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Rumors again swirl around a netbook from Apple

The netbook market is booming and the only major computer maker yet to introduce a netbook is Apple. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has said previously that the company didn’t know how to make a cheap notebook that worked.

Despite the denial that Apple would launch a netbook; rumors have long swirled around the possibility of a netbook from the firm. Smarthouse reports that Apple is working with LG on new OLED panels that are reportedly slated to be used in new iPhone, notebook, and netbook systems from Apple.

Sources told Smarthouse that Apple already has a working prototype of the new netbook that will be made in Taiwan and use a LG OLED display. LG is also reported to be increasing its R&D budget by 25% with a large portion of the new budget going to OLED and new battery technologies.

Smarthouse reports that Apple has paid LG $500 million for work on new OLED technology that eliminates fingerprints on the screen and has improved touch sensitivity. LG believes that fingerprints left on OLED screens can be eliminated by adding a layer in the manufacturing process.

Earlier rumors had Apple working with Quanta for a netbook. Apple also recently gave a sneak preview of its iPhone 3.0 OS that will add much needed features to the popular smartphone like cut and paste and MMS messaging.

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Interesting to say the least!
By Scott2008Z06 on 3/22/2009 9:02:14 PM , Rating: 4
Great Apple will probably charge $1200 for their netbook! I'll take 3 of them.




RE: Interesting to say the least!
By matt0401 on 3/22/09, Rating: -1
RE: Interesting to say the least!
By teldar on 3/22/2009 9:15:56 PM , Rating: 2
My only concern about apple and netbooks is that they're going to be $600. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

All the apple fans will say they don't gouge their customers, but I don't see how any impartial person could think that they don't.


RE: Interesting to say the least!
By Agentbolt on 3/22/2009 9:35:45 PM , Rating: 2
Plenty of "Netbooks" are already right around the 600 dollar mark. Apple's not retarded, they're not going to introduce a small laptop with a few whiz bang features, price it at a 1000 dollars, and call it a Netbook. If they're truly working on a Netbook it's going to cost 500 dollars or less.

The reason I'm not excited is because I both love and hate Apple, I have to also accept the possibility (probability, really) that they'll cripple it in some horrible way to avoid stealing Macbook share. They'll have it run some modified Iphone OS that can only run App Store apps, or it'll only come with ISA connectivity, or something equally infuriating.


By Oregonian2 on 3/22/2009 10:33:22 PM , Rating: 3
To me, anything over $400 is just a laptop and not a netbook. Netbooks need to be small, light, and very inexpensive (that is, to not just be a laptop). You might push me another $25, but that'd be a "high end netbook". "Center" for netbook pricing, IMO, is in the low to mid $300's.


By CrazyBernie on 3/22/2009 11:16:39 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Plenty of "Netbooks" are already right around the 600 dollar mark. Apple's not retarded, they're not going to introduce a small laptop with a few whiz bang features, price it at a 1000 dollars, and call it a Netbook.


Ummm... that's exactly the type of thing Apple would do. The sad part is there would be huge lines at the Apple store of people waiting to buy one to support their self sense of superiority.


RE: Interesting to say the least!
By michael2k on 3/23/2009 10:59:27 AM , Rating: 2
The same product may be worth more to some people than to others.

It's not gouging if the product meets your needs better; you're paying for higher functionality.

My mother in law can't use a PC. She doesn't know how to copy and paste, can't handle multiple buttons, doesn't know how to save in text format.

She was very poorly served by her Windows XP machine. We eventually convinced her to move to a MacBook. Said MacBook definitely cost her more than a cheaper PC, but given that now she can do video chat, text chat, and a host of other things that she couldn't with her PC... is it gouging?


RE: Interesting to say the least!
By lightfoot on 3/23/2009 9:34:40 PM , Rating: 3
No it's not gouging, that is preying on the elderly - and should be criminal.

How much money did you force your mother in law to spend on a whole new computer when a $30 webcam and about 10 minutes of your time could have taught her EVERYTHING on that list?

You assume that because she's old she can't learn new things, so to make you feel better about being a Mac fanboy you convinced her to shell out $1,500 or more on a computer that she didn't need - all so that she would have to learn how to do EVERYTHING from scratch.

Webcam - $30
New Apple computer - $1,500
Not having to spend time with your in-laws? Priceless.


RE: Interesting to say the least!
By madmuffin on 3/23/2009 5:11:29 AM , Rating: 1
Here Here, I agree Apple may be expensive but my Macbook pro has lasted longer than my £500 Asus!


RE: Interesting to say the least!
By invidious on 3/23/2009 9:03:26 AM , Rating: 2
Well they cant sell one for $500, based on their usual $500 markup the netbook would have to have zero cost.

I am still waiting for my macbook wheel.


By DeepBlue1975 on 3/25/2009 8:30:36 PM , Rating: 1
And they'll have just one USB port, and will have a card reader that will only be able to use some Apple proprietary memory card format (iCard?) for which they will charge you something in the likes of $10/gb.

But they'll surely look damn über bitchin' good.


This will be a 10 inch itouch
By Scott66 on 3/23/2009 12:38:18 AM , Rating: 2
Will be a small netbook with 8-10" OLED touchscreen similar to an ipod touch. ebook lovers and multimedia junkies will be dancing with glee.




RE: This will be a 10 inch itouch
By Sazar on 3/23/2009 3:02:49 AM , Rating: 2
That's my feeling as well and I think it may well be pretty cool if they do go that route.


RE: This will be a 10 inch itouch
By KayKay on 3/23/2009 12:53:54 PM , Rating: 2
Yes. Personally if they can eliminate the whole e-book reader market by producing something that does all it does and more, then good. Eliminating superfluous products


RE: This will be a 10 inch itouch
By lightfoot on 3/23/2009 9:45:12 PM , Rating: 2
Just because you don't read doesn't mean that no one else should.

eInk != LCD

An iPhone style tablet could not use eInk. An eBook reader shouldn't use an LCD. Different technologies, different applications. I don't want to see Apple eliminate any other markets - they have already devastated the MP3 player market. Why must they decimate the eBook reader market? Forcing people to use iTunes to buy everything is not a "feature" that I want.


uhh...
By DASQ on 3/23/2009 11:04:26 AM , Rating: 2
Am I the only one that noticed that LG is introducing their own netbook already?




OLED on Netbook?
By yomamafor1 on 3/23/2009 12:02:06 PM , Rating: 2
OLED is a much more expensive technology than LED or even LCD. To put OLED onto a supposedly inexpensive product does not make sense to me at all. If the rumor is true (which I seriously doubt), Apple's own "Netbook" could be around $700~$800.




By gochichi on 3/24/2009 12:46:42 PM , Rating: 2
You know, if your Macbook Pro lasted better than an Asus. Lucky you. My anecdotal evidence is that hardware wise, Apple is as unreliable as they come, but software wise, it does seem like Mac OS X is far steadier over time than Windows. It also doesn't run half the stuff that Windows does, so it's hard to outright call it "better".

Now, the hardware issues that I've seen on Apple hardware is quite staggering considering their price and reputation. I mean, honestly, other than fans dieing, computer hardware lasts a long long time. For Mac, I've seen: Fried motherboard for PowerBook (about 16 months old at the time) with a repair cost of $900.00. Smoking iMac, overheated G5 tower, leaky capacitors on an eMac (read wikipedia article on eMacs, it's very very common). And honestly, I don't see that many Macs... so % wise that's a lot of hardware failure. Now, all the time I see "broken" PCs that have malware and viruses and that sort of thing, but the hardware is doing just fine. As more knowledgeable people we've done a bad job of eradicating these simple problems from PCs. Truthfully, I think charging for antivirus is unfortunate. I think Microsoft should take the legal hits and just bundle antivirus right along the OS.

The average age of a PC is much older than Macs also. A lot of the Macs out there are much more current, because they've been growing in market share big time. So, a lot of people are comparing a PC tower with 512MB of RAM with a MacBook Pro and concluding that Macs are better.

I think Macs are fine, and if they release a Netbook, it's going to be sweet. You can go on and on about "price" but truthfully I don't think a $700 netbook is the end of the world. Mac OS X lends itself well to the laptop market and will do even better with the netbook segment. Why? Because it's a very fine OS, but it is also terribly limiting. But laptops themselves are limiting, and netbooks are even more limited hardware wise.

What I mean is that a desktop benefits more from Windows' compatibility. You can put add on cards in it, you can put the latest video cards in it and so forth. A laptop's hardware is stagnant, and so that stuff doesn't matter much. If Apple releases a netbook, it's going to be slickly made, and that goes a long way with a netbook. Also, if they use the Atom processor, it'll be the dual-core version. Frankly, I don't see the big deal, I would guess that a refurbished MacBook Air would fit the bill nicely for about $999.00.

I'm neither against or for Apple. I think they have a tendency to over-innovate, and have the uncanny ability to not offer some of the basics (a nice (normal)$400 desktop for instance). As a brand, I'm no more likely to choose it over Dell, but if their niche products happen to fit your needs then I'd buy it. Money isn't everything, and I think it's reasonable to say that most people keep the same laptop for 2+ years... so if you spent $1400.00 on a Mac instead of $700.00 (+$50 a year on antivirus) the difference is $600.00... or $25.00 a month. And a lot of times, many times I'd say, "right-brained" people just enjoy the sense of independence from tech support that they get from Macs. Do they enjoy it enough for $25.00 a month? I think many do. Who am I to judge that? In a world where we overspend on transportation to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month, I find it odd that we keep wanting to judge whether or not a more user friendly computer is worth $25.00 a month to someone else.

I'm happy if you're happy. I may not stand in line to buy Apple's netbook, but I'll want to know everything about it the minute it comes out. Heck, it'll probably be in the news so I'll find out even if I didn't want to. I think it's a lot more luck of the draw than we think. You could get a defective macbook and draw conclusions about the brand, or like me, have great luck with a Dell Latitude and think "Latitudes NEVER fail, they ALL last 5+ years without incident" and on and on... neither is true. As for Apple, like I said, I believe they over-innovate and their entire lineup is unappealing to me at the moment. The previous macbook Pro was a great design, and I'm eager to see what they'll do next.




uh
By tehbiz on 3/23/2009 6:01:32 AM , Rating: 1
isn't this being "reported" by the same guy that broke the story on the playstation 4 and some other random bullshit that never came to fruition? I think i read the article on either engadget or bgr where they pointed out 4 or 5 other outlandish things this dude has come up with and treated it with overall disdain.

oh found the link

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/19/apple-to-partne...




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