AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

Depending on who you talk to you and who you believe, the netbooks, perhaps even lsptops, are taking a sales hit because of the iPad. Perhaps. Then there are those who are not so sure this is happen on a large scale. Given the potential that Apple may be on the verge of a $20 billion quarter and cuts on orders by dorm laptop and netbook makers, it has industry and mobile observers such as myself very excited. Is this the beginning of the end of mobile computing as we know it? More at Greenjava Mobility .

I think not. Well, not likely. That's the answer I've got to the question to the title of this post. This subject came up in today's Apple earnings call when an analyst asked about what Apple think about potential cannibalization of the Macs by iPads in the future, since today's report showed no sign this is going on. But a statement by Apple's Tim Cook, COO, seems to have set off a storm in this regard. "Our guts tell us that this market is very big...if it turns out that iPad cannibalizes PCs, that's fantastic for us because there is a lot of PCs to cannibalize..." was what he said. However, it was merely an off the cuff statement and nothing more. But is the iPad really capable of cannibalizing PCs?

It used to be that any time Apple introduces a new Macbook revision, it was cause for celebration in the blogosphere. These days, unless we get something extraordinary, you hear it for a day, maybe two, and it's back to iPhones, and now, iPads. What does this say about the state of mobile computing? How about our expectations of of a digital mobile life? Arguably, we are more excited about the next iPhone that we just were with the last Macbook Pro refresh and today's Macbook update. And believe me, the 2.4Ghz speed increase and a 43% uptick in battery life to 10 hours ain't nuthin' to sneeze at. I am sure the Macbook will be a huge hit with the fans and anyone looking for a first rate laptop. Still, it isn't the huge attention draw it once was. I do foresee a day when Apple blurs the line between the iPad and the low-end Macbook. How? Adding more traditional Macbook features to the iPad, such as camera and mouse support while simply killing off the Mac...

Apple has some not so nice things to say about the netbooks on the market today. On the point about keyboard (yesterday's earnings call), I'd have to agree. As for the rest, I'm not so sure. LED screens. The Atom chips aren't bad considering they run Leopard just fine. But I do understand where Apple is coming from on this. The netbooks feel cheap. The keyboards are small, even for me. And from MSI Wind (MacWind) to HP, Sony, and EEE PC, the plastics are just flimsy and you truly do get what you paid for. I never bought Apple's argument that if folks want a netbook equivalent from Apple, they should go with the iPhone or iPod Touch. Here, we know that it's merely smoke screen. I don't know if anyone really bought it. But do buy what they say about Apple having ideas about the netbook market and they're watching it closely. And these ideas have been cooking at Apple for a while now and we should see the end results pretty soon. The netbooks r...

Is this Apple's netbook? I've always said On Apple will not traffic in rumors but I'm making an exception here. You'll understand why in a bit. This image was part of a post from Gizmodo . For weeks (months) now, tech pundits and bloggers have begged Apple to release a netbook. Wall Street have preached doom for Apple because of the opportunity Cupertino is missing in the netbook segment of the laptop market. Steve Jobs said the iPhone and iPod Touch was Apple's answer to the netbook. More recently, Apple has stated that they've go ideas on where they want to go with their answer to the netbook but has not commited to anything. Let me just say I hope it's not what we're seeing in the Gizmodo post. Honestly, it's beneath Apple's reputation as an innovator. Don't get me wrong, I think there is a market for Apple with a $900 laptop but not as an answer to the nebooks in the market. I'm still of the opinion that Apple's answer to th...

Apple rumors are like junk food. We all love it and it's so good when you're eating it. And so addictive. Well, that's what Apple rumors are like. While Apple rumors don't do any bodily harm, it hurts folks on other ways. Stock manipulation. Earnings. This is why I don't traffic them but I do read them. Maybe that's the problem. We read them and some (not all) bloggers are willing to believe their "sources" just to feed us. Now, the hottest rumor going around is by Boy Genius Report (sorry, you'll have to find the link yourself). A lot of it are simply stuff we already know based on past Apple launch schedules. June or July is when we'll see the next iPhone. We know that much. It's what else BGR spiced up their post with that has traveled around the world many times over by now. Slide-out keyboard - let's start with the most plausible of the two implausible rumors. It may happen as I've noted before that Apple may com...

Back in late October, while the whole of Internet was abuzz with Steve Jobs' cryptic words about netbooks and that the iPhone is the perfect netbook. The dude was not kidding.  Jobs was telling us what Apple is working on.  It was right there in front of us.  Onxo believed and continues to believe that Apple's new netbook won't be a netbook.  So, I'm going to repost it here. Why?  Because it came to my attention that Barclays Capital believes just such a device is possible.  They think it'll come in around $600-700.  I think $700-800.  Dude,  this is Apple after all.   I don't think we have long to wait.  Macworld 2009 is just around the corner and that is likely when we'll see the "not-a-netbook" netbook from Apple.  So, while we have no idea what it will look like or what it will be capable of, we took the liberty of speculating just for the fun of it and then we try to back it up based on Apple's past behavior and wher...