Meanwhile, companies including MSI, Asus, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo are populating the market with mini-laptops that use low-power processors, integrated graphics, small screens and keyboards, and have no optical drives, with very limited (or no) expansion capabilities. Many of them eschew hard disk drives for flash-based storage instead. This entire market has erupted in a very short time, since the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Association's introduction of the XO Laptop in 2007.

Perhaps such systems qualify as "Junk" in Jobs' and Apple product managers' eyes, since, for the most part, these systems aren't effective replacements for a general-purpose laptop such as a MacBook or MacBook Pro. Compromises in quality and design have certainly been made by netbook manufacturers to help keep prices low, though the overall quality and utility of netbooks is increasing dramatically with each new model.

I freely admit that netbooks are currently unsuited for some of the processor-intensive tasks that Mac-bound creative pros depend on--and they'll probably remain so for some time. But they've certainly carved out a niche for themselves for road warriors looking for an exceptionally mobile system to use to stay in touch, without some of the restrictions of a palm-sized device like an iPhone. Some students and schools find them useful. And consumers looking for a lightweight device that occupies less room than a full-sized notebook can use a netbook while they're at work or away from home to help stay in touch.

I admit that I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve a bit, here. I've taken some guff around the office for my abiding love of --the company's ill-fated Newton MessagePad derivative designed especially for education, which used a translucent clamshell design and a keyboard... a proto-iBook, if you will. Much of what makes netbooks cool and useful can be found in this now-ancient device, and I still think Apple's eMate design is great.

The eMate 300 cost $800 when it debuted more than a decade ago. I wonder how much less it would cost if Apple today made an equivalent device, based around the work that it's done with the iPhone and the MacBook.