The only thing I think was truly stupid to leave out is Ethernet. Business adoption will suffer because of that.
Problem solved.
My 12" iBook hasn't had ethernet since ought-three when Mrs. serrano tripped on the cable - I bought a $20 wireless router and It's never been an issue since... how many folks plug into ethernet with their laptops at home or on the road? There's only a couple hotels I've been in in the last two years that had only ethernet and no wireless... and for those I had my trusty usb-ethernet adapter.
I'm not arguing that the Toshiba is better, I just think it weird that you quote an article as if it were support for the MacBook Air when the article actually isn't terribly complimentary.
Further, I don't know what you mean by Apple being "wrong". I don't know what "right" is in this situation.
The article's author was being sarcastic in many of his negative comments so I don't think the article was uncomplimentary in any respect. Like Vinea said, read the comments. I had to in order to figure it out.
I stand by my belief that the MBA is competitive with other computers in that class. Arguably better in some areas, arguably worse in others.
Your criticisms of the MBA suggest to me that you feel some of Apple's design decisions were wrong I and propose that market sales of the MBA will determine who is right.
Your criticisms of the MBA suggest to me that you feel some of Apple's design decisions were wrong I and propose that market sales of the MBA will determine who is right.
It will. See you here in a year.
I can tell you, Steve is not going to sell 4mio of these in 200 days.
I'd be surprised if they even ship 4mio of these until they phase them out.
To take weight off a bike you have to use different materials; you don't just take off a wheel.
Amen to that.
The funny thing is that is exactly what Apple did... they took off a wheel, the brakes, the chain and the seat. But wait... ONE MORE THING!!! Now it cost more... lol.
Makes me mad, I was ready to buy the 11" Macbook Nano.
I can tell you, Steve is not going to sell 4mio of these in 200 days.
I'd be surprised if they even ship 4mio of these until they phase them out.
Apple sells roughly 1.25 million portables a quarter - 125,000 units of MBA a quarter would represent 10%, anyone think Apple's sales goals are somewhere in there? Has any publication spoken about expected sales numbers?
I love the macbook air and look forward to trying one out at the apple store, it's exactly what I'm looking for and think I'll buy into it on Rev.B or C
Not at all, the size will be the same on rev B & C, just around that time SSD prices will fall and we'll see bumped specs, plus it gives me a chance to save.
Well I have a 13" macbook now but find it's too much strain on my back, plus my macbook has taken a beating and I have treat it well but it's the plastics that annoy me, the case is chipping. If only they did an aluminium version of the macbook 13" oh wait..now they do :P
I also was captivated by the media around the MB Air and pre-ordered like everyone else. After the air cleared and the fanfare was gone, I got to think about this logically. Sure, the air is thin (at its thinest) however, it takes the same foot print as the MB. Add in the external drive (SuperDrive) or Passort, and now the air is not so light after all. I since cancelled my air pre-order and went the the MB Black w/ 2GB and 250GB HD. For me, I think I will be much happier with not worrying about what files are where and carrying multiple accessories.
Quote:
Originally Posted by His Dudeness
Maybe in the rev b MBA, the thing will be made of carbon fiber.
Wanna make comparisons to cars? Go ahead. Tell me how many high-end cars have no options. Even high end track-use Porsches (GT3, GT2), for sure the automobile definition of automobile "ultralights" give you the option to add-back in your radio and a/c, in order to increase their marketibility and widen their reach. Even Lotus's have options.
Poor comparison of "options". A radio or AC doesn't have an overwhelming impact on the size and weight of a car. Also, they are both features that are used on a regular basis by the majority of drivers.
Let's compary that Lotus Elise with a Chevy Tahoe. The Lotus simply doesn't have the ability to carry 8 people, 800lbs of cargo, or tow 8,000 lbs. It also doesn't have as much horsepoer or torque. The engine is quite puny, come to think of it. The Chevy has far more aftermarket accessories available. The Lotus isn't even that much smaller, both of them fit in the same parking space. And, it costs about three times as much!
There are so many things I dig about the airbook. But like the poster above, I'm going with the regular black macbook with the 250gig HD since it fits my needs better. It's not THAT much bigger to lug around.
I travel alot. I'm an artist and photographer, and the ultra thin airbook would slide into my backpack with my camera gear VERY well indeed. But the limitations in HD size and carrying extra external drives with me when I am overseas, kinda defeats the purpose.
I don't mind the built in battery, as I never carried a 2nd battery with me on my other mac laptops. I always managed to time my power well and carried my adaptor with me anyway.
I think the airbook is GREAT, and if it had at least a 160gig hard drive...I may have decided to go with it...but the black macbook has EVERYTHING I need, in a smaller although much thicker package. Not to mention its $700 cheaper.
The Airbook is very sexy and cool no doubt. And as flash drives get cheaper and bigger, it will better compete with laptops for sure. Right now, it is definitely a niche market. I can see ALOT of people jumping on the bandwagon now and getting one....and thats cool. But for me, I like to carry all my photos with me when on the road. Until the HD gets bigger, I will wait on getting a airbook. Its the same reason I am waiting for at least a 32gig ipod touch. I LOVE the touch and want one REAL bad. To be able to surf the web on your ipod is just awesome stuff. But I like to carry ALL my music with me when I travel. For me to carry my 60gig ipod AND an ipod touch doesn't make sense. And a 8 or 16 gig ipod touch alone won't carry all my music. This is how I feel about the airbook. I could live without the CD drive. But a 80 or 60 gig HD for a computer is like so 2003. The OS will take up over 20 gigs of that alone! Not to mention each update gobbling up even more space. After you load your programs and some music and files you'd probably be maxed out. I know portables are suppose to be behind desktops in terms of HD space...but this is really going backwards. Again...cool for some that don't use their laptops as their main machine. But for us that do...or at least need more out of a portable...the lack of HD space is too limiting. And the external HD option, although a solution, kinda defeats the purpose of its portability. :-)
Yeah, I'm a little disturbed by the fact that almost no one has noticed that .75 in is very close to 1.08" and that unlike photographs of the MacBook and MacBook Pro, which are taken orthagonally, all of the published photographs of the MacBook Air are taken at some funny oblique angle. Could it be that this thing isn't anywhere near as thin as it appears in photographs? I don't think it's a mistake that all the photographs of the MacBook Air are carefully art directed to show it in its best (read thinnest) light. This is what industrial designers do. Good ones find ways to shape things so that they for one, look thinner than they actually are. It's also no accident that the thing is undercut, thus giving it an ultra-thin, floating look... and how about the wedge shape? From the three angles (left, front, and right) it's likely to see it from it will appear to be impossibly thin. Then you've got to jamb it into your bag. That's when you realize that .76" is actually about 3/4". Shocking I know. Come on people, use your eyes. Yes, it looks super cool and I'll probably buy the next generation of the thing when they actually manage to get it to be thin but really. This is smoke and mirrors at its best. I'd rather a flat machine (like the other Mac laptops) that's .5" everywhere, not wedge shaped in order to fool me when I'm looking at it in the store. I must say though, good sculpting boys.
I respectfully disagree. That sucker is THIN. Pics from NON-APPLE pr are all over the web now.
It's DEFINITELY thin. If you are waiting for thinner....um....lol....you'll be an old man by then.
Seriously. By all means wait for the 2nd generation. Thats what I'm doing. Not for a "thinner" airbook...lol. For me I'm waiting for a BIGGER hard drive. Flash drives are overpriced and too small, and will probably be for some time to come. But a regular 80gig HD is also still too small for me. I'm waiting for 160gig HD MINIMUM. When that happens, I'll trade in my macbook, and join the digital downloadable revolution. :-)
Don't get me wrong. The thing does appear to be pretty damn thin as compared to what we've got now. It's just that I think it looks even thinner than it actually is and that there's some clever sculpting going on in order for it to look that way. It's kinda like the new iMacs having a black boarder around the monitor. Sure it's better on the eyes especially for some types of users but it also has the monitor looking a good deal larger than it actually is when you see it sitting on the shelf in the Apple Store. My point is just that 3/4" doesn't seem impossibly thin to me when the MacBook Pro is 1" exactly. I suppose 1/4" is worth something. I just feel a little deceived by the tricky angled shots.
There's a building in Boston called the John Hancock Tower, cool building really. It's a tall, thin, mirror glass thing shaped like a parallelogram and when viewed from just the right angle it looks paper thin - it's not, it's at least 80' wide. Funny how that works.
So I'm thinking about how I might use this thing (the MacBook Air not the John Hancock Tower) and I guess it's the shape of a 3/4" 3-ring binder, which would have me inclined to slip it into my bag with the rest of my papers, "binder side" up. Not so bad I guess. I'm an Apple fan through and through, I just get a little annoyed at Mr. Jobs getting up there acting like everything they do is so damn incredible. Sure, they do a good job... and I expect them to. I'm paying good money for them to do so. Apple just seems to shine extra brightly simply because everyone else is so damn stupid. I mean I can't believe it's taken someone so long to do a better job with a phone than Nokia or Motorola. Those products must be designed by retards. Have you ever looked at the icons on a Motorola phone? I can't even figure out what any of those crazy multi-colored symbols are never mind intuit what they actually do on the phone... but I digress.
Yup, HD is too small and the solid state drive is too expensive as well as being too small. I don't get all of the crying about the lack of a battery compartment. Hasn't anyone ever heard of a screwdriver? The thing does have #0 phillips head screws on the bottom. I'll also say that some of the PC sub-notebooks are even lighter than the MacBook Air... not that I'd ever touch one of those things or anything. One of them weights 2.4 pounds but since it's a PC I suppose it's just a 2.4 pound paper weight.
Anyhow, thanks for the MacBanter. May all of our dreams of digital miniaturization come true.
Don't get me wrong. The thing does appear to be pretty damn thin as compared to what we've got now. It's just that I think it looks even thinner than it actually is and that there's some clever sculpting going on in order for it to look that way.
Sure, they used optical design tricks to make it look cooler and smaller. But just look at the pics of it next to a VAIO in the article below (last pic)! Now, that ain't all optics...
Comments
The only thing I think was truly stupid to leave out is Ethernet. Business adoption will suffer because of that.
Problem solved.
My 12" iBook hasn't had ethernet since ought-three when Mrs. serrano tripped on the cable - I bought a $20 wireless router and It's never been an issue since... how many folks plug into ethernet with their laptops at home or on the road? There's only a couple hotels I've been in in the last two years that had only ethernet and no wireless... and for those I had my trusty usb-ethernet adapter.
backtomac:
I'm not arguing that the Toshiba is better, I just think it weird that you quote an article as if it were support for the MacBook Air when the article actually isn't terribly complimentary.
Further, I don't know what you mean by Apple being "wrong". I don't know what "right" is in this situation.
The article's author was being sarcastic in many of his negative comments so I don't think the article was uncomplimentary in any respect. Like Vinea said, read the comments. I had to in order to figure it out.
I stand by my belief that the MBA is competitive with other computers in that class. Arguably better in some areas, arguably worse in others.
Your criticisms of the MBA suggest to me that you feel some of Apple's design decisions were wrong I and propose that market sales of the MBA will determine who is right.
Your criticisms of the MBA suggest to me that you feel some of Apple's design decisions were wrong I and propose that market sales of the MBA will determine who is right.
It will. See you here in a year.
I can tell you, Steve is not going to sell 4mio of these in 200 days.
I'd be surprised if they even ship 4mio of these until they phase them out.
To take weight off a bike you have to use different materials; you don't just take off a wheel.
Amen to that.
The funny thing is that is exactly what Apple did... they took off a wheel, the brakes, the chain and the seat. But wait... ONE MORE THING!!! Now it cost more... lol.
Makes me mad, I was ready to buy the 11" Macbook Nano.
It will. See you here in a year.
I can tell you, Steve is not going to sell 4mio of these in 200 days.
I'd be surprised if they even ship 4mio of these until they phase them out.
Apple sells roughly 1.25 million portables a quarter - 125,000 units of MBA a quarter would represent 10%, anyone think Apple's sales goals are somewhere in there? Has any publication spoken about expected sales numbers?
You could say it's basically what you're looking for, then. But not exactly.
</>nitpick</>
Maybe in the rev b MBA, the thing will be made of carbon fiber.
Wanna make comparisons to cars? Go ahead. Tell me how many high-end cars have no options. Even high end track-use Porsches (GT3, GT2), for sure the automobile definition of automobile "ultralights" give you the option to add-back in your radio and a/c, in order to increase their marketibility and widen their reach. Even Lotus's have options.
Poor comparison of "options". A radio or AC doesn't have an overwhelming impact on the size and weight of a car. Also, they are both features that are used on a regular basis by the majority of drivers.
Let's compary that Lotus Elise with a Chevy Tahoe. The Lotus simply doesn't have the ability to carry 8 people, 800lbs of cargo, or tow 8,000 lbs. It also doesn't have as much horsepoer or torque. The engine is quite puny, come to think of it. The Chevy has far more aftermarket accessories available. The Lotus isn't even that much smaller, both of them fit in the same parking space. And, it costs about three times as much!
I travel alot. I'm an artist and photographer, and the ultra thin airbook would slide into my backpack with my camera gear VERY well indeed. But the limitations in HD size and carrying extra external drives with me when I am overseas, kinda defeats the purpose.
I don't mind the built in battery, as I never carried a 2nd battery with me on my other mac laptops. I always managed to time my power well and carried my adaptor with me anyway.
I think the airbook is GREAT, and if it had at least a 160gig hard drive...I may have decided to go with it...but the black macbook has EVERYTHING I need, in a smaller although much thicker package. Not to mention its $700 cheaper.
The Airbook is very sexy and cool no doubt. And as flash drives get cheaper and bigger, it will better compete with laptops for sure. Right now, it is definitely a niche market. I can see ALOT of people jumping on the bandwagon now and getting one....and thats cool. But for me, I like to carry all my photos with me when on the road. Until the HD gets bigger, I will wait on getting a airbook. Its the same reason I am waiting for at least a 32gig ipod touch. I LOVE the touch and want one REAL bad. To be able to surf the web on your ipod is just awesome stuff. But I like to carry ALL my music with me when I travel. For me to carry my 60gig ipod AND an ipod touch doesn't make sense. And a 8 or 16 gig ipod touch alone won't carry all my music. This is how I feel about the airbook. I could live without the CD drive. But a 80 or 60 gig HD for a computer is like so 2003. The OS will take up over 20 gigs of that alone! Not to mention each update gobbling up even more space. After you load your programs and some music and files you'd probably be maxed out. I know portables are suppose to be behind desktops in terms of HD space...but this is really going backwards. Again...cool for some that don't use their laptops as their main machine. But for us that do...or at least need more out of a portable...the lack of HD space is too limiting. And the external HD option, although a solution, kinda defeats the purpose of its portability. :-)
It's DEFINITELY thin. If you are waiting for thinner....um....lol....you'll be an old man by then.
Seriously. By all means wait for the 2nd generation. Thats what I'm doing. Not for a "thinner" airbook...lol. For me I'm waiting for a BIGGER hard drive. Flash drives are overpriced and too small, and will probably be for some time to come. But a regular 80gig HD is also still too small for me. I'm waiting for 160gig HD MINIMUM. When that happens, I'll trade in my macbook, and join the digital downloadable revolution. :-)
There's a building in Boston called the John Hancock Tower, cool building really. It's a tall, thin, mirror glass thing shaped like a parallelogram and when viewed from just the right angle it looks paper thin - it's not, it's at least 80' wide. Funny how that works.
So I'm thinking about how I might use this thing (the MacBook Air not the John Hancock Tower) and I guess it's the shape of a 3/4" 3-ring binder, which would have me inclined to slip it into my bag with the rest of my papers, "binder side" up. Not so bad I guess. I'm an Apple fan through and through, I just get a little annoyed at Mr. Jobs getting up there acting like everything they do is so damn incredible. Sure, they do a good job... and I expect them to. I'm paying good money for them to do so. Apple just seems to shine extra brightly simply because everyone else is so damn stupid. I mean I can't believe it's taken someone so long to do a better job with a phone than Nokia or Motorola. Those products must be designed by retards. Have you ever looked at the icons on a Motorola phone? I can't even figure out what any of those crazy multi-colored symbols are never mind intuit what they actually do on the phone... but I digress.
Yup, HD is too small and the solid state drive is too expensive as well as being too small. I don't get all of the crying about the lack of a battery compartment. Hasn't anyone ever heard of a screwdriver? The thing does have #0 phillips head screws on the bottom. I'll also say that some of the PC sub-notebooks are even lighter than the MacBook Air... not that I'd ever touch one of those things or anything. One of them weights 2.4 pounds but since it's a PC I suppose it's just a 2.4 pound paper weight.
Anyhow, thanks for the MacBanter. May all of our dreams of digital miniaturization come true.
Don't get me wrong. The thing does appear to be pretty damn thin as compared to what we've got now. It's just that I think it looks even thinner than it actually is and that there's some clever sculpting going on in order for it to look that way.
Sure, they used optical design tricks to make it look cooler and smaller. But just look at the pics of it next to a VAIO in the article below (last pic)! Now, that ain't all optics...
Link