A soon to be realised eschatological dream... Or an empty hope?

Don't get me wrong. I love my Macbook Air! It is 'near' perfect... It is light, has the most incredible screen of any computer I've EVER owned, it is thin, has a perfect full keyboard, it is FAST, it has a 6 hour battery life... Oh, and did I mention that it is a Mac!?

BUT, being the perfectionist that I am, I am not quite satisfied with it... You see, I've been drooling over the Windows 'Netbooks' that a few of my friends are toting. It used to be that if you wanted a computer the size of a DVD cover you would have to buy a Sony Vaio TZ series (which would cost you a kidney, your first born child, and your home)... Now, however, one can get the Acer Aspire One, or the HP Mininote, or a Lenovo, an Asus, an LG... the list is endless, which is tiny, fast, and costs less than R5 000 (about 300-400 US$).

Of course the only serious downside with all of these machines is that they RUN WINDOWS! I can only imagine the torture and the pain ;-)

Well, the rumour mill has been running at a pace second to none! Mac 'evangelists', fanboys, and Mac lovers all over the world are praying that Steve will announce an Apple Netbook at Macworld early in January this year... However, the chances of this happening are slim to none!

Here's a wonderful post from my friends James Kendrick and Kevin Tofel over at jkontherun.com that expells that myth!

5 reasons you won?t see a netbook unveiled at MacWorld

Apple netbook rumors swirl around every few weeks and with MacWorld breathing down our necks in just a few short days they are rearing their ugly head once again. It is clear from all the constant netbook blathering that the Apple faithful want a netbook, a small, cheap Mac to haul around in an expensive case.

I hate to burst your bubble but we?re not going to see [Steve Jobs] anyone offer an Apple netbook at MacWorld. Apple has stated over and over again they will not do one and here are five reasons you won?t see one at MacWorld:

1. Apple can?t build one. Now before you get your undies all twisted that?s not me talking, that?s Steve Jobs himself. ?We don?t know how to make a $500 computer that?s not a piece of junk?. One thing that all netbooks share is a very low price point so there you have it, Apple can?t make one.

2. OS X deserves a better home. Apple firmly believes that OS X is the best thing since sliced bread. You?ve seen the ?I?m a Mac? ads so you know that?s true. There is no way that Apple is going to put OS X on anything cheap like a netbook.

3. The iPhone is better than a netbook. Apple has already told us that the iPhone gives us the ?real Internet?. There?s no way they are going to offer up the ?fake-Internet? just to sell a ?piece of junk?.

4. Netbooks have small touchpads. You?ve seen the gigantic touchpads on all the new MacBooks and Pros. Apple has seen the light and shown it to us and that is how we know that multi-touch is mandatory for a mobile computer. Have you seen the tiny touchpads on netbooks? No multi-touch, no Apple netbook.

5. Apple is a firm believer in the ?Charlie Brown? marketing philosophy. This philosophy is not compatible with super cheap notebooks. Apple knows that offering a cheap notebook just once would be the same as Lucy letting Charlie Brown kick the football?

PS. I am writing this post on the second oldest computer in our home... A blueberry iBook G3 (running OSX 10.3.9, 3Gig hard drive... It still has a 6 hour battery life and is the COOLEST computer I own!). But, if the formatting of this post is a little out, blame the OLD version of Safari...