A soon to be realised eschatological dream... Or an empty hope?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 10:11AM 
Don't get me wrong. I love my Macbook Air! It is 'near' perfect... It is light, has the most incredible screen of any computer I've EVER owned, it is thin, has a perfect full keyboard, it is FAST, it has a 6 hour battery life... Oh, and did I mention that it is a Mac!?
BUT, being the perfectionist that I am, I am not quite satisfied with it... You see, I've been drooling over the Windows 'Netbooks' that a few of my friends are toting. It used to be that if you wanted a computer the size of a DVD cover you would have to buy a Sony Vaio TZ series (which would cost you a kidney, your first born child, and your home)... Now, however, one can get the Acer Aspire One, or the HP Mininote, or a Lenovo, an Asus, an LG... the list is endless, which is tiny, fast, and costs less than R5 000 (about 300-400 US$).
Of course the only serious downside with all of these machines is that they RUN WINDOWS! I can only imagine the torture and the pain ;-)
Well, the rumour mill has been running at a pace second to none! Mac 'evangelists', fanboys, and Mac lovers all over the world are praying that Steve will announce an Apple Netbook at Macworld early in January this year... However, the chances of this happening are slim to none!
Here's a wonderful post from my friends James Kendrick and Kevin Tofel over at jkontherun.com that expells that myth!
5 reasons you won’t see a netbook unveiled at MacWorld
Apple netbook rumors swirl around every few weeks and with MacWorld breathing down our necks in just a few short days they are rearing their ugly head once again. It is clear from all the constant netbook blathering that the Apple faithful want a netbook, a small, cheap Mac to haul around in an expensive case.
I hate to burst your bubble but we’re not going to see [Steve Jobs] anyone offer an Apple netbook at MacWorld. Apple has stated over and over again they will not do one and here are five reasons you won’t see one at MacWorld:
1. Apple can’t build one. Now before you get your undies all twisted that’s not me talking, that’s Steve Jobs himself. “We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk”. One thing that all netbooks share is a very low price point so there you have it, Apple can’t make one.
2. OS X deserves a better home. Apple firmly believes that OS X is the best thing since sliced bread. You’ve seen the “I’m a Mac” ads so you know that’s true. There is no way that Apple is going to put OS X on anything cheap like a netbook.
3. The iPhone is better than a netbook. Apple has already told us that the iPhone gives us the “real Internet”. There’s no way they are going to offer up the “fake-Internet” just to sell a “piece of junk”.
4. Netbooks have small touchpads. You’ve seen the gigantic touchpads on all the new MacBooks and Pros. Apple has seen the light and shown it to us and that is how we know that multi-touch is mandatory for a mobile computer. Have you seen the tiny touchpads on netbooks? No multi-touch, no Apple netbook.
5. Apple is a firm believer in the “Charlie Brown” marketing philosophy. This philosophy is not compatible with super cheap notebooks. Apple knows that offering a cheap notebook just once would be the same as Lucy letting Charlie Brown kick the football…
PS. I am writing this post on the second oldest computer in our home... A blueberry iBook G3 (running OSX 10.3.9, 3Gig hard drive... It still has a 6 hour battery life and is the COOLEST computer I own!). But, if the formatting of this post is a little out, blame the OLD version of Safari...
Reader Comments (3)
Hi D
this sounds like a seriously elitist defence for expensive hardware. The netbooks offer poorer people access to computing which the expensive Apple products do not. It is sad to see Apple devotees gloating at the expense of their product.
I agree wholeheatedly with Pete - probably because now that I am earning the "big bucks" (aka a Phase One stipend), my wallet won't stretch to a Mac and I'll have to soldier on with my 4-year-old Dell!
heehee
I've tried my best to post a loving response, considered and carefully crafted so as not to cause injury my friends.
Pete, we may find that we share many more elitist things in common than either of our posts acknowledge... Our gender, our race, our age, our home language (all of which are accorded special and unmerited privilege in the Western world), the mainline Church in which we serve, our education, our access to the internet, and of course our capacity to view ourselves as somehow better than others (whether that stems from the hardware and software that we use, or the social and theological viewpoints we espouse).
I still like my Mac! That is a certain kind of prejudice. Reprimand duly received, and well deserved!
And, I still appreciate your honesty and friendship - even when it has an edge that bites. That is a loving prejudice of a completely different kind - and, I'm happy to own that as well!