The first to report on this was Commercial Times. The Chinese-language newspaper gave the name of two companies that are allegedly involved in the production of the new Apple netbook: Taiwan-headquartered companies Quanta Computer and Wintek. Quanta is the producer of Apple's MacBook and iMac computers, while Wintek produces small and midsize computer displays, 

 

A day later, on Tuesday, a report from Dow Jones Newswires in Taipai, said the mysterious netbook will feature a display that measures between 9.7 inches and 10 inches. On one part of the rumor, both reports agreed: Apple will launch the new netbook in the second part of 2009.  

 

As usual, the rumors exploded on the blogosphere where opinions are mixed. Some said its just rumors, other are excited and said Apple will reinvent the mini-note category. 

 

However, what surprises me is that these rumors appeared and were believed by many despite the fact that Apple made it pretty clear during the company’s financial call from last quarter that, at the moment, they aren’t capable of making a laptop cheap enough to be a netbook and still have the Apple logo on it. 

 

"We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that," Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs said last October. 

 

The netbooks category has increased during the past period despite the economic downturn that has seriously affected computers sales, but whether Apple is ready to make a purely economic decision to build netbooks can not be estimated, only rumored.