Jobs: Apple Touchscreen Laptop and Netbook a No Go For Now

It sounds like Apple is not coming out with either a netbook or a touch screen laptop anytime soon. I was holding out hope for an Apple netbook, but earlier this month decided to buy an EEE Netbook instead - so far so good, in fact it is a very nice computer. Here are some comments from Steve Jobs:


Touchscreen laptop
Jobs seemingly put the kibosh on any touchscreen Mac, another rumour that rears its head every now and then. When asked on Tuesday, Jobs said that while Apple has looked at touchscreens for laptops, "it hasn't made a lot of sense to us", he said.

And while Jobs admitted his company has looked into it, it's passing on making a laptop version of HP's TouchSmart PC, the desktop with a touchscreen monitor. While it would be innovative to put one in a laptop, it's not really likely from any major computer makers at this point, according to Charles Smulders, Gartner's managing vice president.

"We're seeing some vendors using touchscreens but it's typically on the desktop form factor not on a laptop," he said. HP's TouchSmart, for instance, is designed to be used in a room like the kitchen, where interactions are more brief. Long-term or all-day use generally requires input devices like a keyboard.

Netbook
And though many Apple fans were hoping for a netbook, a cheaper, under-featured laptop, from the company on Tuesday, they'll have to wait longer. When asked about it, Jobs said netbooks are still a nascent market and that "we'll see how it goes".

While he certainly left some room to change his mind, he didn't sound excited about the category at all. And the company might be timid about getting into the netbook market since its attempts at the smaller, cheaper Mac mini weren't that well received, said Baker of NPD.

"They did a nettop [a desktop version of a netbook] and it wasn't particularly successful, if you think about the Mac mini as a precursor to nettops," he said.

On one hand, it does make sense for Apple to leave netbooks out of its Mac lineup if just to preserve its brand image. (Just look at the reaction to Apple lowering the price of its lowest-end MacBook to $999.) Netbooks are based almost purely on price and Apple doesn't make its product decisions on price points, but rather features.

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