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I actually made an account due to this thread after lurking for a while. I think elblanco raised some very interesting points from a business perspective that y

I actually made an account due to this thread after lurking for a while. I think elblanco raised some very interesting points from a business perspective that you didn't counter. He was kind of a jerk about it. But two salient questions remain: 1) Why doesn't Apple have a netbook offering? "Because they don't" isn't really a good answer. That space is booming and still evolving right now. Apple could come in and define it for the entire marketplace. 2) Since Apple doesn't have one, why would they go through the trouble of shutting down atom based netbooks? Wouldn't this jeopardize future uses for an atom in a lower-end device like the Mac Mini? I don't think you answered either question in your original comment: "Whether or not this move is an intentional swipe at the Hackintosh trend, I'm rooting for Apple here: (1) Just from a pure CS perspective, the Hackintoshers seem awfully smug, and I'd like to see them get knocked around by Apple for awhile. In a theoretic sense, it's far from established that Apple can't lock clones out. We have no idea what tricks they might come up with to reject non-Apple gear, and I for one really want to see what they are. When Microsoft did this to the Xbox and X360, we got some incredible systems research out of people like Bunny Huang and the MIT hackers. (2) Just on general principles, if you don't have a monopoly and you aren't specially regulated, you clearly should be able to sell whatever combination of hardware and software you want to. Other people don't have the right to force you to sell some random configuration of your stuff. It's a really skeevy kind of Geek Exceptionalism that says "there's no GOOD reason why OS X shouldn't run on my Netbook, so you can't stop me"." So I'm not sure what word anybody is supposed to take exactly.

tptacek 17y ago
(1) Because introducing a product at the netbook price point would cannibalize sales that would go to the lowest-cost Macbook, and torpedo their profitability. (2) Because allowing clones forces Apple to compete with other hardware vendors, and Apple sells a unified hardware/software product, and there is nothing in law or standard business principle that allows us to dictate to Apple how they package their products.
- bobhoska 17y ago
  I don't know what your previous (1) has to do with this (1) ;) But I agree. I think elblanco agrees with you also, only he/she managed to give a reason. I've reread this thread a few times and still can't figure out why you two seem to be disagreeing over agreeing on this. (2) Apple closed the loop on this when they killed off their clone market. Done right, hardware sales can bring in more money than pure software sales. Allow me to be contrary on one point. "and there is nothing in law or standard business principle that allows us to dictate to Apple how they package their products". Supply and demand would seem to dictate that you should supply what the consumers demand. Apple's done an effective job at controlling/predicting/creating what their consumers demand (for example, I didn't even think about a mult-touch mouse before, now I'm drooling in anticipation of getting one). But they seem to have gone a bit off-kilter here w/r to ultra-small notebooks. The 13" Macbook is huge compared to the 10" netbooks I see at Costco. If it weren't for their ridiculous battery life, I could see trading in my Macbook for a netbook since that's a hugely compelling feature for me.

tptacek 17y ago

(1) Because introducing a product at the netbook price point would cannibalize sales that would go to the lowest-cost Macbook, and torpedo their profitability. (2) Because allowing clones forces Apple to compete with other hardware vendors, and Apple sells a unified hardware/software product, and there is nothing in law or standard business principle that allows us to dictate to Apple how they package their products.

bobhoska 17y ago
I don't know what your previous (1) has to do with this (1) ;) But I agree. I think elblanco agrees with you also, only he/she managed to give a reason. I've reread this thread a few times and still can't figure out why you two seem to be disagreeing over agreeing on this. (2) Apple closed the loop on this when they killed off their clone market. Done right, hardware sales can bring in more money than pure software sales. Allow me to be contrary on one point. "and there is nothing in law or standard business principle that allows us to dictate to Apple how they package their products". Supply and demand would seem to dictate that you should supply what the consumers demand. Apple's done an effective job at controlling/predicting/creating what their consumers demand (for example, I didn't even think about a mult-touch mouse before, now I'm drooling in anticipation of getting one). But they seem to have gone a bit off-kilter here w/r to ultra-small notebooks. The 13" Macbook is huge compared to the 10" netbooks I see at Costco. If it weren't for their ridiculous battery life, I could see trading in my Macbook for a netbook since that's a hugely compelling feature for me.