For months now, there’s been speculation that Apple would release a product that competed against netbooks on price and functionality. For that same amount of time, Apple denied this saying that netbooks didn’t offer an acceptable experience for customers. Yesterday they released a tablet computer that is at the same price point as a netbook. This may seem contradictory, but it isn’t. This product isn’t designed to compete with netbooks directly. It’s a shot at Amazon’s Kindle.
At first glance, this may seem surprising but Apple, the company known for innovation, has released an oversized iPod Touch that really doesn’t offer anything compelling.
During the announcement, Steve Jobs said, “Now, some people thought that was a netbook—the problem is that netbooks aren’t better than anything!”
- … except my netbook runs Skype and has a built in webcam and mic.
- … except that my netbook’s bluetooth and/or USB connection allows me to tether to my phone.
- … except my netbook can run Silverlight and Flash (maybe not great, but it works well enough).
- … except my netbook has an SD slot and USB.
- … except my netbook has a 160 GB hard drive.
- … except my netbook can multitask and run apps simultaneously.
- … except my netbook only cost $435 and can do all of that.
When viewed in this light, it’s obvious Apple wasn’t targeting the netbook market at all. This isn’t surprising; Apple’s reasoning is that if you want a “cheap” Macbook, get the $999 starter model. The model has sold very well for Apple and it was unlikely they’d cannibalize it.
If it can’t handle the most basic functions of even a $200 netbook, then what does it do well?
Audio/Video? 720p video is okay but the display doesn’t have the 16:9 dimensions that are standard on just about every TV made. No support for Flash or Silverlight means no Hulu or Netflix On-Demand. Regardless of what you think of Flash and Silverlight, not including support for them on something you’re trying to pass off as a netbook competitor is unforgivable. Apple can’t blame the performance of the CPU since they designed it. No, Netflix and Hulu compete with iTunes so there’s your reason for the snub right there. 64 GB of storage is going to be painfully small for this device if it were meant to compete with netbooks (yes I know many netbooks have the same or less amount of storage, but actual HD’s are options on netbooks).
The lack of a webcam is truly odd. First they keep putting low quality cameras on the iPhones and then refuse to put any on the iPod Touch or its oversized brother. Why?
The answer to all of this is that Apple didn’t like seeing Amazon own the digital print space. This is a Kindle competitor pure and simple. Sure there’s an iPhone Kindle app but Amazon profits from the book sales, not Apple. If folks buy the iPad and use it in a netbook-lite fashion, so much the better but Apple wants you to buy print content on it.
You can add a keyboard to the iPad, but why would you? If you’re going to do that then just get a netbook.
I own an iPhone, an iPod Touch, an iMac, and a netbook. My iMac suits all of my desktop computing needs. When I’m not at my iMac, which is often, the iPhone does most of what I want. When I travel or just need a slightly more desktop-like experience, the netbook hits the spot because I have all of the features listed above at a sub-$500 price point with a keyboard that’s 92% the size of a normal keyboard … much like Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard. Even if it wasn’t a Hackintosh and ran Windows 7 or Ubuntu that’d still be true.
As much as I’d like to get excited about this device, I can’t. The thing I’ve liked most about Apple’s products is that many times they seem like creative solutions to computing paradigms we take for granted. This feels like a solution to a problem that doesn’t impact me– Amazon’s success.
I’m sure they’ll sell a billion of these things and in retrospect my comments will be about as spot on as the guy who said that horseless buggies would never take off. As with the iPhone, I’ll at least wait until the second iteration before I would even consider jumping on to this bandwagon.
