A tweet this afternoon pointed me to a post by Dave "MacSparky" Sparks titled The Netbook Experiment, in which he talked about his disappointment with a Dell mini 9 netbook. Since I was about to send out a tweet to the world at large announcing the sale of my Dell mini 9, I found it fascinating that Sparks had a similar experience to mine.

I wrote about creating a hackintosh (AKA hackb00k) out of a Dell mini 9 in a long post back in October of 2008, and at that time I was fairly impressed with the low cost and capabilities of the device. However, after actually using the mini 9 for six months, I find it almost useless as a "real computer" and have decided that it needs to go. The moral of the story? You definitely get what you pay for, and a $499 computer is not going to be a productivity tool. Even if you delude yourself into thinking that since you're only going to use it for email it will be a worthwhile investment, you're wrong. If you want to know how I came to these conclusions, read on.

Today was a landmark day for the good ol' boys (and girls) at 1 Infinite Loop as they again posted record-breaking quarterly results. Profit was a svelte $1.21 billion for a grand total of $8.16 billion in revenue; or, as the guys in Wallstreet see it: $1.33 per diluted share. All of this is apparently good news as after-hours trading has shares of AAPL up about 4 points from the days close of $121.51. If you haven't already, you can check out some of our highlights of what drove those numbers as well as the full press release from Apple here. Also, MacJournals did a fantastic job covering the call via their Twitter feed, which can be found here.

One continuing theme through the course of the call was the economy's overall effect on Apple's numbers. One noticeable effect was that professional and education sales were down during the March quarter. Even with the release of an entirely refreshed line of Mac desktops, the quarter saw an overall decrease in Mac marketshare. It wasn't all bad for Apple, however, as iPod sales (particularly the iPod Touch) were up enough to seemingly offset the bulk of the lagging Mac sales.

While the results themselves are always nice to hear, the most interesting section of the quarterly call is the question and answer section that follows. The answers, while somewhat scripted, give the listeners a chance to hear Apple execs think and speak on their feet regarding Apple's results and plans for the future.

One of the more notable topics during this discussion was Apple's opinion on the netbook market. Tim Cook took the question and in an answer that was truly Apple said, that netbooks are "junky ... not a consumer experience that we would put the Mac brand on," while quickly following-up with a good, old-fashioned "If we can find a way to deliver an innovative product ... then we'll do that." If you remember the days before the video iPod, then this conversation should be very familiar to you. For a good overview of the Q&A check out MacRumors' excellent post on the subject.

If you don't care about the financial results and have grown tired of hearing Apple dance around whether they're going to release a netbook, then there is at least one bright spot in all of this. According Peter Oppenheimer, Apple is pleasantly awaiting the joyous return of Steve Jobs in June (we miss you Steve). I don't think anyone was really expecting any more or less information than that, but here's to hoping Stevie J. returns and brings with him all-new iPhones, netbooks, and pots of gold.

Overall, the results were very positive for a company that deals in "luxury" products given the current economic climate. I hope that in the future Apple continues to succeed and that this is the last quarter we hear of in which Apple loses marketshare to anyone.

[Via Engadget, MacRumors, and MacJournals]

Stephen Baker, Vice President of Industry Analysis for The NPD Group, released his analysis of Apple's sales trends following the recent release of January sales figures. In his opinion? If Apple keeps up its current pricing strategy, it's going to flounder in today's economy. The solution? If Apple can't produce a netbook, then slash the price of the MacBook down to $799 in order to bring a mainstream price to a high-end product.

How low can you go? Discussion on this article behind the scenes here at TUAW resulted in the observation that if you drop the price too much, you'll wind up diluting the brand itself. Apple commands higher prices, but it also has the product to back it up -- and it has made some price concessions. You can pay $999 now for a better MacBook than I paid $1399 for just 15 months ago, and one that will last much longer than most PC notebooks on the market. Drop the price too much and not only will the brand get diluted, it'll spark even more fears that something is wrong with the company. There's a fine line between premium and cheap, and a lot of that is psychological.

Personally, I would also think less of Apple if it jumped on the netbook bandwagon just because everyone else did. It didn't even venture into the smartphone market until it could develop a device that not only blew away the competition, but changed the cell phone industry itself. If Apple is going to produce a netbook, then let it produce one that'll stand out and won't get lost among the Acers, Dells and eeePCs out there. But, don't slash MacBook prices to compensate for the lack of one either.

What are your thoughts on Baker's observations? Let us know in the comments.

The rumor of an Apple-branded netbook just won't die, and Digitimes has reportedly found more evidence. This is a bit convoluted, so follow closely.

Taiwan-based manufacturer Wintek has supposedly been selected to produce touchscreens for the still-theoretical netbook, which Digitimes corroborates with the following quote from another publication called Commercial Times:

"Wintek revealed that it is currently working with Apple to develop some new products, but it said it does not know what applications the new products are for."

How we go from "...does not know what applications the new products are for" to an Apple-branded netbook is a mystery to us. Still, if you're the type who enjoys thin rumors, there's a nice one for your Monday morning. Enjoy.

[Via MacDailyNews]

When Steve Jobs denied that Apple was working on a netbook (small, inexpensive laptop device) during Tuesday's 4Q earnings call, it immediately set off alarm bells for a lot of people. After all, Jobs has denied that Apple was working on other products, only to have them appear months later.

New York Times columnist John Markoff has reported that an "unnamed search engine company" is seeing visits from an unannounced Apple device with a screen resolution somewhere between that of the iPhone (480 x 320) and the 13" MacBook (1,280 x 800). This is leading Markoff to believe that perhaps the long-awaited Mac netbook or new, larger iPhone tablet is going to be announced at Macworld Expo 2009 in early January. Of course, it could just be a hackint0sh that is showing up on the search engine's logs.

When Jobs mentioned during the earnings call that "We don't know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk", perhaps he's telling the truth -- and Apple will have a $500, high-quality tablet or netbook to announce in January.

What's your take on the Mac netbook / tablet rumor mill? Inquiring TUAW readers want to know!

I can always tell when I'm bored, because that's when I think up some challenge for myself. The initial spark for this challenge came when I wrote a post a few months ago about how Paul O'Brien at Modaco had successfully installed Leopard on a Windows-based "netbook". TUAW's Mike Schramm further fueled the fire with this post about an Eee PC running OS X.

Netbooks are tiny laptops with a mini price tag to match. Many netbooks sell for less than $500, with 1 GB of RAM, either a 16 - 20 GB solid state disk drive or 160 GB hard disk drive, Wi-Fi, and a built-in webcam. When you consider that these little machines also weigh about the same or less than a MacBook Air, they're a bargain. However, they usually run Windows XP or Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and frankly I'd rather have good old Leopard.

Asus has been making netbooks for a while under the Eee PC moniker, while MSI (Wind), Acer (Aspire One), and even HP have jumped into this growing market recently. It wasn't until I received a direct mail catalog from Dell featuring the new Inspiron Mini 9 that I started thinking seriously about trying to load Leopard on it.

Despite the fact that I'm sure that Apple will announce a low-cost netbook soon, I ended up buying a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook to install Leopard onto. The rest of this post describes how I did it using instructions and files found at various Web sites.