The Apple Netbook and other mythical beasts.

Rumors have been swirling for some time now that Apple will jump into the pool with Acer, Asus, Lenovo, et al., and release a netbook (a small, low powered, inexpensive mini-laptop, typified by the Asus Eee PC, for anyone who hasn't been paying attention). The Apple netbook rumour seems to have combined with an even more persistent Apple rumor, that of the Apple Tablet, another mythical beast that would see the company scale up its market-leading touchscreen technology.

Although Apple has been typically mum on the subject, a quick Google News search turned up 2,574 articles on the subject for the past week alone. This included, interestingly, an article from theStreet.com about why such a venture would fail, citing Apple's belief in design over competitive pricing and the low sales of various other tablet PCs on the market.

I'm admittedly Apple-obsessed, something which started with an iPod Classic a couple of years ago and has grown with my purchase of an iPhone with that wonderful touchscreen interface (albeit with some nagging quirks, most of which appear to be addressed by the 3.0 firmware). I don't own any Macs, however, because my budget simply does not allow for it. With the current generation 13-inch MacBook still going for $1400 (Canadian), I would hugely appreciate the appearance of a netbook, even if it was priced in the high part of the range, say around $800.

I'm not sure if I buy the converegence of the netbook and tablet rumours (although either would be sweet), but Apple is the best equipped to pull it off from a design standpoint, but I get the feeling that I will still be priced out of the Cult of Mac.