Remember netbooks? Those plasticky things that one upon a time claimed to be the device that would bridge the gap between smartphone and notebook? A new report from iSuppli predicts that there will be no netbooks shipping at all by 2015, in light of the fact that the current netbook shipment total is 72% lower than last year (via LA Times).
With one sentence in one keynote, Steve Jobs completely obliterated the whole species in the space of three years. Granted, the introduction of the iPad was long term the killer, but from ‘netbooks aren’t better at anything’ coming out of Jobs’s mouth, it was over.
LA Times:
“Netbooks shot to popularity immediately after launch because they were optimized for low cost, delivering what many consumers believed as acceptable computer performance,” said Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for computer platforms at IHS in the report. “However, netbooks began their descent to oblivion with the introduction in 2010 of Apple’s iPad.”
It’s unclear exactly why netbooks had so much early success. At the time I liked the idea in theory, but when I actually tried one, it was horrible, cheap and way to small for a mouse and keyboard. Yuck.