supergod said:
I don't want a desktop replacement: I want a laptop.
This, however, isn't the case for a lot of people, particularly incoming college freshman who get there first laptop and that's the only computer they use. I see some people with these sub sub 12'' laptops and I just think it's absolutely horrible, in my opinion that is. I have learned the value of lighter laptops somewhat, but I still think performance and joy-of-use is the most important.
Nevertheless, I'm not a girl so what do I know. I think though that it doesn't mean just targeting females; I think it means making Apple notebooks as big a fashion statement as iPods. Yeah, they already turn heads, but it's still more of a "that's neat" than an iPod "MUST HAVE." So it means the college girls with pink polo shirts with the collar popped.
But selling an iPod to such a market is different than a computer. With an iPod, the tradeoffs/choices are physical size and hard disk size, which even the simplest person can understand. This isn't the case with computers though. While there are still physical size/hard disk size choices to be made again, there are also other choices, including most importantly RAM. Average people don't know what RAM is or how it compare to hard disks. So when the cutest, smallest little Apple laptops start shipping with 256 megs of RAM and kids start running as many cute dashboard widgets as they can find, 10 instant message windows open at any given time, iTunes playing, Safari surfing, and iPhoto browsing...as memory hungry as OS X is, these computers start to suck in people's eyes.
Bottom line is...if Apple wants a computer targeted towards those in the market simply to make a fashion statement, they can't sacrifice too much performance in a cute model. This computer needs to just like the iPod: minimize the amount of knowledge that the consumer is expected to have to make a pleasing decision.