Why All Those Pundits Who Said Apple Needed To Make A Netbook Were Right

Business Insider’s Dan Frommer recalls that prior to Apple’s 2010 iPad launch, many observers contended that needed an entry in the then hot-selling netbook category in it’s lineup (I was definitely one of them), an idea that Apple CEO Steve Jobs explicitly scorned during and Apple earnings call in October, 2008 with the much-quoted utterance: “We dont know how to make a $500 computer thats not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that.”

Well, the base iPad has been selling for $499 for over a years now, and Frommer contends that those who believed Apple needed to make a netbook were right, noting that the iPad is effectively a netbook being functionally similar and certainly not a piece of junk.

Frommer also observes that less than three years after Job’s disclaimer, Apple is actually selling two netbooks, namely the iPad 2 and the 11-inch MacBook Air, the latter which has a netbook form factor and for most of its users functions as a secondary computer – just like those old netbooks did, and concludes that despite Steve Jobs’s fib about “junk,” Apple did need to make a netbook after all, but to make it on its own terms.

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