Are netbooks shrinking Apple's slice of the portable market?

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  • Reply 181 of 186
    rbrrbr Posts: 631member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    They will enter this space though it won't be with a $300 it'll be more like $600 and it'll have one or two unique features which make us "have" to own one. There's little reason to add Core Touch API to Snow Leopard if multi-touch isn't going to have more influence on future products.



    Plus you have to look at the rumors a bit here and read between the lines.



    PA Semi acquisition

    Multi Year Imagination license

    rumored ARM Architecture license



    All points to more products beyond just the iPhone/iPod Touch.



    The Snapdragon ARM processor from Qualcomm shows a little bit of what Apple may be thinking, even though their development is probably independent of Qualcomm's. Integrated Wi-Fi (perhaps even Wi-Max at some point in time), Bluetooth, GPS, and 3G will certainly help to contain costs and power consumption as well as presenting interesting packaging possibilities for handsets.



    Note the difference in size compared to a MBA in this pic.



    Plainly, Qualcomm is attempting to position their Snapdragon platform for both the netbook market and the MID market whereas it seems unlikely that the Atom platform, at least in its current state of development, would compete as effectively in the MID and/or handset market.
  • Reply 182 of 186
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RBR View Post


    Apple, not just AT&T, have either crippled it or failed to implement so many obvious requirements that they are too numerous to even bother trying to list.



    That's the only way that people will know the issues that people have with the device and 3rd party developers are dying to know what apps people want to have on it - some have enabled file transfer capability for example. A few issues I can say are lack of copy/paste, lack of document transfer, viewing and editing. Some people don't like the browser (javascript issues etc) but I don't have any issues with it and it's good in some ways to force developers to improve Safari support. No Flash support is no problem for me either as I even turn Flash off in OS X Safari now.



    Raising problems is important as an ARM-based netbook may run the same system and have the same issues.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RBR View Post


    Sure, you can throw a phone in your pocket whereas you could not with a netbook of any reasonable description, but what have you got when all is said and done?



    In the aggregate, I think the question should be whether the overwhelming majority of people's needs are met by iPhone like devices. I think it self evident that they are not.



    Apple has taken a significant marketshare of the mobile phone industry in a very short period of time. Last quarter sales bordered on 7 million iphones. For such a new single-model device, in a new market to Apple, that is pretty impressive.



    Satisfaction isn't measured by initial sales of course but I know about 10 people or so with iphones and they all think it's the best device they've ever used. Now their benchmark is a variation of normal phones and Treo smartphones. It may well fall short of other benchmarks such as high end smartphones or PDAs but it may also be more cost-effective.



    If they had delivered all things to all people, how would they sell the next version? Manufacturers all do this, they hold back on features so that a year down the line, they can say there's an upgrade worth buying. Firmware upgrades also come along that fix problems. The iphone can still add significant improvements over the next couple of years.



    The netbook market is a relatively new thing and I think Apple may be waiting it out to see if it's going to be worthwhile investing in. They won't miss out on the market, they will do what they always do and assess what the market needs/wants and try and satisfy the needs/wants they feel are most important. Basically who are the people buying the netbooks and for what purpose.



    Is it business users who want a cheap ultra-portable, is it home users who want a cheap computer overall, is it people who do a lot of travelling? They will assess numbers of who is buying what and weigh up the best course of action if any.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RBR View Post


    Although the current generation of netbooks are not really intended to encode video, the ones expected in mid '09 using the NVidia 9400 series chip set for video should be able to do so and are believed to be capable of playing HD video without difficulty based upon demonstrations presented with some boxes put together for demo purposes.



    This is the chipset the MBA uses now. Assuming that Apple stick with this, they'd have to look at ways they can cut the cost. A smaller screen saves money. It also reduces the space available in the machine so they look towards using lower end CPUs that run cooler.



    Trouble is, it has to be an Intel chip for OS X app compatibility. Intel Atom is really the only option but it's not compatible with Nvidia chipsets. There will never be an Atom netbook with an Nvidia chipset according to Intel.



    Apple seem to be cooking up something with ARM and Imagination tech as hmurchison points out but it may have to run the iphone OS as it's ARM-based, perhaps a variant of the iphone OS. Touch isn't necessary and it would probably be cheaper without but I still think that all mobile devices including laptops will go touch-based entirely one day. I want to see Apple making a slate laptop.
  • Reply 183 of 186
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post




    Trouble is, it has to be an Intel chip for OS X app compatibility. Intel Atom is really the only option but it's not compatible with Nvidia chipsets. There will never be an Atom netbook with an Nvidia chipset according to Intel.




    http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/25/i...tandalone-ato/
  • Reply 184 of 186
    rbrrbr Posts: 631member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    That's the only way that people will know the issues that people have with the device and 3rd party developers are dying to know what apps people want to have on it - some have enabled file transfer capability for example. A few issues I can say are lack of copy/paste, lack of document transfer, viewing and editing. Some people don't like the browser (javascript issues etc) but I don't have any issues with it and it's good in some ways to force developers to improve Safari support. No Flash support is no problem for me either as I even turn Flash off in OS X Safari now.



    Raising problems is important as an ARM-based netbook may run the same system and have the same issues.







    Apple has taken a significant marketshare of the mobile phone industry in a very short period of time. Last quarter sales bordered on 7 million iphones. For such a new single-model device, in a new market to Apple, that is pretty impressive.



    Satisfaction isn't measured by initial sales of course but I know about 10 people or so with iphones and they all think it's the best device they've ever used. Now their benchmark is a variation of normal phones and Treo smartphones. It may well fall short of other benchmarks such as high end smartphones or PDAs but it may also be more cost-effective.



    If they had delivered all things to all people, how would they sell the next version? Manufacturers all do this, they hold back on features so that a year down the line, they can say there's an upgrade worth buying. Firmware upgrades also come along that fix problems. The iphone can still add significant improvements over the next couple of years.



    The netbook market is a relatively new thing and I think Apple may be waiting it out to see if it's going to be worthwhile investing in. They won't miss out on the market, they will do what they always do and assess what the market needs/wants and try and satisfy the needs/wants they feel are most important. Basically who are the people buying the netbooks and for what purpose.



    Is it business users who want a cheap ultra-portable, is it home users who want a cheap computer overall, is it people who do a lot of travelling? They will assess numbers of who is buying what and weigh up the best course of action if any.







    This is the chipset the MBA uses now. Assuming that Apple stick with this, they'd have to look at ways they can cut the cost. A smaller screen saves money. It also reduces the space available in the machine so they look towards using lower end CPUs that run cooler.



    Trouble is, it has to be an Intel chip for OS X app compatibility. Intel Atom is really the only option but it's not compatible with Nvidia chipsets. There will never be an Atom netbook with an Nvidia chipset according to Intel.



    Apple seem to be cooking up something with ARM and Imagination tech as hmurchison points out but it may have to run the iphone OS as it's ARM-based, perhaps a variant of the iphone OS. Touch isn't necessary and it would probably be cheaper without but I still think that all mobile devices including laptops will go touch-based entirely one day. I want to see Apple making a slate laptop.



    NVidia have been quoted that they believe the 9400 chip set would add $50 or less to the retail cost of a netbook.



    The Intel Atom Z530 CPU is being used in some applications because it has a slightly lower power demand and can be cooled w/o a fan. It will probably be offered in more netbooks in '09 even though it costs slightly more than the N270.
  • Reply 185 of 186
    rbrrbr Posts: 631member
    Anandtech has an interesting article about the ASUS N10JC which could very well reflect a strategy Apple would find attractive...something that is "a little better", but retains the light weight and compact size of a netbook.



    Others have take note that it is starting a new market segment called the "Corporate Netbook." So it would appear that not everyone views netbooks as a race to the bottom. Expected sales of 11 million units in 2009 certainly can not go unnoticed for long.
  • Reply 186 of 186
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    The reason he called netbooks a race to the bottom is because of over all profits. In the long run more sales doesn't mean much if it does not equal more profit.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RBR View Post


    "Corporate Netbook." So it would appear that not everyone views netbooks as a race to the bottom. Expected sales of 11 million units in 2009 certainly can not go unnoticed for long.



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