Amid the economic turmoil and computer industry downturn, Apple is able to grow market share while others are losing profits. The netbook is one of the best sellers in the computer industry right now and many have been looking to Apple to offer a netbook computer.

Computerworld believes that the inevitable Apple netbook/tablet computer will run on the Arm Cortex architecture. There are several reasons that Comptuerworld believes Apple will go ARM for its tablet including the fact that Apple has a PA Semi team working on ARM chips for future iPhones.

ARM is cheaper to license than Intel parts, takes up less motherboard space, uses less power, and it won't need to run Windows. The operating system could be a variation on the iPhone OSX, though an optimized version of Snow Leopard might work. I think that an optimized version of Snow Leopard on a lower cost netbook in the $450 to $500 range would woo lots of notebook shoppers to try a Mac. That said the chances of anything Apple selling in the same price range as Window's based products are slim.

Via Computerworld