Apple hates netbooks

Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, doesn't like netbooks:

When I'm looking at what's sold in the Netbook market, I see cramped keyboards, junky hardware, very small screens, bad software. Not a consumer experience that we would put the Mac brand on. As it exists today, we're not interested in it nor would it be something customers would be interested in the long term. We are looking at the space. For those who want a small computer that does browsing/email, they might want an iPhone or iPod touch. If we find a way to deliver an innovative product that really makes a contribution, we'll do that.

Yikes! That's pretty harsh and comes across like an ill-informed rant. I find the cramped keyboard statement particularly ironic given that Cook went on to recommend an iPhone or iPod touch, which have much smaller (and fiddlier, harder to use keyboards).

The "bad software" swipe is also pretty silly. Even if you took the most basic of netbooks and loaded Windows 7 Starter edition onto it, you'd be able to three apps concurrently, compared to the one app that you can run at any one time on an iPhone or iPod touch. I can also cut, copy and paste on my netbook ... This whole "It's Apple's way of the highway" is all part of the reality distortion field.

Apple won't consider a netbook unless it can slap a $700 price tag on it and secure a 35% profit margin.