DISQUS

I read Jobs' words as saying that Apple will do a netbook, just not yet. "we have some ideas:, etc,

There is a huge, obvious gap in Apple's product line between 3.5" and 13" screens. I could see at least two products - a larger iPod Touch. maybe with a 7" screen, and a netbpok with a 9-10" screen. With netbook prices climbing, Apple wouldn't have to hit the $500 price point, even $600-700 wouod be OK.

I keep waiting for a small (the Air is light, not small) Apple. When they announced the Air, I bought an iPod Touch. When they announced the new Macbooks, I bought an Asus 901 (Linux version). I carry it in preference to my Macbook unless I need to do something that it just can't do. It can't do games well, but I use the iPod Touch for portable gaming. I would love to have a small OS X machine, though.

I think you will see an Apple netbook when the price of 64GB solid state drives get cheap enough (it's almost there now). Jobs is obsessed with light weight and thin, and eliminating the hard disk would help.

Niche market? Take a look at Amazon's best selling laptops - overwhelmingly netbooks with the occasional Mac sprinkled in. I have been waiting for a smaller Apple portable (the Air is light, but not small) for years.

I think you will love OS X. It is, as of Leopard, fully certifies Unix, with all of the power that you are used fo. However, unlike any Unix or Linux that I have seen, the GUI is so good that you can avoid using a command line altogether if you chosse to. i have patched operating systems, done assembly language programming, etc. but I don't want to have to do that sort of thing on a routine basis to run a home OS. Leopard is simple and consistent. It has a scripting language and the Automator front end for it built in. The applications work together well, and the quality of the freeware and shareware for the Mac is very high. VMWare Fusion also works well, I run XP, Vista and Ubuntu on my Macbook, but I spend 95% of my time in OS X, which to me is the best thing about the Mac.