Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
A key consideration, of course, is cost. Given that Apple
already sells a US$999 13-inch "White" last-generation MacBook, as
opposed to the more expensive aluminium unibody "new" MacBooks,
everyone will want to know whether Jobs can beat the $999 price, add in
a touch screen, and still make the juicy profits Apple crunches out on
a quarterly basis.
Such a device, if done properly and at the right
price, could easily be Apple's next great hit, providing the missing
piece of the puzzle between the iPhone and the MacBook, and capturing a
whole new market segment of users who'll ditch Windows and Linux
netbooks in a flash to go with Apple's latest and greatest.
As it will run Apple's real Mac OS X operating system, Flash
compatibility and "cut and paste" won't be a problem, nor will
Bluetooth or a real keyboard.
Having dual mode multi-touch on screen and glidepad will also be
another of Jobs' "revolutions", while even iChat will work given that
all Apple MacBook portables and desktop screens come with a webcam
built in.
Apple could even create a virtual iPhone OS X emulator that simply
stretches the images to the 10 or 11 inch screen, thus giving the
NetMac the full suite of Mac OS X software, and the 10,000+ iPhone
programs as well.
And, of course, this would mean needing to build an accelerometer in as
well, but seeing as this is standard gear in so many different
smartphones beyond the iPhone, it seems an easy, obvious addition.
Apple, as always at MacWorld, will be under enormous pressure to surprise, amaze and deliver.
A netMac will go a long way to delivering on the promise of the Jobsian
shock and awe, and it'd be one more thing many, many people all want to
see.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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