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Before the storm

Sunday, June 07, 2009 by Dave Winer.

Tomorrow is another big Apple announcement day, and most people expect there to be a new iPhone. Maybe there will be more. But one thing that's likely to come is more of Apple's positioning relative to netbooks. And more sniffing from people who love Macs about how inadequate the current crop are. 

I'm typing this blog post on a big iMac running Leopard. I like my Macs, but I also own three netbooks. One I bought early, a 901, it cost $600, sells for $280 now. I took it to the DNC in Denver, and it made a huge difference, blogging in tight spaces and often far away from a power outlet. Then I have a $450 H-series that runs Linux, and the workhorse another H-series that I bought for $350. See what's going on? I'm getting more for less.  

People who don't think these are great computers must not have a sense of history. My first personal computer, purchased in 1979, cost $10,000, had two small floppy drives, 64K of memory and ran a very bare-bones OS. It weighed as much as a dorm room refrigerator, and generated as much heat as a dorm room hot plate. Yet it was a marvel -- a computer of my own, in my living room. Amazing. 

At the time I would have told you that someday we'd have computers like the EeePC that weigh as much as a small textbook and run on batteries for 6 hours. I might have guessed they'd be as cheap as they are, but it's one thing to predict they'd be here someday, and another to hold one in your hand, to take it with you everywhere. These are machines that can be stamped out in the millions, they're Everyman computers. Yes, Macs are great, but they're great in different ways. People who sniff at the netbooks are missing something important.