[cmdahler]

People_Eater said:

@ cmdahler

"I agree with the first poster, and so did Wall Street today. Worst product intro ever."

How old are you? You must be pretty young and/or inexperienced to say something like that. There have been some pretty damn awful products introduced over the years, and there have been some pretty disastrous intro events.

Quite a bit older than you, since you have seemingly not yet reached the high school educational level which would enable you to recognize sarcasm and the useful role exaggeration plays in a casual forum context of any sort.

The literal worst product launch ever, when marketplace reaction is taken into account, will quite likely go down in the history books, never to be surpassed as the most boneheaded move by any corporation since the dawn of the industrial age, as the introduction of the new Coke formula. Since you seem to have difficulty with abstract thought and need to have everything put in pure literal and legalistic terminology, perhaps my saying this will make you happy. Happy now?

The MacBook Air is not a stupid move on Apple's part, but it certainly qualifies as a useless move from a shareholder's perspective of looking at potential revenues from this product. The base model MacBook is several hundred dollars less than the base model of the Air, and that MacBook can outperform the Air in all respects, including battery life. As far as technology goes, just exactly how long does anyone really think it will be before Apple puts a LED backlight into a MacBook? What is the thickness and weight difference between the Air and the MacBook? It's about a third of an inch difference (1" versus .7") and 4 pounds. At 5 pounds, the MacBook is not exactly what you would call a lead weight. Between a MacBook Pro, the differences are basically the same.

The Air is well designed, and so was the Lisa. The Air is ahead of all the competition, and so was the Lisa. The Air is too expensive for what you get, and so was the Lisa. There will be some Airs sold, just like there were some Lisas sold. Just like the Lisa, however, the Air is a very minor niche product and will remain that way, so it will have a negligible effect on Apple's bottom line. Thus, it is a useless product that will eventually die off as soon as Jobs' pride allows him to admit the thing isn't selling well, just like the 12" Aluminum MacBook, and that adds up to a very poor product introduction.

[palane]

Those claiming the Air is crippled are overstating the case.
First, the lack of an internal drive is cleverly handled by the
For those who want a successor to the 12"PB, buy a MacBook. My wife made that shift and is delighted. http://I am too--I g...r old computer.
It's considerably faster and comparable in dimensions. If you just can't take the white exterior, buy some spray paint!
For me, the lack of user servicing is a big negative. The internal memory is fine, but an 80GB drive is small potatoes these days. Also, batteries inevitably degrade. This is acceptable in an iPod (though I have replaced an internal part on one), but not a computer.
The market will decide if Apple is right. Incidentally, I'm a very happy Cube user. It didn't have slots, but was fairly easy to upgrade (more memory, larger hard drive, wireless card).
BB

[buuuudy]

First off. I hate it when these boards devolve into some low-level dweeb-on-dweeb form of name calling and slap-fighting, fuelled by ppl who just join up because they love the sound of their own voice.Flexing one's gray matter by calling out the age of another poster is as juvenile as it gets.

On to the matter at hand...agreed, the MBA is a beautifully designed device. It's very sexy to look at, no doubt about it. But explain to me how a machine with no Firewire, No user-serviceable battery, no optical drive, no audio in (other than the small iSight mic), yet another standard for DVI that requires the purchase of yet another adapter, and a small screen makes ANY sense at all when priced at virtually the same as another product that includes all those missing elements as well as a significantly larger screen and is no less portable?

Besides, IMHO, portablilty has much less to do with the thickness of the device and much more to do with the footprint.

As I've said already, the MBA appears to be little more than a fashion accessory, designed for ppl who really enjoy throwing away cash for the sake of having the latest, if not greatest, gadget. That's what the MBA is. A gadget.

DELL is getting sucked into this as well, with the launch of their laughably misguided XPS A2010 (which, I've just discovered, seems to be gone from the DELL site. Ah well.) Again, very pretty, but priced at such a premium, it just makes sense to go with something else (20 inch/DVD-R/RW or optional Blue Ray/ATI DH2400/1GB/300gb/802.11n/TV Tuner/Svideo/6-in-one card reader/Bluetooth, priced the same as Apple's mid-range 24 inch C2D).

Of course, in the Dell example, it is actually very functional, and is not missing any key components like the MBA is. Of course, it only runs Windows (or Linux) :P

[greg30307]

Palane,

As a former owner of a 12" PowerBook and a current owner of a MacBook, I have to disagree that the MacBook is a replacement. The MacBook is a little bigger and a little heavier than the 12" PowerBook, which was already a little heavier than a PC notebook I could have bought. And as these things go, the successor to the 12" PB should have been smaller and lighter, not larger and heavier. I was waiting and waiting for Apple to release either a real successor to the 12" PB or something like the IBM/Lenovo X series (3 lb., no optical drive but all the ports). This MacBook Air is a marvel but not what at least this former 12" PB owner was looking for. The weight is right and, for the type machine it is, the price is right, but the MBA is too big and, the absolute deal-killer for me, has no FW or ethernet ports.

I just hope Apple doesn't say "All those people have been asking for a replacement for the 12" PB. We gave them one and it did not sell. See, there's no market for it."

No, Apple, you released a wonderful niche product that some people will love but others who wanted a lighter notebook find too cutting edge for practical use.

Greg

[thelek]

Apple's MacBook air commercial had me at the envelope.

http://www.zadzadz.c...lope-commercial

It's crazy how effective their marketing is these day. I don't even care about the features. I just want the darn thing. Now.

[icerabbit]

In my opinion the MacBook is no replacement for the 12" PowerBook. Not at all.

The MacBook is faster, but that is about its only positive. Add user upgradability, but, honestly you don't often upgrade the HDD & RAM. Major downsides vs the PowerBook 12": the MacBook is bigger, comes equipped with a very inferior glossy screen and is wrapped in a glossy scratch prone plastic white case.

I say bring on traditional (non ultra thin Air concept) 12" and 10" machines, rugged & practical, with a conventional matte screen with normal viewing angles and a decent complement of I/O.

[jmchristensen]

I am suprised by this in a smaller way than many other users possibly - only in that I was expecting (based on the previews) a smaller and THINNER laptop, in the mid range price wise.

I am currently at a show and showed a bunch of people this new pic on the web - but afterwards although it is thin but I want smaller ..... and it is wasy to much $$ for not having the best of both worlds regarding the thin and smaller characteristics.

I currently use a Dell D410 and have an iMac and PC at home. Now if this D410 was only the width of this new Air Mac then I would freak out to get one.

Road warriors that travel a lot and are doing business - typically may not need to have a full size laptop - which is this thin, but this thin and smaller physically - then you would capture a greater audience - or at least have two sizes.

JMC

[warlock7]

buuuudy said:

Soooo, my beef about a lack of optical drive is wrong because of my point that, while Disk Share is an interesting idea, it would have not been necessary had they put an optical drive in the MBA?

Wow, not only can you not make a coherent argument, you don't appear to be able to read either. Typical troll.

buuuudy said:

Ya, I can see how that's confusing. Lemme put it simpler terms for you:

No confusion, you just make circular arguments.

buuuudy said:

Laptop - Optical Drive + premium price ≠ fullfunction machine

Well, at least you have your opinion. Still useless to those that find this device to be a good idea.

buuuudy said:

MBA + Portable Optical ≠ Ultra-Portable

Another useless opinion.

buuuudy said:

Disk Share < Built In Optical Drive

And another.
D&D lifestyle + staying up late to respond to online posts without thinking it through = DWEEB
Well, we've seen that you can't read. I suppose it only makes sense that you can't tell time either.

[warlock7]

Look at the Plain Text option and you might figure it out.



As for opinions, when they're not there to just incite a flamewar, then they could be valid. Your opinions, have been nothing but flame fodder. Get over yourself troll.

[warlock7]

Still nothing to offer the discussion, but, please, keep posting, then it might look like you're here for some purpose other than causing flame wars.

By the way, thanks for admitting you have some growing up to do. Good luck with that, you're off to a lousy start.

[buuuudy]

As I said: "First off. I hate it when these boards devolve into some low-level
dweeb-on-dweeb form of name calling and slap-fighting, fuelled by ppl
who just join up because they love the sound of their own voice."
What's that about instigating flamewars?

deleted

[cpoff]

Please keep discussion focused on the topic at hand, and refrain from personal attacks. Please.

-cp

[ghoti]

lets face it, this comp targets one group: Wealthy middle age "hip" women who don't really need to be carrying a computer and like big purses.
that was the best part you can stop reading now. for a wider audience they missed the mark, this really needs 2 things.
1. the tablet as mentioned. other companies small computers have them. even a slightly thicker screen would be an acceptable sacrifice.
2. The important one. Other companies also have a HDDVD super multi drive or whatever they call it. Apple was right not to include one, its not necessary for the audience, what they should have done was:
Is sold an automatically blue tooth compatible supermulti drive. In fact a whole range of bluetooth or wireless N compatible accessories. So when you are at home or work and use/need these things you are not inconvenienced.
There is a whole rant I could go into here about this issue. I have to believe that they must be working on a technology to make this really accessible and practical, because at this point it is just silly for them not to offer it.
P.S. Steve, if you don't have this in the works I have plenty of ideas and I am $120 an hour as a consultant.

[fotosensei]

I had assumed the Macbook Pro was going to be updated at this expo. Is it reasonable to expect that this will happen in the near future?