Rumours are circulating that Apple will introduce a touchscreen netbook later this year.
Such rumours of new Apple launches are common currency on the Internet and in many cases are not accurate.
But this one has been around for a while and it surfaced again this week in Asia, where some of the development is allegedly taking place.
As a discussion topic is it interesting, and in particular, what processor would Apple use for a netbook?
Its established partnership with Intel would point toward the Atom processor, but would this have the right power budget for Apple's specification?
There are other processor options available.
Apple has access to a new low power PowerPC microprocessor following its acquisition of fables chip developer PA Semi, last April.
Apple paid $278m for PA Semi and so certain to use the firm’s processors in a product in the near future. A potential netbook processor could fit the bill.
As Richard Doherty, president at researcher Envisioneering Group, told our sister site Electronic News at the time of the PA Semi acquisition last April: "Because OS X is Unix and very portable, this [PA Semi deal] gives Apple a very tight coupling of silicon hardware and software that no other vendor has”.
But while designing Atom into an iPhone may not be on the agenda. But by all accounts Apple is satisfied with its processor relationship with Intel for desktops and laptops, and so an Atom-based netbook product would be more likely
As Doherty commented in April. "If Apple goes toward devices sized between their current MacBook Air and iPhone form factor, Intel might still have a shot at that. For devices that might be, say, paperback-book sized, small hand tablets through legal-pad sized, those devices might still be open to Intel's Atom processor and their MID strategy.”
Then there was that rumour last summer that Apple would use a future lower power Atom fabbed on 32nm process in a product in 2010.
There is the possibility that an Apple netbook would use an ARM processor.
We know Apple likes ARM.
It uses a Samsung video processor based on an ARM core in the iPhone and iPod Touch. But using an ARM chip as the base processor in a netbook, for example, would be a whole new step.
More rumours last Autumn suggested that Apple would launch a netbook by the end of 2009 and it would be based on an ARM processor developed by PA Semi.
Remember the strange story of the ‘ARM CPU developer’ at PA Semi whose profile appeared on a community site last year.
One thing is certain, the first thing Apple watchers will do, if it actually launches a netbook, will be to take the back off and read the name on the microprocessor label.