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Apple Touchscreen Netbook to Launch in October at $800?

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
From Macrumors http://www.macrumors.com/2009/07/13/apple-touchscreen-netbook-to-launch-in-october-at-800/

Taiwanese news site InfoTimes reports [translation] that Apple is slated to debut its long-rumored netbook this October. Taiwanese companies Foxconn, Wintek, and Dynapack have reportedly received orders from Apple related to the manufacturing of the new device.

The report notes that Apple is looking to adopt a 9.7-inch touchscreen for the new netbook, slightly smaller than the 10.1- or 10.2-inch screens typically used at the large end of the netbook range.
According to reliable information, Apple will not follow the current market trend (by producing netbooks with screens about 10.2 or 10.1 inches in diagonal length.) Instead, Apple will produce screens with about 9.7 inches in diagonal length. Touch screen will be installed. Wintek will be the main manufacturer of the touch screen.

Exact pricing remains unknown at this time, but the inclusion of a touchscreen and Apple's history of refusing to compete at the lowest price points suggest that the netbook may be priced at around $800.
Because Apple will adopt touch screen technology on its netbooks, Apple will not target low-end consumers, avoiding direct competition with Acer, Asus, as well as their less-than-500-dollars netbooks. Apple’s netbook (or a "tablet" as many call it,) will probably be sold at around $800 USD each.

Apple has repeatedly stated that although it has been looking at the growing netbook market, it is not interested in releasing a low-end netbook product that produces an inferior user experience as current products do. Other sources have recently "confirmed" that an Apple netbook is in the works, but claim that it will not arrive until 2010.
 

Terry

New member
I've been waiting for this. I'm really interested to see if it runs off the iPhone platform or the full OS X. To have 3G built in and run like an iPhone would be great for mostly everything but that doesn't work for photography.

My new 13" is getting the job done right now and I feel happy with the speed (with SSD) and C1 helps with screen real estate. If we get a decent tethering option from AT&T with the iPhone I would be really happy.
 
O

Oxide Blu

Guest
I've been waiting for this. I'm really interested to see if it runs off the iPhone platform or the full OS X.
It's rumored to only run on Google's new Chrome OS. :ROTFL:


This has to be something that has been in the works for at least a couple of years. In the current economy it would be difficult to define and engineer a new product like this is and expect traditional returns on that effort.
 
R

Ranger 9

Guest
This has to be something that has been in the works for at least a couple of years. In the current economy it would be difficult to define and engineer a new product like this is and expect traditional returns on that effort.
Yes and no. They've already made the engineering investment in developing a very solid touchscreen architecture and platform for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Scaling that up wouldn't be too tough once larger touchscreens became available in quantity, which is something I remember reading about recently.

That would mean Apple would have to manage user expectations carefully, to avoid the situation reported in recent surveys in which buyers of Atom-based Windows netbooks were disappointed that their $300 machines didn't have the performance or storage of much-more-expensive, full-on Windows laptops. Positioning the new netbook as a larger-screen iPhone or touch would avoid that potential issue.

For photographers, that would mean that accepting that the putative "touchbook" wouldn't have the processing horsepower of the existing MacOS X portables -- i.e., you probably wouldn't want to run Photoshop or Lightroom on it.

On the other hand, considering how many photographers use an iPhone or Touch to show their portfolios, a larger-screen version might have a lot of viability simply as a portable communication/presentation device.
 
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