Jobs says iPhone is a netbook and a sub $500 comp is junk

[greggh]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/read-my-lips/

But the most fun on the conference call came when he parried analysts’ questions about new product areas that Apple might or might not enter. A recurring question among Apple watchers for decades has been, “When is Apple going to introduce a low-cost computer?

Mr. Jobs answered that decades-old complaint by stating, “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.” He argued instead that the company’s mission was to add more value for customers at current price points.

However, he gave a more nuanced answer to the question of whether Apple plans to jump into the “nascent” market for netbooks, essentially restating his comments on the question from last week at the Macbook introduction in Cupertino by saying the company was taking a wait-and-see attitude.

At the same time, he noted that the company already had a powerful entry in the category: the iPhone. (By that standard, Apple is already the dominant netbook manufacturer by orders of magnitude.)

Is it me, or is Stevie boy actually becoming even more full of shit than he used to be?

[eddie]

Steve thinks this computer is junk also.....

[LinuxMint-4]

My Compaq 756NR $399 "junk" laptop with Ubuntu 8.04 and Windows Pigsta has a DVD/CD drive with 120 gig hard drive with 1 GB RAM, and dual core processor and built in wireless in both Ubuntu and Vista. For a piece of shit...it is a fine laptop. But according to Steve Jobs....I guess my G3 I Mac with Tiger OS X is a real piece of crap, cause I only paid $19 for it. And I though Steve Ballmer was loopy.

[eddie]

I just pray for Apple that none of the new nvidia chipsets in the macbook are not problematic like in a lot of laptops recently. Then the joke maybe really on Mr Steve. I sure would like to be a fly on the wall when Steve (the woz or "the was" as he is known at apple) Wozniak. expresses opinion of what going on at apple.

[jturning]

I think if you read between the lines, Steve is saying we don't make our high margins on $500 PC, so for Apple the idea is junk. Apple is all about making high margins on their hardware. Besides, people that buy into the Apple way wouldn't want a cheap Apple PC with more people buying them. That cheapens the brand and status of Apple users. We all see the Apple users in the coffee shops looking all smug sitting behind the lit Apple logo. Consequently, I just see an appliance user that doesn't know how to manage their money, .

Bugz

[eddie]

Yes, but that attitude might have come from the days when you only bought things that had the three letters IBM on them or they would not get approved for purchase. Apple may have wanted to become a part of that mentality. With a potentially more frugal economy that may change. Besides so many people have told me that they run mac-os on their generic pc's, I doubt that will be true much longer.