Apple, according to Dow jones, is planning to launch a netbook computer with a touch screen monitor as early as the second half of this year.
Another view is that Dow Jones (who is not a Welsh analyst) is talking through a leek in his head.
The report says the mini laptop computers will likely have monitor screens that are between 9.7-inches and 10-inches.
What is possibly true is that Apple is working with Taiwan’s Wintek, a contract manufacturer of small and medium displays, to make the touch-screen displays and Quanta Computer to produce what might be thought of as a large iPod.
What these prime Welsh turkeys in gobbling on about NetBooks forget is that Netbooks do not lend themselves to touch screens.
This has been shown practically time and time again.
What works on an iPod does not work on a Netbook. It simply does not work except and unless the computer is being used for presentations when the screen can be laid flat. Otherwise your hand works in a very tiring vertical position.
CNNMoney.com states that Apple’s entry may come in what is expected to be a very tough year for computer sales. Desktop-computer shipments in particular are expected to fall by nearly one-third globally in 2009 as consumers increasingly shift to laptop computers, according to projections released by research firm Gartner earlier in March.
That does not mean that Apple will make Netbooks.
Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs last year dismissed Netbooks, even going so far as to suggest Apple’s third-generation iPhone — a smartphone device that offers multifunctions — could serve as a netbook.
Jobs told analysts in October Apple isn’t ‘tremendously worried’ the slump will drive customers to less-expensive PCs and added, ‘we don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk.’
And Steve Jobs was not left behind the door when the computer smarts were handed out.
According to DigiTimes, the Taipei-based daily that carried the report in English, Commercial Times claims Apple is building ‘netbooks’ for release later this year and that Quanta Computer, one of Apple’s favorite suppliers, will be assembling them. Bollocks.
First of all, as MacRumors points out, the track record of Commercial Times when it comes to predicting Apple’s products based on supply chain reports is mixed at best.
Second, the netbook market is one that Apple has managed to avoid to the benefit of its bottom line.
So what is Wintek making for Apple, if not touchscreens for a netbook?
Since the dimensions of those screens were not provided, it could be almost anything, from a high-end iPhone to an oversized iPod touch to a Newton-type tablet computer.
It will not be a cheap Netbook. Stand on me.
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