Meanwhile, a somewhat obscure segment of the laptop market has started to gain a life of its own. Asus, HP, Acer and other companies are putting forth inexpensive, miniaturized laptops based around Intel's Atom processor architecture. In fact, I wrote about in this very space last week.

Equipped with small screens and smaller-than-average keyboards, these netbooks aren't general-purpose laptops, like a MacBook or MacBook Air, but they cost a fraction of the price. And they're certainly easier to use for writing lengthy e-mails, composing business presentations and doing other similar types of work than an iPhone or another smartphone, such as a keyboard-equipped Nokia model or a Blackberry.

During Apple's most recent quarterly phone call with financial analysts, --a product that offers the full Internet experience, but is small enough to fit into a pocket. The problem with that, as I see it, is that while the iPhone renders Web pages beautifully, and is suitable for responding to e-mails or instant messages with terse replies, it's not a replacement for a laptop.

I can't imagine trying to write a product review on an iPhone, for example. I can't imagine trying to produce a spreadsheet or graphics for a business presentation using an iPhone. There are just a lot of things the iPhone is simply too small for, and that the touch-screen, accelerometer-equipped interface--no matter how innovative--is just not designed to do effectively.

That's where a netbook comes into play. That's why I'm hoping that Apple will recognize the opportunity it has here.