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Analyst Believes Apple Will Unveil Netbooks at Macworld
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Way off
Apple might release "netbooks" but not yet. Last time corporate talked about this, they said they had some interesting ideas for them, but that it wasn't close to time for Apple to jump in this type of market. They already control around 30% of the total Laptop revenue. And this continues to rock all of the other laptop brands.
This analyst is completely wrong about the closed OS, and Macintosh software app store system. It's not something that Apple can put together quickly. It was easy with the iPhone because all of the developers had to start there with distribution and sales. Macintosh software is much different. It's too spread out with developers using many different sales solutions. To force all of these developers to move into a Mac software app store is pretty insane. It's just not going to happen.
So it sounds to me like this analyst is someone with normal economic logic, but no familiarity with the realities of the Mac, the Mac OS and its 3rd party software.
Apple might release "netbooks" but not yet. Last time corporate talked about this, they said they had some interesting ideas for them, but that it wasn't close to time for Apple to jump in this type of market. They already control around 30% of the total Laptop revenue. And this continues to rock all of the other laptop brands.
This analyst is completely wrong about the closed OS, and Macintosh software app store system. It's not something that Apple can put together quickly. It was easy with the iPhone because all of the developers had to start there with distribution and sales. Macintosh software is much different. It's too spread out with developers using many different sales solutions. To force all of these developers to move into a Mac software app store is pretty insane. It's just not going to happen.
So it sounds to me like this analyst is someone with normal economic logic, but no familiarity with the realities of the Mac, the Mac OS and its 3rd party software.
MacBook air
I always thought the air was the netbook.... Maybe just drop the price and some specs and call it a day or.... netbook.....the only thing I wish apple did was make the new MacBooks in color.. Boys and girls would of jumped for joy haha ...
I always thought the air was the netbook.... Maybe just drop the price and some specs and call it a day or.... netbook.....the only thing I wish apple did was make the new MacBooks in color.. Boys and girls would of jumped for joy haha ...
The Macbook Air is an ultra portable. Netbooks are basically ultra portables but are much cheaper.
Amen to that and +1.
I'm sick and tired of "analysts" making these sweeping statements before an Apple event and then if the item they are talking about doesn't materialize then Apple stocks take a hit.
I much rather listen to what Arn gets his hands on as well as our fellow posters here on MacRumors then to listen to some stuff shirt Wall Street type who doesn't know his @ss from a hole in his head.
I, for one, would welcome such a model. I currently own an old iBook G4 and I'd love to upgrade but I'm not sure if I can justify the price or, indeed, the features of the newer laptops.
I've discovered that all I really need is something to browse the internet on, play a bit of music and store my pictures. I can't help but feel that even the new Macbook is overkill for my needs.
I've discovered that all I really need is something to browse the internet on, play a bit of music and store my pictures. I can't help but feel that even the new Macbook is overkill for my needs.
The only things Apple needs to talk about at the Keynote at MacWorld are the following:
• Update to the aged Mac Pro/PMG5 case design to include updates to processor, DisplayPort, eSATA port on back and possibly an optional Blu-Ray burner.
• Update to the iMac for DisplayPort and Quad Core chips.
• Update to Apple TV rental program that goes after Netflix subscription style of pricing plan where you can rent X amount of movies per month for $XX.xx as well as changing the play time frame from 24 hours to 72 hours. When you have kids, there is no guarantee that if you start watching a film on a Friday night that you will be able to finish watching it by Saturday night.
• Update to the rest of the Apple Cinemas in looks and DisplayPort.
• iLife '09/iWork '09
• Talk about Snow Leopard and show the speed of the newly written code compared to the UB version.
• Talk about iPhone and release a 32GB model shifting price points down and letting the 8GB inhabit the rumored $99 price point.
• Talk about how Mobile Me will have true PUSH by July 1st. (just in time for the third gen iPhone)
• Update to the aged Mac Pro/PMG5 case design to include updates to processor, DisplayPort, eSATA port on back and possibly an optional Blu-Ray burner.
• Update to the iMac for DisplayPort and Quad Core chips.
• Update to Apple TV rental program that goes after Netflix subscription style of pricing plan where you can rent X amount of movies per month for $XX.xx as well as changing the play time frame from 24 hours to 72 hours. When you have kids, there is no guarantee that if you start watching a film on a Friday night that you will be able to finish watching it by Saturday night.
• Update to the rest of the Apple Cinemas in looks and DisplayPort.
• iLife '09/iWork '09
• Talk about Snow Leopard and show the speed of the newly written code compared to the UB version.
• Talk about iPhone and release a 32GB model shifting price points down and letting the 8GB inhabit the rumored $99 price point.
• Talk about how Mobile Me will have true PUSH by July 1st. (just in time for the third gen iPhone)
I take the opposite view here!
I don't look at these as Mac or notebooks anyway. I see tablets and netbooks as essential communications devices. That is the fill the role of an advance cell phone. None of these devices are Notebooks in my mind.
Revisions to current hardware will do nothing for Apple. In fact such an approach could be a big negative as people will see such products as poor value for the money {Mini}. If you want to grab market mindset you need to deliver bleeding edge products at really good prices. Apple has good potential here as the can easily morph Mobile OS and Mac OS into something very appealing for the handheld market.
As to Apples share price, unfortunately they are currently grossly overpriced. Like it or not the market is vastly different than it was a few months ago and Apple is still grossly over valued. Especially when there are so many bargains for people to invest in. Unfortunately I think Apple needs to fall by 50% before it could be considered a good investment.
Dave
Actually now os one of the most important times for apple to innovate. If handled properly it will provide them with cash generating products to get them through the next few months or even years. Frankly I don't know how bad the economy really is this don't know if it is months or years, all I know is it really isn't as bad as the News reports like to make it out to be.
I don't look at these as Mac or notebooks anyway. I see tablets and netbooks as essential communications devices. That is the fill the role of an advance cell phone. None of these devices are Notebooks in my mind.
Their best bet to get interest up (and their shares) is for Jobs to show up and announce a revision of some sort to any of the existing apple line
Revisions to current hardware will do nothing for Apple. In fact such an approach could be a big negative as people will see such products as poor value for the money {Mini}. If you want to grab market mindset you need to deliver bleeding edge products at really good prices. Apple has good potential here as the can easily morph Mobile OS and Mac OS into something very appealing for the handheld market.
As to Apples share price, unfortunately they are currently grossly overpriced. Like it or not the market is vastly different than it was a few months ago and Apple is still grossly over valued. Especially when there are so many bargains for people to invest in. Unfortunately I think Apple needs to fall by 50% before it could be considered a good investment.
Dave
And to what do you propose they turn the cheese grater into? There's nothing wrong with it. No Blu-ray, no eSATA.
Probably no quad core iMacs, but an update.
No subscriptions.
The 30" will be updated, the 20" might be discontinued.
Why, when a true 64-bit OS is coming soon?
Bingo.
Probably, and probably if not discontinue it.
Whatever gets it out there.
DaringFireball put this non-rumor down pretty effectively I think:
http://daringfireball.net/2008/12/apple_netbooks_eh
I actually think that one day smaller/cheaper MacBooks (or whatever the name) will make good sense and that Apple will deliver. But I don't see it happening soon.
It's one of those ideas that makes me think--"that would be really cool to have!" But I wouldn't actually BUY one because other products meet my needs better.
http://daringfireball.net/2008/12/apple_netbooks_eh
I actually think that one day smaller/cheaper MacBooks (or whatever the name) will make good sense and that Apple will deliver. But I don't see it happening soon.
It's one of those ideas that makes me think--"that would be really cool to have!" But I wouldn't actually BUY one because other products meet my needs better.
In other news due to the moon position every woman will be busy soon and Apple are planning a new Mac Midi Pro that will come out some time in the near future.
I have not source for my information but it is correct and Apple will replace the mini with this.
I have not source for my information but it is correct and Apple will replace the mini with this.
No Steve Jobs
Apple Announces Its Last Year at Macworld
CUPERTINO, Calif., Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple(R) today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year's Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple's last keynote at the show. The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco's Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.
Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple's Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.
Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.
Apple Announces Its Last Year at Macworld
CUPERTINO, Calif., Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple(R) today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year's Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple's last keynote at the show. The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco's Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.
Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple's Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.
Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.
You're funny.
HOLY MOTHER OF CRAP. NO MORE MACWORLD PERIOD. Apple left the summer one and they stopped holding it. There is no sense for it to be held anymore. WWDC is the only conference now...
And no Steve. He's dead.
I hope you're all happy. Steve Jobs is dead. You can have your xMac now.
Mac AIR is a MISTAKE it is not a netbook!
Just wanted to clear that up folks
In ant event I think Apple will deliver a tablet instead of a netbook proper. Essentially it will be a large iPod Touch with an enhanced Mobile OS. They have a distinctive lead with Touch as a interface, thus they can leverage that in the marketplace. We might Stil get a clam shell but on surface will be for input.
The thing for Apple is a distinctive design and more OS capability than iPhone. By that I mean multi tasking!
Dave
Just wanted to clear that up folks
In ant event I think Apple will deliver a tablet instead of a netbook proper. Essentially it will be a large iPod Touch with an enhanced Mobile OS. They have a distinctive lead with Touch as a interface, thus they can leverage that in the marketplace. We might Stil get a clam shell but on surface will be for input.
The thing for Apple is a distinctive design and more OS capability than iPhone. By that I mean multi tasking!
Dave
Or a bigger version of it.
Separate events for new products, anyone? And this MWSF looks like Snow Leopard to me.
For how long?
The word of Steve Jobs is not a particularly reliable predictor of the future, though. How many times has Jobs given an emphatic statement of some position, only to completely contradict it a short time later?
Remember how Apple wasn't interested in flash-based mp3 players?
Remember how people weren't interested in watching videos on tiny screens?
Remember how much better Apple's CPUs were than anything intel had?
Remember how the Mac OS was never going to run on intel machines?
Remember how competitor's computers were crap because they had integrated graphics?
I don't know if Apple will ever release a netbook, but I would not doubt that there are engineers working on prototypes even as we speak. And if/when the time is right, Apple will jump in, no matter what The Steve says today.
Oh, I'm sure they have one in development. Probably not spending huge amounts of resources on it, but if they think they might release one in the future, they're going to want to have as much of the design work done as possible when they decide that it's actually worthwhile to release. Otherwise, the development cycle would just be too long. And they haven't been afraid to invest in development of things that they ended up never releasing in the past. The main thing is that having a product in development doesn't mean anything about when or even if it will be released.
And I would predict about $700, should they ever decide to release one. Given Jobs' comments, I wouldn't imagine that would be for at least a year, though. (And I would almost certainly buy one at that price, if it's under a kilo.)
For how long?
Well, since they're discontinuing all of their pro products, not very.
And by discontinuing, I'm referring to the MacWorld announcement that the current Mac Pro and XServe will be the last models and will be taken off the store once current reserves are depleted. The 17" MacBook Pro will end similarly.
The 15" MacBook Pro will become the MacBook. The MacBook will have a 13" and 15" version and the Air as it is will remain the same.
Well, now. That's the most pessimistic even I have ever been. Let's see how right I am, shall we?
I think this analyst has a good guess. Specifically, I think Apple will:
* Take an iPod Touch and approximately double its width and height. The screen will take up the the space. It will be about at thick as a touch.
* It will be based on hardware similar to the touch/iphone, run the iPhone OS and run unmodified touch/iPhone apps. (The iPhone SDK will be updated with iTablet extensions to allow apps to take advantage of the improved screen resolution (that's right--not really a standalone computer).
* It will plug in to the app store, sync to your Mac via iTunes, etc., just like an iphone/touch.
* There will be some goodies. Probably will be able to rent, buy and view video content from the app store. Probably the GPU will be more capable than the touch's, even though it will be driving a display with four times the pixels. Video camera? Maybe some editing of documents will be allowed? (Like creating/editing word documents. That would imply Cut and Paste... Hm. Probably not on the document creation and editing, LOL.
Anyway, a device like this isn't that far-fetched. It's really just a modified touch with a bigger screen and some hardware bumps.
This isn't what people are thinking when they think netbook, but you didn't really expect Apple to do a netbook like everyone else, did you?
Edit:
Hey! I took so long to type up my thoughts you beat me to it. But yeah, this is what I think the analyst it guessing too.
I believe that Apple is going to unveil a robot servant at Macworld because of the increasing popularity of robots and increasing physical pressures on people due to obesity. Now, pay me!!
WOW! IF true that's BIG NEWS! No Steveo (health implications) and Schiller in charge! Wonder what direction Apple will head in now and when Steve will step down! I suspect it won't be long and perhaps announced at this last MacWorld! Just Wow!!!!!!!!!
