During their quarterly earnings call, Apple COO (and acting head honcho) Tim Cook had this response to the netbook question that recurs on every one of these calls:
“When I’m looking at what’s sold in the netbook market, I see cramped keyboards, junky hardware, very small screen, bad software. Not a consumer experience that we would put the Mac brand on. As it exists today, we’re not interested in nor would it be something customers would be interested in the long term. We are looking at the space. For those who want a small computer that does browsing/email, they might want an iPhone or iPod Touch. If we find a way we can deliver an innovative product that really makes a contribution, then we’ll do that. And we have some interesting ideas in this space.“
In some ways, it’s the same answer Tim and Steve give every time someone asks.
But the somewhat rambling way he arrived there—first talking about the iPod touch and iPhone fulfilling some of the needs of people who want a small computer, was definitely different. Meaningful? Take it for what you will. Update: Filled out the beginning of the quote using Mac Rumors’ transcript. [Apple]
matt
April 23, 2009 at 11:19 AM
And as usual with apple, I assume by “innovative” they mean “the same, but prettier and more expensive”. Seeing as how the key selling point of a netbook is that they are cheap, I can see how apple would struggle to enter the market. What they’d end up with is something like those small, very light, very long battery life, sony vaios, that costs 2k-3k.
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