More and More Rumours About an Apple Netbook

In the last few weeks, more and more rumours have been surfacing that an Apple Netbook will be appearing sometime later this year, probably in the second half of 2009. If reports are true, a manufacturer is already lined up, and everything could be ready to go into production soon. A netbook from Apple would seem logical as they are a very noticable absentee from this market sector right now, and netbooks are the only type of PCs where sales are actually on the increase, despite the recession. At a sensible price it could fly off the shelves.

The price however will be an interesting point. Apple will probably not be keen on doing anything which could be seen to devalue the ever-so-sucessful, but certainly not cheap MacBook brand. The MacBook does not seem to want to compete with, say a Dell Inspiron on price. Why then should an Apple Netbook want to compete with an Acer Aspire One D250?

One idea we had (have Apple had the same one), would be to follow in the foorsteps of the iPhone sales model – exclusively available through selected mobile operators, with a nice Apple netbook & mobile broadband bundle package. The sales model has worked for the iPhone, and the vast majority of iPhone’s around the world get regularly used with mobile broardband. That’s a good incentive for the mobile operators too, giving them a chance to get loyal committed customers on the books.

All of this leads us to think that Apple’s Netbook will not be like-for-like comparible with a ‘normal’ netbook. At the same time it needs to not be like-for-like comparible with a MacBook. It needs a distinguishing feature.

Maybe then this will come in the form of a 10-inch touchscreen device, that doesn’t run OS X (or at least not a standard version of it). Maybe the device won’t even have a keyboard. Maybe it really will be just like a 10-inch iPhone.

This would probably (as long as it can handle Flash) serve the needs of most netbookers quite well. The main uses are for web-browsing and watching videos, which fits. The potential lack of a keyboard may put some off, but how many netbook keyboards really see a lot of action anyway? A fold-away keyboard might help a few, but it just oesn’t sound like Apple.

Several things are for sure. If there is a product coming, there’s a hard-core of Apple fans waiting to buy it just because they can; it will be well marketed and look good when displayed; it will be the most talked about netbook of the year.