Several years ago, during one of their quarterly conference calls with financial analysts, Apple again dismissed the possibility that they’d ever build a cheap Mac. The reason, often stated, is that they didn’t want to build a crappy Mac. Well, it is true that, in the 1990s when Apple couldn’t do anything right (more or […]

All right, you know that Apple has been urged repeatedly to jump into the burgeoning netbook market as quickly as it can. These trimmer, slimmer note-book-style computers are supposedly the only real profit center for PC makers during the economic downturn. Unfortunately, when you charge a “mere” $300 or $400 for a note-book computer, regardless […]

It seems that the flash in the pan du jour sometimes overwhelms common sense. Take the netbook, which has reportedly exhibited sharply increased sales of late. Now the concept of a netbook is simple enough. You take a standard note-book computer, shrink it down, use a low-power processor, smaller hard drive, wireless adapter and a […]

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to discover that a fair number of people are described as underwhelmed by Apple’s desktop product refreshes this week. The objections cover a surprising range, from the pricing to the nature of the upgrades, but in all respects, they’re not happy. Let’s look at the pricing first. True to […]