarray.

Fortunately, the Apple board seem to know how to run a business better than either commentators or competitors!

Mar 11 10:55 AM

[mollytjm:]

i'm sure Apple has some great products in the pipeline and they won't be stuck in 'catch up' mode... the iPhone and iTouch are already pocket computers...with a screen just a couple inches bigger, it could do anything.
and it's not true that Macs only run Apple OS...you can run Windows easily on it...Macs are capable of running anything and there's no reason why they couldn't find a way to put this on an iPhone.
they've amassed a fortune by partnering with ATT. that cash will see them through this financial mess we're in and also allow for big R & D spending...necessary to stay alive,if you're a tech company.

Mar 11 12:09 PM

[cloud9man:]

Is it a large iPhone or a small MacBook?
-- Large iPhone
Is it designed for standing up or sitting down?
--Both
Does it have a keyboard?
-- Virtual, on screen like iPhone
Does it work with the iPhone App Store?
-- Yes, enhanced with additional level of Apps
Does it connect to a phone network?
--Yes
Is it priced like a netbook ($400-$800) or like a MacBook ($1000+)?
-- High end netbook, perhaps as much as 899

Mar 12 01:31 AM