Dreaming about a sub-notebook from Apple

Almost fifteen years after the PowerBook Duo line of sub-notebooks made by Apple hit the market and about a decade after the withdrawal of the company from this market, it seems that Steve Jobs’ company is now working on something destined to bring them back into this game.

Yesterday, Computer World’s Ryan Faas took a look back at the previous sub-notebooks from Apple and tried to imagine how is going to be the future one. I always enjoy trips back into the computing’s history, and if we leave aside the PowerBook Duo line that we talked about last week, in Ryan’s article I found a reference to the eMate300, Apple’s light portable built for the educational market that ran the same operating system as Apple’s Newton PDA line (if you don’t remember that amazing gadget, then it’s enough to tell you that Newton was too soon, too expensive and too advanced for its time), but had a full keyboard and a clam-shell enclosure just like any regular laptop from the market.

Getting back to the present and future, the speculations are where we left them last week - the new sub-notebook from Apple should come with a LED backlit display, a NAND drive to replace the outdated and power hungry technologies of the present. Also, since the future seems to be one without wires, no matter if we like the idea or not, it wouldn’t be such a big surprise to see Apple’s sub-notebook without USB and Firewire connectivity and being a Bluetooth-exclusive device.

Drawing the line, I know that today everybody is looking to get as much speed as possible with the lowest costs, and if using the stripped down version of Mac OS X similar to the one inside the iPhone together with a hard drive that belongs to the “old school” is better, Apple may choose this way. Unfortunately, considering Apple’s growth rate, a change of strategy is required to keep it steady, and the prices are the first thing to adjust.

Now, that the legal battle with Cisco concerning the iPhone name is over, Apple has all the time in the world to work on its future sub-notebooks, and I hope that they will get everything right this time. Anyway, no matter what happens, be sure to check back here, because we’ll let you know what, where and when.

Technorati Tags: sub-notebook, apple, eMate300