I Predict a Netbook

A prison, but a beautiful one

So, last week was the WWDC09 conference in San Francisco. Usually the opportunity for a load of Apple types to gather around the newest SDK or some development frameworks etc. This year, much of the same, but something a little more remarkable. At this point I will say that, although I’ve only shared the ideas contained within this post with two other people I am no Kevin Rose and I’m sure others have gestured in the same direction. But, well, here goes…

So the iPhone 3G[s] was announced (much to the annoyance of current O2 customers). The RRP is about £270 in the UK to which people are (quite vocally) proclaiming represents a complete rip off given ‘there’s not much added value’… tell you why that is wrong? What does the iPhone 3G[s] represent? It represents an engineering challenge, increase the spec yet retain the form factor. This is key to Apple’s brand image and, lets be honest, it’s what they’ve been doing with the rest of their product line for the past 10 years.

So, what other major announcements were made? Snow Leopard, and what does that represent? Progress. That’s right, while Microsoft have been rebranding to Windows, Apple have been working hard to improve their current OS. They’ve made 300 applications smoother, more efficient and removed a massive 6GB from the code base. It is a lean, mean, operating machine. So what was missing from WWDC this year… ah yes, that ever-so-hyped netbook. I’ll tell you what

there is no netbook.

Lets have a look at the evidence. An engineering philosophy from the rest of the product-line applied to an iPhone, a smaller, sleeker OSX and most importantly an open hardware interface. That’s right, 2.0 represented an open software stack and 3.0 represents an open hardware stack. Therefore I put it to you that:

the iPhone is the netbook

Imagine; a device running full, multithreaded, parallel applications, 3G enabled that docks into a nice 13-30inch LED LCD in full plate glass and brushed aluminum. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (portable if you want) and a mobile network connection if you don’t have wireless or ethernet. Carry on with your office work, your photo editing, whatever you want and, when you’re done, pick it up and put it in your pocket fully charged. If you lose it then track it down with locate or wipe it remotely.

The future is here, welcome it with open wallets.