MG Siegler at parislemon:

See also: netbooks. Remember, Apple absolutely had to make a netbook or they would be toast.

Apple didn’t, the market for netbooks collapsed, and Apple looked like geniuses for not doing what the pundits said they needed to do just months earlier. 

I’m confused. Why do people still say stuff like this? Apple did make a netbook: the original MacBook Air. The original Air was awful. As a product, that is, it was awful; but it did plant the seed for the greatness to come.

Then Apple revolutionized the Air. The 2010 Air was ridiculously awesome. So awesome that it killed the existing netbooks and created a new name for, essentially, the same category in terms of use: ultrabooks. (The iPad helped too.) If you’d like, the revolutionized Air revolutionized netbooks.

I don’t even understand the impetus for making revisionist history, since Apple still looks damn good in the actual one.