6 “Apple Will Never Release a NetBook” Myths Debunked
Debunking the NetBook Naysayers point-by-point.
The current naysayers about an Apple Netbook have it all wrong. They cite Tim Cook's recent comments about the overall crappiness of NetBooks as evidence that Apple would never release a NetBook. I see it as evidence they will.
Apple will release a NetBook this year, let us debunk the naysayers excuses one by one.
1. Apple says NetBooks suck.
Steve Jobs dismissed video on the iPod, stating acerbically that no one would ever view video on an small screen. We all know how that worked out.
Tim Cook wasn't dismissing the category, he was setting up the familiar Apple story of how Apple has taken a category and redefined it.
To put it another way, saying that Apple will never release a NetBook because NetBooks are crappy is like saying Apple never would have released the iPhone because mobile phones are crappy.
Crappy products are ripe fodder for Apple dominance. Apple did it with the portable mp3 player segment, they have done it will mobile phones, and they will do it with NetBooks.
2. Kia vs. BMW
The car metaphor is a favorite of naysayers. They point out that Apple products have to be more expensive because they are intrinsically worth more. This is bullshit. The difference in engineering between a BMW and Kia is immense. The difference in engineering between a MacBook and a Dell is minimal. I've stated this before, but for the sake of the naysayers it bears repeating. A MacBook and a Dell have:
- the same processor
- the same hard drive technology
- the same ram technology
- the same video card technology
- the same screen technology
- the same ports (more or less)
So what is left? The quality of materials, build quality, design, and the operating system. These things are expensive, but there is no reason a Mac should be double the price. Apple has proven this already with the Mac mini, a computer that sells at the "low-end". The precedent is there --there is no reason Apple cannot, or will not deliver a NetBook that is affordable.
3. Apple will lose money
Naysayers will state that Apple has to have a premium on its products in order to preserve profits. Bullshit there too. Apple will lose money if it doesn't create a NetBook. It already is, I'm typing this on an Acer Aspire One with OS X installed (yes I bought Leopard for it). I've been at conferences recently and noticed others with Hackintosh NetBooks. Apple won't lose money by dominating this category, it will make tons more.
4. NetBooks suck
Naysayers point out that NetBooks have crappy small keyboards. Are tacky, flimsy, tiny, ugly, and so on. I could state that I am typing as fast on this keyboard as I do on my Mac (and I type fast). But I would have to agree that this Acer has a horrifically small trackpad and click area. And it does not have the build quality of a Mac.
But this isn't a reason for Apple to avoid the category of NetBooks, it is a reason for Apple to come in and crush the competition and dominate. Looking at the current crop of NetBooks as a design inspiration is a mistake naysayers make. Apple's NetBook will look nothing like the current crop. It will be beautifully designed, it will be sturdy, it may not even have a physical keyboard. Apple will take the essence of NetBook computing (affordable, highly portable computing) and define their own product interpretation. And it won't suck. In fact the same naysayers who hate the idea will love and adore the Apple NetBook.
5. NetBooks are slow
Another favorite target of naysayers is the Atom processor that powers most NetBooks. Apple would never release such a slow computer! Never mind the fact that this Acer clocks in at G5 speeds (remember how fast those were compared to the Intel processor that the naysayer fanboys loved to diss), or that the iPhone doesn't come close in terms of processor speed. Naysayers look at the Atom processor in disgust. They miss the point. NetBooks aren't for rendering video or working on 100 MB PhotoShop files (although you could). They have a very specific use-case, ultra portable computing.
6. Apple would never release a "horror of all horrors!" a NetBook
Apple won't release a NetBook, but they will release a product that will attempt to own the lower-end ultra portable market. They won't call it a NetBook, they will call it the MacBook Light or something like that. Naysayers are way too hung up on what is out there now to release that Apple won't put out something like what is already out there.
What do you think? Am I wrong, are their more points to debunk?
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Comments
I think that eventually Apple “will release a product that will attempt to own the lower-end ultra portable market.” Until then, I have my iPod Touch.
What a load of crap!
Apple may or may not produce a netbook (re-invented no doubt as the i-something or Mac-something), but if there’s one thing you CAN’T rely on in making a prediction it’s anything that Apple itself says about it.
Hadley, I agree with all six, but still disagree Apple will release a netbook
Because of #7. The netbook is a niche device with a small market (albeit inflated at the moment by a bit of misguided hype). The market for an Apple netbook is too small. If it was there, the Mac Book Air would have proved as much to Apple and they woulda rushed to release a smaller version.
However, #6 itself does cause me doubt, since “never” is Apple’s way of saying we are working on it.
And I do agree with your comment “they will release a product that will attempt to own the lower-end ultra portable market.” It won’t - and can’t - be a netbook. It will be a netbook killer though.
It will probably be a tablet device which, if Apple is smart, will be also be a Kindle killer.
“The netbook is a niche device with a small market (albeit inflated at the moment by a bit of misguided hype). The market for an Apple netbook is too small. If it was there, the Mac Book Air would have proved as much to Apple and they woulda rushed to release a smaller version.”
Chris, the #1 branded netbook outsells ALL MACS COMBINED. And that’s just one model. If that makes them a niche, then what does that make the Mac?
And the Macbook Air proves nothing about the market for a Mac netbook. The MBA costs $1700, or roughly 5.5 times as much as the average netbook. It’s like saying that the relatively low sales of the Ferrari F430 prove that people don’t really want compact cars.
Check eBay and see how many people are selling netbooks because they’re disappointed. The fad will pass and netbooks will go back to their niche, although they’ll still sell well enough (to keep PC vendors interested), since there’s a lot of people who genuinely need them, but the real netbook market too small a market for Apple to be fighting in.
Sorry, my example of the Macbook Air was to demonstrate the market for a Mac netbook is too small, NOT that the market for *all* netbooks is is too small.
And although the netbook market is currently very large, it is grossly inflated by this insane craze for a device that many disappointed people are now hocking on eBay.
Also, what I was trying to get at with the MacBook Air is that sales of it (combined with, I expect, some market analysis), obviously haven’t been enough to make Apple say “Geez! We really need to get a 9” one of these out there.”
I suspect there just hasn’t been, and isn’t enough of a demand for a Mac netbook. And I think the iPhone carves a hole in Apple’s potential to sell Mac netbooks, as many of us with iPhones are quite happy using them for email and web, the two primary tasks of netbooks. So in some ways, the iPhone is a shot in the foot for any Apple netbook aspirations.
(BTW I think the iPhone fad could pass as soon as Android and the Palm Pre and Blackberry get their acts together)
@Chris: (BTW I think the iPhone fad could pass as soon as Android and the Palm Pre and Blackberry get their acts together)
You judged netbooks to be a fad, a passing fancy, based on the observation that netbook buyers have been ditching their purchases out of sheer disappointment. I don’t think anything like that type of remorse is being exhibited by iPhone buyers.
Android is a one OS-multiple hardware platform model like Windows and Linux and Symbian. With the level of complexity inherent in current gadgets and a future that promises even greater complexity, I have my doubts on whether this model is still viable as opposed to the Mac, iPhone and Blackberry approach. So I don’t know if Android will ever get its act together to the same level that iPhone and Blackberry has. Palm Pre, maybe, but their starting from a whole and past ineptness just might be an indicator of future ineptness.
The market penetration of smartphones has reached down to the level of non-tech sophisticates. These buyers are not adventurers, they will buy what their friends, colleagues and relatives bought so that they have a ready source of technical support close by. It just might be too late for any other smartphone platform to catch up to iPhone and Blackberry. Heck, even mighty Nokia is lagging!
For the iPhone ‘fad’ to pass. It is not sufficient that the others get their act together, you also need Apple to mess up big time. We’re talking mess up bigtime like W Bush messed up bigtime. (I always have to get my digs in on our erstwhile torturer in chief. Can’t help it.)
I’m not a good judge of market, but as a long time Mac user who has a Mac Pro, Mac mini, and PowerBook, I’m just not feeling the need to shell out $1500 for another Mac computer. The Mac Book Air is targeted toward people with expendable income, and people who want to show off their computer rather than really use it. It’s a shame that Apple can’t/won’t produce an affordable netbook that provides the basic needs of users. I agree with, Hadely, though, that they will produce one. But it might not be for $300. They’ll try to sell it for $800 and include features not found in other netbooks.
“Sorry, my example of the Macbook Air was to demonstrate the market for a Mac netbook is too small, NOT that the market for *all* netbooks is is too small.”
Again, the Macbook Air costs $1700! That demonstrates absolutely nothing about the $300 netbook market. All it shows is that most people aren’t willing to (or simply can’t) pay insane amounts of money for a lightweight underpowered compact Macbook, not even among the Mac faithful. But would they pay $300 for one? I think even you would have to argue that they absolutely would.
And although the netbook market is currently very large, it is grossly inflated by this insane craze for a device that many disappointed people are now hocking on eBay.
Where are you getting this from? I went to eBay and saw a lot of netbooks, but most of them were new. The used ones didn’t say anything about the buyer being disappointed, and I doubt they would since that’s not much of a selling point. So at best you would have to infer this, but again, based on what?
And what % of buyers make up the disappointed band-wagon jumpers anyway? It would have to be pretty significant for those buyers to relegate the netbook to a niche since, like I said, one model of netbooks outsells all Macs combined.
Apple has the next generation of ‘Netbooks’ available today. It’s the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Version 3 of the iPhone operating system will incorporate such useful items as copy, cut and paste. It will also sync the notes application to your Mac or PC. The next generation iPod Touch and iPhones will blow away the current netbook market, just like the iPod blew away the MP3 market.
“Version 3 of the iPhone operating system will incorporate such useful items as copy, cut and paste.”
So innovative of Apple.
The iPod Touch and iPhone are basically iPod music players with added features like a phone. Other apps like mail, calendar and thousands of others available on the App Store which allows you to turn it into anything you like.
However, it is evolving into an iPod with the capability of a PDA or very smart phone. Netbook computers are either very small laptops with a midget keyboard or a gigantic iPod Touch that won’t fit in your pocket. Most people won’t want to do Photoshop, Excel spreadsheets and video editing on a netbook size screen and keyboard, but an expanded iPhone/iPod Touch will fit most people’s needs for a small portable computing device that will compliment their desktop or laptop computer and will fit in their pockets.
This notion that the iPhone somehow plays in the same market as netbooks is complete nonsense. They overlap in some areas, but so do pocket calculators and you wouldn’t argue that they are some kind of substitute for a netbook or iPhone. This is all post facto reasoning for why Apple isn’t in this space (yet).
Magically, no one ever needs a netbook for what the iPhone CAN’T do, like Excel, or copy & paste. But there are literally hundreds of other things that the netbook can do better AND cheaper than an iPhone.
But let’s say I want to have a cheap small computer for writing reports, letters, novels, or screenplays. A netbook can do that, whereas writing a novel on an iPhone would be torture. Ditto running two applications at once, like Notepad and web browsing at the same time, or any number of combination of apps that would be exceedingly useful.
The ONLY advantage for the iPhone over the netbook is size. So, of course, that becomes the end-all be-all of why people want netbooks in Apple fanboy eyes.
Unless you only ‘hunt and peck’ instead of touch type, the keyboard on a netbook reduces you to ‘hunting and pecking’ just like on an iPhone/iPod Touch keyboard due to their small size. You are not thinking outside of the box. The iPhone/iPod Touch is the beginning of a device that is less like a midget laptop and more like an expanded personal assistant. I don’t think you would want to write the next great American novel on a netbook, nor would you want to run the accounting department at GM on a midget computer. A 13’ Macbook would work fine for what you describe you need a netbook and still get all the functionality of a desktop computer. What you really want is cheap.
Apple’s appeal is that they seriously take their old advertising slogan, ‘Think Different.’ While the folks in Austin Texas, among others, follow the slogan ‘Think Copycat’.
“You are not thinking outside of the box.”
Actually, you’re the one not thinking outside of the box, the box in this case being Apple’s retail packaging - if Apple makes it, you figure it must be exactly what everyone needs. But that’s now how it works. Well, at least for those of us who aren’t locked in the Apple ecoverse, regurgitating ad slogans like they’re real philosophies.
I would and could write on a netbook. I could not and would not write on an iPhone. Like you said, it’s NOT a midget laptop, it’s a PDA, so why keep comparing it to the former like it competes in the same space? It doesn’t. It’s not meant to. It’s like saying that if you have a golf cart then there’s no need to get a pick-up truck. Yes, they both have four wheels and take you places, but they serve completely different functions. I want both an iPhone and a netbook to supplement my desktop at home. I would use one for one thing and the other for different things. Because they are two completely different things.
“A 13’ Macbook would work fine for what you describe you need a netbook and still get all the functionality of a desktop computer. What you really want is cheap.”
A 17” Macbook Pro would also work fine. But yes, as I keep saying, price is a major part of what makes netbooks popular and appealing. Maybe as an Apple fan, you’re not used to considering price, but for most people it’s an important part of the decision process.
Netbooks are basically small laptops that cost $300. Now, in the real world, this has nothing to do with the iPhone. So again, I’m a little baffled that the Apple fanboys keep insisting that the iPhone is not only a substitute, but is actually better than a netbook when the ONLY thing it has going for it is size.