First Impressions of Apple’s MacBook Air

Walt,

I agree this is a road warrior machine. I have paid a premium for many laptops in this segment. I find the lack of built-in mobile broadband significant and a feature I do not want to give up. With the fragmented market Wi-Fi is simply not adequate for a road warrior unless you’re willing to shell out $9.95 at each airport and hotel. I know there are USB broadband solutions, I don’t want to carry and keep track of a separate item.

An additional note from Macworld on a different product. Apple TV could certainly run the Mail and Safari client from the iPhone/iPod Touch. A Wi-Fi keyboard with these apps and this device becomes a real value. I think many people would like to surf on their new HDTVs.

GF: I’m also a photographer but I don’t think the MacBook Air is aimed at sophisticated media work. That’s what the MacBook Pro is for. This is a road warrior’s machine and suitable for people who basically don’t need more than what Apple’s iApps offer (iWork apps and iLife apps), people who spend their time blogging, surfing, emailing, etc and for that its plenty fast enough. Some might find the price premium too high but there are plenty of people who buy Porsches and BMWs, high-end hifi, etc. They won’t have second thoughts about the price. They’ll buy the machine because its elegant. Well healed students may find it useful too. I don’t think the absence of a DVD is too painful, and IMO lot of people will use their iPods to handle music.

It will be interesting to see if the battery life is sufficient for road warriors, it might be. For many though it should be sufficient. It sure beats a Sony with a giant extra battery add-on.

I’ve not heard anyone comment on some small print on Apple’s web site in the Tech Specs section of the pages on MacBook Air: Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet. If that’s the case, then a 5 hour battery will be plenty but road warriors won’t be happy. Anybody know if this is just obligatory text or if it really is the operating limit for altitude?

Eric

I’m seeing lots of negative feedback from those who attended Macworld. What they don’t seem to realize is that this is not meant to replace the MacBook or MBP. I will purchase the MBA. I have an iMac in my den, and I do the heavy stuff on it. I want a light, good looking laptop for my living room, where I can check email, do my Tivo schedules, write some quick letters etc. When I go for a coffee, I want a light laptop for simple tasks, this does it. Yes, its more expensive, but I also like style. Its why I have an iMac and and iPod and soon an iPhone.

Walt you mentioned in the video interview that this was the 1st laptop to offer gesture support.

Windows tablet PCs have included gesture support for years, albeit not multi-touch gesture support.

There are system level gestures, called ‘Flicks’ in Vista that a user can assign to various commands.

In addition there are a much larger set of application gestures that an application can register for.

And on tablet pc’s that offer touch screen input in addition to the use of an active digitizer with a pen the user can perform these gestures with their finger as well.

See the following links for some more info and a list of the different gestures that are supported.

http://blogs.msdn.com/andyed/a.....et-pc.aspx

http://codebetter.com/blogs/pe.....28549.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/windo.....letpc.mspx

Cheers

My take is that the Mac Air will struggle to find a market. To be sure, they will take a small slice of the market just because it is sleek and cool.

I’m not convinced, however, the Mac Air is really for road warriors. It has an insufficient amount of disk and lacks an adequate number of ports. And, some road road warriors will indeed want to be able to watch a movie and be able to swap out batteries.

In the end, ‘cool’ won’t carry the day for the Air.

*Now at 30,000ft in an airliner the actual pressure altitude inside the aircraft is only about 8,000ft, *

Thanks Sean, that makes perfect sense. I guess you can tell I’m not a frequent flyer…

Further thoughts on this laptop. It’s hard to believe that the minaturisation technology in the MBA won’t find itself in other Apple products that are super thin or super small yet full featured devices running a subset of Leopard. Since the first MacPlus with its insufficient memory and add on drive, through the the floppyless iMac with its frustrating round mouse Steve has always gone for underpowered machines with kinky set-ups that scream fun and elan and which frequently manage to change the industry. Given his track record I’m inclined to give his “hunches” the benefit of the doubt over those who are filling the internets with practical reasons why this bee won’t fly. And maybe they’re right but Apple rarely does things on a whim and I imagine there was a fair amount of internal discussion before the go-ahead was given.

Mr. Mossberg, as a consumer I’m looking for a brekthrough in battery technology where can watch 12hrs HD Video on my Laptop and has a battery life close to 24hrs before it dies on me not 5hrs. As a consumer thats what I’m looking for, now, in the year 2008.

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