Quote:
Originally Posted by CleverClothe
That author doesn't know the difference between a netbook and a tablet. They write for a tech site?  |
Sadly, that is true. But these are only rumors, which don't have to make any sense, or have any substance - they just have to bring traffic to somebody's web site.
I don't think 'inferior user experience' has anything to do with Apple's decision not to release a netbook. Some people seem perfectly happy to run OS X on hackintoshed $300 netbooks. That price point simply does not allow them enough profit margin (that's already a problem for existing netbook vendors). Apple likes to make money on hardware sales (although iTunes store is far from a loss leader).
The relatively arbitrary '$800' price point would allow them to maintain the margins they are used to, by offering something a little more powerful than a fully loaded iPod or iPod Touch and a little less than their low end laptops, with some buffer to spare, in case competitors arrive bearing knockoffs.
I think the trick is to define a compelling feature set to differentiate it from iPhone below and laptops above. It has to be better at
something that real people want to do, than existing devices in that price bracket. I have no idea what that might be, but very much doubt that an ebook reader is the killer app that people will line up to buy this thing for, particularly if it has inferior battery life or readability as compared with eInk devices.